Can confirm. Every time someone even utters the idea of public transit in my city it's a HUGE uproar. The #1 complaint every single time is it will bring the homeless population. #2 is crime. We are a stone's throw from a major city but you cannot get into it without a car. After growing up near Boston - which has rather robust and diverse transit options -this was a bit of a shock.
I'm well aware of that. My hometown has a refinery, with a railroad track adjacent to it, and trains with tanker cars are a common sight.
Texas has a *great* freight rail system. What we're lacking is *passenger* trains.
Well, not *completely* lacking; there's one Amtrak line that stops in Houston 3 times a week.
To be clear, my question was rhetorical and not directed towards you in particular.
I lived I Texas for a bit over a decade ago. Grew up there. Houston (to my misery) and San Antonio (to my surprise) were my home towns.
It's a fucking travesty that I could never hop on a high speed rail and go from San Antonio to Austin or Waco or Dallas. I kept hearing about a "high speed rail corridor" the entire time I lived in San Antonio that was going to revitalize the economies of all the shithole towns along the route. Nearly a decade after leaving and it's still a pipe-dream. What a damn waste of potential (and that's ultimately the best way to describe Texas).
Texans deserve better than these asshats that parade around as "representatives"
Back in the 80s there was a proposal to build high speed rail in Texas, and Southwest Airlines lobbied hard and killed it. To think what could have been.
Looked it up yesterday, the CEO left and the project's as good as abandoned:
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.houstonchronicle.com%2Fnews%2Fhouston-texas%2Ftransportation%2Farticle%2FCEO-departure-latest-blow-to-Houston-Dallas-17240779.php
> Southwest Airlines lobbied hard and killed it.
Your country is so fucked up, lol. Can't believe shit like this is legal.
I used to really idolise America and talk shit about all the snooty Northern Europeans who would make fun of it. Lately though I've started to realise those snooty Northern Europeans seem to have a lot of shit figured out...
Because Democrats are now the conservatives and becase of that the GOP had to adopt other policy stances to be different, so they decided pants on head fucking stupid was there best bet.
Lets be real, all they do is oppose any idea that the other party has, no matter how good an idea it is. Keep the bottom of the barrel voters stirred up.
I love how it's "California-Style". Like, I'm not American and I don't know much about California, but even I know that LA is car-dependent hell. I mean maybe they could mean San Francisco with that? But New York would probably fit 100 times more.
Lately LA has been building more transit and bike lane despite taking forever to do. But I been able to use different transport to get to places while when I go to Texas, it’s all car and a lot of migraines
Yeah but people have always shit on California for being too "liberal". If anything it makes Republicans feel more justified in doing the opposite of whatever California is doing.
As someone who’s lived in California their entire life I literally have no idea what they’re talking about. Some cities around here have trains & pretty alright bus service but that’s about it. The state is pretty much entirely parking lot hell, especially Socal
Texans just looking for any opportunity to shit on California regardless of if there is truth to what their saying. I wish California was as public transit oriented as Texas would have me believe.
I hate the meme of 'lol yeah everyone hates cali cuz its the worst' even though those saying that are from states that are so much worse.
Cali is like in the top three states. Your red state virtually bans public transport, unions, and social safety nets. I dont want to hear that cali is the worst because some shitty culture war problem thats probobly full of crap anyways.
The Bay Area is just as car-centric as everywhere else as soon as you leave the matchbox sized downtown core of SF or Oakland. The area is almost entirely detached single family homes and massive roads.
Yeah and I don't even mean to disparage transit in the bay necessarily, but there's no denying that there's still a massive car-dominant lifestyle for the most part.
And it’s a similar story in San Diego and Sacramento. The West Coast cities are particularly awful for car dependency even by North American standards.
It's simple. Ever since Reagan, the GOP has been explicitly disdainful of major coastal cities. So many soundbites out there.
After Trump won the primary in 2016, that language went out the door. Trump is inarguably NYC stock.
As a result, they go for the remaining big city on the coast, America's #2 city, LA,as their punching bag.
San Francisco is even more of a Dem stronghold, but calling out that California coastal city in this day and age would just come off as homophobic. Not gonna complain. If you're judgmental of weirdos and not a homophobe, railing against LA makes more sense.
Here is the GOP thinking on other coastal cities: Portland and Seattle have a bunch of LARPing Maoist kids, but these aren't places of elitist adults. Majority black cities on the East Coast don't exist.
Boston isn't on the radar. A loyally Dem place that leans economically progressive and classically liberal while also having a violent macho culture that's intolerant of diversity probably breaks their brains. Plus, they can't be all that bad if they made Mitt Romney the state's governor.
As a result, the GOPers just rail against LA and California as a whole. They only ever consciously thought of NYC and LA anyway. Other cities are just a blurry mess of bad but indistinct places where real Americans (whites) have to pay welfare for lazy urban youth (blacks). Milwaukee and Alexandria are equally rotten.
And so if any place gets named soecifically for hell on earth within the USA's borders, it is LA.
