Thread by @fawfulfan

I'm just going to say one more thing about the #ProjectConnect situation until there are any more developments:

If you were an Austin progressive excited for rail, but you also cheered the death of Manchin's permitting reform bill: congratulations, you got what you asked for.

Yes, Austin officials are uniquely inept with money on transit projects a way many cities aren't, but the fact is: one reason the light rail plan got reduced is it depended on federal grants, and those grants now require local govts to set aside 40% of funding for contingencies.

And the main kind of "contingency" that made the federal government decide to impose this huge budget constraint? Frivolous local permitting lawsuits. The kind of crap Manchin's bill was intended to address.

So congrats: by lobbying Dems against permitting reform, you successfully made it harder to build a pipeline in West Virginia. You also helped cut the size of Austin's desperately needed light rail phase I in half, ensuring way more car traffic and more CO2 emissions for years.

Anyway, I still have optimism we can build the core part of the system Austinites voted for, and plan for expansions. But we should have been able to build all of it now. It is embarrassing how expensive it is to build ANYTHING in America. And we need a solution to that now.