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What do Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Stuttgart have to do with Hays County? We�re connected by track.
Not a direct connection of course. But planners and engineers from these cities were in San Marcos today talking about how rail and transit works in Europe. Sponsored by the German Marshall Fund, a grant-making institution dedicated to fostering communication between Europe and the United States, today�s meeting was the first official event I�ve attended at San Marcos� beautiful new convention center on the south side of town. It�s a three-day fest, beginning yesterday in San Antonio, continuing tomorrow in Austin .
We have a lot to share � and even more to learn � with transit planners and engineers from the �old country.� Most European cities have been doing rail and mass transit much longer than we have here in the American southwest.
The time is right to be talking about it here, though. More and more people who think about transportation in Central Texas are coming to the conclusion that we can�t solve the problem without including things like commuter rail and rapid bus service in the mix.
It�s something I�ve been advocating more than a decade now. These days I serve on three regional boards focused on transit: the Austin-San Antonio commuter rail district; the Alliance for Public Transit; and, the CAMPO Transit Working Group. We�ve still got a long way to go before we have a comprehensive, interconnected rail system � the kind you might find in a metro region this size in Europe or, maybe, on the East Coast.
But we�re making real progress. Money will be tight with the economy so poor, but we�re reaching a critical mass � in people and technology. I�m cautiously optimistic that we�ll take a leap forward at the Texas legislature this session. Federally, the Obama administration is putting serious dollars into rail as part of the stimulus package.
With any luck � and a lot of elbow grease � a few years from now we�ll be able to host another conference in this region, with seminars in San Antonio, San Marcos, and Austin. Only this time, participants will be able to move between the cities by rail � and stop off in Buda/Kyle and San Marcos along the way.
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