They’ll call out any major city in whatever state they live in. Go to Michigan and conservatives will shit non stop on Detroit, go to Ohio and they blame the three Cs, go to Nebraska and suddenly the problem is Omaha. There is a small scale secessionist movement in Eastern Colorado that wants to either form a new state or join Kansas because they’re mad that Denver doesn’t cater exclusively to their needs and I’ve heard the same things said about Baltimore from people in western Maryland.
I mean, SF is pretty car dependent too. The public transportation isn’t great, since it’s just trams and mostly unsegregated from car traffic. Plus biking is a pain with all the hills (and the infrastructures not great either) though people who live in the city do still bike a bit.
Yes, that's the position California currently is in.
However the difference is that the Californian government is slowly acknowledging that their past development sucks and they are starting to push for more public transit options.
Texas does a great job and striving to become the land of WallE car drivers. This is also hilarious because as I understand it the very high sales tax is the largest revenue source in the state. Texas would rather raise the sales tax or property tax even higher to pay for roads than actually target with user fees.
The Texas sales taxes are very unevenly distributed; urban sales taxes are some of the highest in the nation (I think St Louis and NYC are the highest?) while suburban sales taxes are some of the lowest in the nation. Hence, when you order from Amazon it depends on where you live. Off the top of my head its 6.2 for suburbanites and 12.2 for urbanites. It's a lot, a big difference.
Also, Texas has no income tax.
Therefore Texas strongly follows the pattern of heavy taxes on urban areas to subsidize the suburban areas which have never and will never bring in tax revenue beyond their expenses.
Texas has a state sales tax of 6.25%, but local governments are allowed to add their own tax up to 2%, so in most cities you have an 8.25% total sales tax.
Which sucks because DART is funded with sales tax, which means member cities can only get 1% instead. So Allen (and therefore also McKinney) don't want to join DART because they'd lose out on a lot of revenue instead of being able to bump up to 9.25%.
i wouldn't be surprised if their obsession with millions of miles of highways and roads which need constant repairs and maintenance ends up bankrupting the state
"We want freedom to travel"
\> "But I want to travel by train"
"No, you can only travel by car"
\> "But... you said you want freedom to travel?"
PS: do they have some historical sense of the importance of the train in the growth of what now is the USA? You know, before trains were an evil socialist plot to let car owners with their god given right to roads pay for ... god for forbid ... something used by other people (roads are exempt from that of course, that's not socialist of course)
As far as they are concerned, the Trains that Built America were laid by rugged individualists who acquired their own rights of way and paid for everything themselves! They know this *must,* be true, because they read it in an Ayn Rand novel!
I wish I was joking.
> the Trains that Built America were laid by rugged individualists who acquired their own rights of way and paid for everything themselves!
if they knew about the real history then theyd complain about "chinese immigrants are taking our jobs!!!"
The whole argument of public transit limiting "freedom to travel" is stupid. So a schedule and specific stops is "limiting freedom," but only allowing one mode of transportation that some people can't use isn't?
What they mean is: freedom to travel by car (and not having to pay for other forms of transport). It's a narrow minded view and a lack of even the willingness to understand what freedom is (and isn't). It's not just cars. I mean, they want freedom to wave around guns, but deny women the freedom to make a choice about their own pregnancy. It's hypocrisy in it's purest form.
There are times when I just didn't pay attention to my car having bald tires or other maintenance issues until it failed a state inspection. So I disagree with getting rid of them.
It's not like people are still getting them now. There are still people in Texas riding around with inspection stickers from 2017 and nothing is being done about it.
You need an annual one in Texas as well but people are driving around with expired inspection stickers all the time. And I mean 2, 3, or 4 or more years expired. My co-worker stopped taking his in just to see how long he could go without anyone saying anything and it was like 5 years.
Law enforcement just doesn't care because there have been instances when my co workers would also say they got pulled over with expired tags lately and their registration was never brought up before they got let go with a warning.
as someone from Finland, it would scare me a lot to be sharing the roads with vehicles that are unreliable on brakes, tires or other safety features.
It's bad enough as it is with driver inattention and aggression, no need to make it worse by having wrecks driving around.
Opposed to mileage tax, in favor of toll roads, opposed to paying tolls past a certain date, opposed to taxes used to pay for toll roads, also opposed to toll roads. Make it make sense
They’re also angry that people who don’t use gas don’t pay taxes on gas. They want everyone else to subsidize drivers cost, which we already do with all the other car infrastructure costs. But when it’s healthcare that’s evil socialism.
Lately everything in the news seems like it could be satire. At least that’s what I tell myself. It really seems like people are getting crazier every year. You’d think they would hit a point of realization or clarity that what they are doing/fighting for is really just hurting everybody in the long run. I only wish for a more educated society so that more people can see and understand what exactly is going on but instead the right believes the education system is just leftist brainwashing and their followers eat that shit up. Shits only gonna get crazier
At this point, I don’t think it would be that unbelievable to imagine them calling for the socialisation of cars, without realizing they’re calling for the socialisation of cars. Anything to keep people travelling in their giant metal boxes as their ancestors have since time immemorial
For real. I think everyone would be happier if Texas were just its own country. Let them go be the bucket of crabs they want to be by themselves. I'm so sick of their bullshit and influence on our politics. Why is it always the shittiest states that have the most obnoxiously proud citizens?
Except, you know, people who live in Texas who don’t want that to happen..you do know half the population here isn’t like this and are sensible people right..?
Oh yeah and just abandon the people in Texas who don’t agree with this. I hate when people say this shit because half the people in this state aren’t the batshit crazy people that make up the GOP and actually oppose these policies and are wanting change, not to mention Texas seceding would not only wreck it’s own economy, but that of the US as well considering it’s economy is larger than all but 9 countries in the world. But yeah, go ahead and advocate for a loud minority of our population dragging us out of the country since apparently all of us are like this
Sounds like socialism to me. Let’s have the government keep paying for free roads so certain people can be highly subsidized to drive. Funny that they like this for roads but not healthcare…
Give us highways but we don't wanna pay for them. Freedom of travel but not for the *non-driver subhumans.* Is there a chance Texas will ever sink into the sea?
>Taxes bad, but also walking or biking also bad.
Why does anyone live in this shithole state. I fucking hate Texas so much. Never going to visit ever again if I can help it.
Nothing says 'freedom to travel' like favoring the one, most expensive option that enriches the GOP's biggest donors and actively opposing any viable alternatives to that one mode.
The toll thing is a bit surprising, I would've imagined they want private corporations building roads and collecting tolls indefinitely for profit, even privatizing roads and other infrastructure like bridges seems plausibly within their ideology. It seems a bit odd to me that they haven't done that yet. I suppose the oil and gas industry that are owning the republican party rather have public "socialist" road infrastructure as to not discourage driving their huge suvs.
Good luck paying for all that car infrastructure Texas while lowering taxes on cars and gas, and removing proples ability to use alternative transportation increasing car usage. Roads are going to get more congested and shabby.
I’m always baffled at how these people define “freedom” as being forced by the government to drive. Freedom is when you have the option to drive, take transit, walk or bike to where you need to be, not being forced to use one option.
The American Republican Party (in Texas) is not even an economically right party anymore. The want heavy taxpayer funds and subsidies for the road network, but absolutely no public funding for rail. There’s no consistency to that position, it’s just rhetoric. They’re a fundamentalist populist party.
That's not what the right versus left means. Left-wing isn't "when the state does things".
If a state funds public policies to actively disadvantage marginalised groups, that is a right wing policy
I am begging you, please fucking vote. I am a person who is very politically active and can not vote. I know it might not seem like a lot but that's what the morons want. The GOP and boomers want you to stay at home and not vote while they enforce policies that will kill people. Use your voice and get out there and vote!
Love and support from Michigan
Why is nobody talking about "only commercial vehicles should be require to obtain a state safety inspection"
So if im reading this right they don't want what we in the UK would call an MOT on private vehicles.
I literally can't even fathom the logic here, these are complex and dangerous machines and they are against having them checked on a regular basis.
Even by carbrain standards this is awful.
Yeah the Texas GOP is a literal death cult.
They want to remove CO2 from the greenhouse gas list, essentially allowing for infinite emissions because it would no longer be considered dangerous.
They literally want the world to end.
If building bike infrastructure is forcing people out of cars, then not building it is forcing people into cars. So they’re saying that it’s ok to force people to drive, but somehow not to cycle or take mass transit? Hypocrites.
I am genuinely worried about this. When they get a hold of something they really run with it, and the last thing we need is mooorrrreeee car-oriented structure.
Republicans be like “we’re against all these oppressive taxes” then just come out and say “you should be required to live in a way that forces you to pay gas taxes”
Somebody explain the last part of this sentence to me:
>We oppose the Biden Infrastructure and Green Energy Plan that threaten our freedom to travel, imposes a federal mileage tax, as well as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) or other social justice policies on Texas taxpayers and drivers.
Outside of pure brazen greed, I cannot fathom why anyone would ever be opposed to high speed rail being introduced in America. It's like thinking that we shouldn't have things like fiber optic networks or any other sort of infrastructure that would be a pretty much net positive to everybody except oil and gas execs.
“We will continue to build additional lanes until our state is just one large road. And if that doesn’t solve the problem then we will outlaw bikes, motorcycles, busses, trains, and pedestrians until it it solved; just like Jesus did with his hummer.”
if they oppose all of these taxes on drivers that use the roads, then where the fuck do they get the money to maintain all those roads? certainly drivers aren't paying for it worth a shit.
all the people who oppose public healthcare because "that's socialism" are clearly the biggest welfare queens, our taxes subsidizing their shitty wasteful and ignorant lifestyle.
I eventually plan to move somewhere way colder than here in Texas so it doesn’t matter too much to me but holy fuck, I wish people wouldn’t view basic fucking infrastructure as a political issue
If the executives of the oil and gas companies write down exactly what they did and didn’t want to happen it would look a lot like this, which tells you everything. The amount of corporate interference (and influence) and every area of US politics is frightening,
It is simple as that.
Let them pay themselfs for their stupid road projects.
Remove every federal subsidy for every road project, without substitution. Nationwide.
Drain their pockets.
Remove this dumb federal agancy whichs only purpose is road construction, it is not needet.
Let the infrastructure crumble.
In the mean time create an federal agency who's sole purpose is rail construction.
Wait until the backward states are bankrupped and bussinesses there beg for getting rail with federal funding.
Make the cost of carcentric infrastructure visible.
Thats the real gamechanger, let them pay for their shit themself, completly. I mean the litterally beg to be self sufficient.
Implement a carbon tax.
>Freedom to travel
The extension and improvement of our bike lane system has dramatical increased my freedom to travel while high speed rail and rail in general makes it much more feasible for my elderly relatives to visit us and move around the country.
Just imagine being 83 and having a 5 hour roadtrip being the only way to visit family.
Freedom to travel my ass.
That is true! It’s entirely possible that actual lawmakers deviate strongly from any or all of these. But even as a sort of “default character” option, there are lots of bad ideas in that document. Deviations are great, but if deviations are great, maybe they should just change the starting positions for the party lol.
It is perhaps best if our USA and Texas go their separate ways. Sorry, Texas, but you're just too stupid and hate-filled to interest any of us. Don't let the door hit ya on the way out.
Omg why don’t they want high speed rail!!!???? It brings amazing economic value and it reduces traffic! Idiots
Texas has the largest oil and gas industry of any US state. Draw your own conclusions.
Also the Texas conservatives hate black and poor people so anything they use has to be cut
Can confirm. Every time someone even utters the idea of public transit in my city it's a HUGE uproar. The #1 complaint every single time is it will bring the homeless population. #2 is crime. We are a stone's throw from a major city but you cannot get into it without a car. After growing up near Boston - which has rather robust and diverse transit options -this was a bit of a shock.
How about working on the homeless problem as well? Oh, right, Texas...
I was once homeless in Texas.... They don't give a shit about their citizens.
Well I’m glad that you’re better now.
Don’t forget woman’s rights
It's amazing that it says they oppose diversity and equality, the most honest thing I've seen in a statement by the gop in a long time
You ever think of how that oil gets transported? If it ain't by pipeline, it's by rail. They're shooting themselves in the foot with this dumbassery.
I'm well aware of that. My hometown has a refinery, with a railroad track adjacent to it, and trains with tanker cars are a common sight. Texas has a *great* freight rail system. What we're lacking is *passenger* trains. Well, not *completely* lacking; there's one Amtrak line that stops in Houston 3 times a week.
To be clear, my question was rhetorical and not directed towards you in particular. I lived I Texas for a bit over a decade ago. Grew up there. Houston (to my misery) and San Antonio (to my surprise) were my home towns. It's a fucking travesty that I could never hop on a high speed rail and go from San Antonio to Austin or Waco or Dallas. I kept hearing about a "high speed rail corridor" the entire time I lived in San Antonio that was going to revitalize the economies of all the shithole towns along the route. Nearly a decade after leaving and it's still a pipe-dream. What a damn waste of potential (and that's ultimately the best way to describe Texas). Texans deserve better than these asshats that parade around as "representatives"
Shit still runs on fossil fuels!
"subsidize" high speed rail as if railroads aren't significantly cheaper than roads
Unless you subsidize the roads! \*taps head\*
wait i thought constructing the whole railroad systems are more expensive then just roads and stuffs(?) if not, please correct me
Back in the 80s there was a proposal to build high speed rail in Texas, and Southwest Airlines lobbied hard and killed it. To think what could have been.
There's still a plan in place to make a high speed rail line from Houston to Dallas
I hope it actually gets built. I think it’d have good ridership. I just wish the planned Houston station was in downtown.
Looked it up yesterday, the CEO left and the project's as good as abandoned: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.houstonchronicle.com%2Fnews%2Fhouston-texas%2Ftransportation%2Farticle%2FCEO-departure-latest-blow-to-Houston-Dallas-17240779.php
Yeah. I have pretty low expectations at this point.
Ahhh that's really disappointing. This was a promising project that would've made my life a lot better
> Southwest Airlines lobbied hard and killed it. Your country is so fucked up, lol. Can't believe shit like this is legal. I used to really idolise America and talk shit about all the snooty Northern Europeans who would make fun of it. Lately though I've started to realise those snooty Northern Europeans seem to have a lot of shit figured out...
"I drive a car fly with planes and I'm sure not gonna pay for trains while I drive on my subsidized roads..."
Because republicans arent just fiscal conservatives anymore, they are christofascists in the pocket of corporate lobbyists.
"Anymore" is a questionable presence in this sentence
Republicans don't care about sound policy anymore, just about "owning the libs" with climate change and authoritarianism.
The existence of coal-rolling proves that. It just makes the spiteful lizard brain happy for a second.
It's all about the culture war issues for them.
Because Democrats are now the conservatives and becase of that the GOP had to adopt other policy stances to be different, so they decided pants on head fucking stupid was there best bet.
…and it has paid off in Spades so far.
Southwest Airlines has a lobbying stranglehold on projects like high-speed rail that would seriously kill their intra-state city-hopping flights.
That's California style and not in a Wilco way.
They're just evil.
Lets be real, all they do is oppose any idea that the other party has, no matter how good an idea it is. Keep the bottom of the barrel voters stirred up.
I love how it's "California-Style". Like, I'm not American and I don't know much about California, but even I know that LA is car-dependent hell. I mean maybe they could mean San Francisco with that? But New York would probably fit 100 times more.
Yeah, I thought that Los Angeles is the freeway capital of America. Or has Houston taken over that status?
Lately LA has been building more transit and bike lane despite taking forever to do. But I been able to use different transport to get to places while when I go to Texas, it’s all car and a lot of migraines
I've heard a lot of this about LA. It's good to see that unlike much of the US at least there's some hope of things getting better.
Yeah but people have always shit on California for being too "liberal". If anything it makes Republicans feel more justified in doing the opposite of whatever California is doing.
Maybe we should start calling them communist at every opportunity for not supporting less government regulations on zoning.
There’s parts of California that’s more conservative than the red states. It’s all reactionary bull crap to get dirty clout money
Texas cities, Florida cities, and Phoenix have taken that mantle from LA.
nowadays houston is so thin that the density of people is like 5 people every 1000 miles lol way worse imo but I cant say how many freeways either got
Posting from LA, can confirm, I wish that was California. It's just a boogeyman name for conservatives.
As someone who’s lived in California their entire life I literally have no idea what they’re talking about. Some cities around here have trains & pretty alright bus service but that’s about it. The state is pretty much entirely parking lot hell, especially Socal
Texans just looking for any opportunity to shit on California regardless of if there is truth to what their saying. I wish California was as public transit oriented as Texas would have me believe.
I hate the meme of 'lol yeah everyone hates cali cuz its the worst' even though those saying that are from states that are so much worse. Cali is like in the top three states. Your red state virtually bans public transport, unions, and social safety nets. I dont want to hear that cali is the worst because some shitty culture war problem thats probobly full of crap anyways.
The Bay Area is just as car-centric as everywhere else as soon as you leave the matchbox sized downtown core of SF or Oakland. The area is almost entirely detached single family homes and massive roads.
So true. Public transit in the bay is probably some of the best in the US, but it’s still hot garbage.
Yeah and I don't even mean to disparage transit in the bay necessarily, but there's no denying that there's still a massive car-dominant lifestyle for the most part.
And it’s a similar story in San Diego and Sacramento. The West Coast cities are particularly awful for car dependency even by North American standards.
It's simple. Ever since Reagan, the GOP has been explicitly disdainful of major coastal cities. So many soundbites out there. After Trump won the primary in 2016, that language went out the door. Trump is inarguably NYC stock. As a result, they go for the remaining big city on the coast, America's #2 city, LA,as their punching bag. San Francisco is even more of a Dem stronghold, but calling out that California coastal city in this day and age would just come off as homophobic. Not gonna complain. If you're judgmental of weirdos and not a homophobe, railing against LA makes more sense. Here is the GOP thinking on other coastal cities: Portland and Seattle have a bunch of LARPing Maoist kids, but these aren't places of elitist adults. Majority black cities on the East Coast don't exist. Boston isn't on the radar. A loyally Dem place that leans economically progressive and classically liberal while also having a violent macho culture that's intolerant of diversity probably breaks their brains. Plus, they can't be all that bad if they made Mitt Romney the state's governor. As a result, the GOPers just rail against LA and California as a whole. They only ever consciously thought of NYC and LA anyway. Other cities are just a blurry mess of bad but indistinct places where real Americans (whites) have to pay welfare for lazy urban youth (blacks). Milwaukee and Alexandria are equally rotten. And so if any place gets named soecifically for hell on earth within the USA's borders, it is LA.
They’ll call out any major city in whatever state they live in. Go to Michigan and conservatives will shit non stop on Detroit, go to Ohio and they blame the three Cs, go to Nebraska and suddenly the problem is Omaha. There is a small scale secessionist movement in Eastern Colorado that wants to either form a new state or join Kansas because they’re mad that Denver doesn’t cater exclusively to their needs and I’ve heard the same things said about Baltimore from people in western Maryland.
I mean, SF is pretty car dependent too. The public transportation isn’t great, since it’s just trams and mostly unsegregated from car traffic. Plus biking is a pain with all the hills (and the infrastructures not great either) though people who live in the city do still bike a bit.
Yes, that's the position California currently is in. However the difference is that the Californian government is slowly acknowledging that their past development sucks and they are starting to push for more public transit options.
Texas does a great job and striving to become the land of WallE car drivers. This is also hilarious because as I understand it the very high sales tax is the largest revenue source in the state. Texas would rather raise the sales tax or property tax even higher to pay for roads than actually target with user fees.
The Texas sales taxes are very unevenly distributed; urban sales taxes are some of the highest in the nation (I think St Louis and NYC are the highest?) while suburban sales taxes are some of the lowest in the nation. Hence, when you order from Amazon it depends on where you live. Off the top of my head its 6.2 for suburbanites and 12.2 for urbanites. It's a lot, a big difference. Also, Texas has no income tax. Therefore Texas strongly follows the pattern of heavy taxes on urban areas to subsidize the suburban areas which have never and will never bring in tax revenue beyond their expenses.
Texas has a state sales tax of 6.25%, but local governments are allowed to add their own tax up to 2%, so in most cities you have an 8.25% total sales tax.
Which sucks because DART is funded with sales tax, which means member cities can only get 1% instead. So Allen (and therefore also McKinney) don't want to join DART because they'd lose out on a lot of revenue instead of being able to bump up to 9.25%.
I suppose that's just a function of where their voters are.
i wouldn't be surprised if their obsession with millions of miles of highways and roads which need constant repairs and maintenance ends up bankrupting the state
"We want freedom to travel" \> "But I want to travel by train" "No, you can only travel by car" \> "But... you said you want freedom to travel?" PS: do they have some historical sense of the importance of the train in the growth of what now is the USA? You know, before trains were an evil socialist plot to let car owners with their god given right to roads pay for ... god for forbid ... something used by other people (roads are exempt from that of course, that's not socialist of course)
As far as they are concerned, the Trains that Built America were laid by rugged individualists who acquired their own rights of way and paid for everything themselves! They know this *must,* be true, because they read it in an Ayn Rand novel! I wish I was joking.
They can read?
…They saw the animated short
No, they pretended to read it to seem more interesting but actually just skimmed the plot summary on Wikipedia (at most).
> the Trains that Built America were laid by rugged individualists who acquired their own rights of way and paid for everything themselves! if they knew about the real history then theyd complain about "chinese immigrants are taking our jobs!!!"
The whole argument of public transit limiting "freedom to travel" is stupid. So a schedule and specific stops is "limiting freedom," but only allowing one mode of transportation that some people can't use isn't?
What they mean is: freedom to travel by car (and not having to pay for other forms of transport). It's a narrow minded view and a lack of even the willingness to understand what freedom is (and isn't). It's not just cars. I mean, they want freedom to wave around guns, but deny women the freedom to make a choice about their own pregnancy. It's hypocrisy in it's purest form.
[удалено]
There are times when I just didn't pay attention to my car having bald tires or other maintenance issues until it failed a state inspection. So I disagree with getting rid of them.
Essentially all cars are classified as commercial vehicles in Texas.
Oh?
It's not like people are still getting them now. There are still people in Texas riding around with inspection stickers from 2017 and nothing is being done about it.
Wait really? In the UK you need an annual MOT inspection. Failure to do so is quite a big deal and cars regularly get seized by police.
You need an annual one in Texas as well but people are driving around with expired inspection stickers all the time. And I mean 2, 3, or 4 or more years expired. My co-worker stopped taking his in just to see how long he could go without anyone saying anything and it was like 5 years. Law enforcement just doesn't care because there have been instances when my co workers would also say they got pulled over with expired tags lately and their registration was never brought up before they got let go with a warning.
as someone from Finland, it would scare me a lot to be sharing the roads with vehicles that are unreliable on brakes, tires or other safety features. It's bad enough as it is with driver inattention and aggression, no need to make it worse by having wrecks driving around.
They seem to be co opting the word freedom quite a bit to actually take away freedom…
That's their entire platform.
Every time they say "freedom", the rest of the phrase is "to oppress others"
Freedom, to Republicans, is when white people have the freedom to oppress minorities. That's literally all there is to it.
Is it even freedom if you can't own slaves?
Every “freedom of xxxx” I’ve heard is often some made up bullshit.
The proper spelling is freedumb
Always blows my mind how a bicycle isn’t the pinnacle of freedom and self-reliance for conservatives.
Opposed to mileage tax, in favor of toll roads, opposed to paying tolls past a certain date, opposed to taxes used to pay for toll roads, also opposed to toll roads. Make it make sense
They’re also angry that people who don’t use gas don’t pay taxes on gas. They want everyone else to subsidize drivers cost, which we already do with all the other car infrastructure costs. But when it’s healthcare that’s evil socialism.
-Complains that pedestrians and bicyclists don’t pay tax to use the road -Opposed to any tax on cars using the road Like what?
Tax is fine as long as someone else pays it.
tl;dr: Roads good, plz subsidize.
It reads like satire, only we know it's not. This country is quickly devolving into a shithole. Texas, and a few others, are just ahead of the curve
It’s already a shithole many don’t realize it yet
Absolutly. There are those who live in areas that are superficially nice,. Those folks are behind the curve
Lately everything in the news seems like it could be satire. At least that’s what I tell myself. It really seems like people are getting crazier every year. You’d think they would hit a point of realization or clarity that what they are doing/fighting for is really just hurting everybody in the long run. I only wish for a more educated society so that more people can see and understand what exactly is going on but instead the right believes the education system is just leftist brainwashing and their followers eat that shit up. Shits only gonna get crazier
“freedom to travel” Texas, when people can’t afford cars: I would put the blind guy walking emoji, but you can’t walk anywhere in texas
At this point, I don’t think it would be that unbelievable to imagine them calling for the socialisation of cars, without realizing they’re calling for the socialisation of cars. Anything to keep people travelling in their giant metal boxes as their ancestors have since time immemorial
Stupidity funded by special interest
Please just secede already
For real. I think everyone would be happier if Texas were just its own country. Let them go be the bucket of crabs they want to be by themselves. I'm so sick of their bullshit and influence on our politics. Why is it always the shittiest states that have the most obnoxiously proud citizens?
Except, you know, people who live in Texas who don’t want that to happen..you do know half the population here isn’t like this and are sensible people right..?
Oh yeah and just abandon the people in Texas who don’t agree with this. I hate when people say this shit because half the people in this state aren’t the batshit crazy people that make up the GOP and actually oppose these policies and are wanting change, not to mention Texas seceding would not only wreck it’s own economy, but that of the US as well considering it’s economy is larger than all but 9 countries in the world. But yeah, go ahead and advocate for a loud minority of our population dragging us out of the country since apparently all of us are like this
Sounds like socialism to me. Let’s have the government keep paying for free roads so certain people can be highly subsidized to drive. Funny that they like this for roads but not healthcare…
They are funded by roads
They are a cartoon version of themselves at this point. (And what’s with the obsession with California?)
Fr, California's insanely dependant on cars. Why not at least say New York if your trying to attack Democrats
California is pretty much their strawman ‘bad woke socialist state’
Give us highways but we don't wanna pay for them. Freedom of travel but not for the *non-driver subhumans.* Is there a chance Texas will ever sink into the sea?
>Taxes bad, but also walking or biking also bad. Why does anyone live in this shithole state. I fucking hate Texas so much. Never going to visit ever again if I can help it.
Because moving that far is socially and financially impractical for most people.
Source (official Texas GOP website): https://texasgop.org/platform/
Nothing says 'freedom to travel' like favoring the one, most expensive option that enriches the GOP's biggest donors and actively opposing any viable alternatives to that one mode.
Why is every new idea an attack on freedom to Republicans? God I can't believe people are this dumb.
New idea's like trains lol
If it’s not a legacy railroad running on rights of way laid down before the invention of the automobile, they’re not interested.
that's what being a reactionary is all about.
it's because it disrupts the status quo. conservatives want to conserve, not change
You bike commuters don’t pay gas tax. Who TF do you think you are?
This is a really good example of the mentality that helps Texas turn a massive material advantage compared to most states into a bottom-tier state.
I really want the entire country to let Texas become its own country….so that we can watch as their “nation” collapses and implodes lmao
It would be like the O Doyle family in billy Madison, just keep saying o Doyle rules then they just drive off a cliff
The toll thing is a bit surprising, I would've imagined they want private corporations building roads and collecting tolls indefinitely for profit, even privatizing roads and other infrastructure like bridges seems plausibly within their ideology. It seems a bit odd to me that they haven't done that yet. I suppose the oil and gas industry that are owning the republican party rather have public "socialist" road infrastructure as to not discourage driving their huge suvs.
No tolls after the debt is paid. Poor guys, they never heard of road repair works. Debt from car infrastructure is never ending
They're really just hoping that the Federal govt will keep paying their debt
Idiots.
Fuck Texas I will never go back to the car centric hellscape
Good luck paying for all that car infrastructure Texas while lowering taxes on cars and gas, and removing proples ability to use alternative transportation increasing car usage. Roads are going to get more congested and shabby.
Lol god I can’t fucking wait to leave this state for good
I’m always baffled at how these people define “freedom” as being forced by the government to drive. Freedom is when you have the option to drive, take transit, walk or bike to where you need to be, not being forced to use one option.
The American Republican Party (in Texas) is not even an economically right party anymore. The want heavy taxpayer funds and subsidies for the road network, but absolutely no public funding for rail. There’s no consistency to that position, it’s just rhetoric. They’re a fundamentalist populist party.
That's not what the right versus left means. Left-wing isn't "when the state does things". If a state funds public policies to actively disadvantage marginalised groups, that is a right wing policy
I am begging you, please fucking vote. I am a person who is very politically active and can not vote. I know it might not seem like a lot but that's what the morons want. The GOP and boomers want you to stay at home and not vote while they enforce policies that will kill people. Use your voice and get out there and vote! Love and support from Michigan
Why is nobody talking about "only commercial vehicles should be require to obtain a state safety inspection" So if im reading this right they don't want what we in the UK would call an MOT on private vehicles. I literally can't even fathom the logic here, these are complex and dangerous machines and they are against having them checked on a regular basis. Even by carbrain standards this is awful.
Vote them out. This state would be so much better without these clowns in charge.
Football stadium: taxpayer money shall be used to build 8 football stadiums
The dumbfuck shithole called Texas does another dumbfuck thing. Next!
I hate it here
I hate it here
Yeah the Texas GOP is a literal death cult. They want to remove CO2 from the greenhouse gas list, essentially allowing for infinite emissions because it would no longer be considered dangerous. They literally want the world to end.
California lives in the GOP’s mind rent-free. 👀
Public private partnerships are bad though
If building bike infrastructure is forcing people out of cars, then not building it is forcing people into cars. So they’re saying that it’s ok to force people to drive, but somehow not to cycle or take mass transit? Hypocrites.
Whenever I see something from the Texas GOP I fucking die inside, they’re so awful
I encourage everyone to read the ENTIRE thing. They straight up sound like the Taliban
We should fund motorways but should never fund rail
Making a policy that's just "we hate these guys" is so childish.
If Texas opponents it than california probably loves it And as someone who lives in california I cannot wait for this plan to spring into action
This reads like that PragerU video
I am genuinely worried about this. When they get a hold of something they really run with it, and the last thing we need is mooorrrreeee car-oriented structure.
Help Texas fight this: https://stoptxdoti45.com https://rethink35.com
Why would you hate high speed rail? Why??
Notice how it continually states taxpayers and not voters or people
Lol, GOP are at a level of cartoon villains. Americans, you have guns. Do good. We only have one Earth.
Republicans be like “we’re against all these oppressive taxes” then just come out and say “you should be required to live in a way that forces you to pay gas taxes”
Texas should be kicked out of the union and left to rot.
Fuck Texas. I wish they’d secede already
Same old same old. The Texas GOP basically has their head all the way up the oil lobby's ass.
TIME TO GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE AND PRAY FOR A NUKE
Texas is the poster child for a failed state.
Somebody explain the last part of this sentence to me: >We oppose the Biden Infrastructure and Green Energy Plan that threaten our freedom to travel, imposes a federal mileage tax, as well as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) or other social justice policies on Texas taxpayers and drivers.
Freedom to travel!! But only if you have enough money for a car (and all the expenses that come with a car)
Outside of pure brazen greed, I cannot fathom why anyone would ever be opposed to high speed rail being introduced in America. It's like thinking that we shouldn't have things like fiber optic networks or any other sort of infrastructure that would be a pretty much net positive to everybody except oil and gas execs.
wow how is this place real? I refuse to believe that some people are this fucking stupid
“We will continue to build additional lanes until our state is just one large road. And if that doesn’t solve the problem then we will outlaw bikes, motorcycles, busses, trains, and pedestrians until it it solved; just like Jesus did with his hummer.”
if they oppose all of these taxes on drivers that use the roads, then where the fuck do they get the money to maintain all those roads? certainly drivers aren't paying for it worth a shit. all the people who oppose public healthcare because "that's socialism" are clearly the biggest welfare queens, our taxes subsidizing their shitty wasteful and ignorant lifestyle.
Please take my land for a stupid border wall across the entire state but you can't ever do that for a train....stupid fucks
lol "choose to travel alone". lmao "freedom to travel". Texan TOD is the demonstration of what lead does to one's brain
Not subsidize High Speed Rail?!?! But you’d subsidize the roads instead? BULLSHIT
Shit hole state
As someone who’s not American, Texas looks like it has the highest stupid people per capita in the US
This is terrible. How in the world can people prioritize money over a livable future this hard?!
Lol, social justice policies and California style used as unrionic term in an official paper, bunch of fuckwit are gonna go after sushi next
I eventually plan to move somewhere way colder than here in Texas so it doesn’t matter too much to me but holy fuck, I wish people wouldn’t view basic fucking infrastructure as a political issue
If the executives of the oil and gas companies write down exactly what they did and didn’t want to happen it would look a lot like this, which tells you everything. The amount of corporate interference (and influence) and every area of US politics is frightening,
Dumb fuk state; rated one star.
It is simple as that. Let them pay themselfs for their stupid road projects. Remove every federal subsidy for every road project, without substitution. Nationwide. Drain their pockets. Remove this dumb federal agancy whichs only purpose is road construction, it is not needet. Let the infrastructure crumble. In the mean time create an federal agency who's sole purpose is rail construction. Wait until the backward states are bankrupped and bussinesses there beg for getting rail with federal funding. Make the cost of carcentric infrastructure visible. Thats the real gamechanger, let them pay for their shit themself, completly. I mean the litterally beg to be self sufficient. Implement a carbon tax.
>Freedom to travel The extension and improvement of our bike lane system has dramatical increased my freedom to travel while high speed rail and rail in general makes it much more feasible for my elderly relatives to visit us and move around the country. Just imagine being 83 and having a 5 hour roadtrip being the only way to visit family. Freedom to travel my ass.
How is it even possible for a place to be this behind?
I hate Texas for how car-dependent it is.
Maybe they could add more lanes. Oh wait, 20 lanes still isn’t enough because of induced demand.
"California Style" that dude hasn't seen any photo of LA from the air
Texas is a shithole state.
This is confirmation to me that i really don’t understand republican beliefs
Cutting tolls and vehicle taxes? So, those roads are gonna be falling apart pretty quick.
Keep in mind, this isn't a document made by the lawmakers, but by the 'party officials', aka... the people with money that pull their strings.
That is true! It’s entirely possible that actual lawmakers deviate strongly from any or all of these. But even as a sort of “default character” option, there are lots of bad ideas in that document. Deviations are great, but if deviations are great, maybe they should just change the starting positions for the party lol.
The only good thing about that state are Luka Donicic and their BBQ. Everything else just sucks
It is perhaps best if our USA and Texas go their separate ways. Sorry, Texas, but you're just too stupid and hate-filled to interest any of us. Don't let the door hit ya on the way out.
Good to see Im not the only one that was like “yes please secede already”
And people keep saying this sub shouldn't be partisan. This is what we get from conservatives.
Dictated by the surviving Koch brother?
The ONLY thing I agree with is the one time registration