The big joke in Dallas at the end of the Eighties was that we got our Arts District only because then-Mayor Annette Strauss noted that San Antonio was spending more on arts than we were, and what we couldn't gain in quality, we could gain in pure volume. (Then again, Annette had an issue with volume, such as the amount of vacuum within her skull.) These days, we're a bit different, as we no longer follow San Antonio's lead. San Antonio has a beautiful, liveable downtown area that should be emulated, but instead our policymakers keep pointing to various stupidities and crying "But Portland's doing it!"

Holy smokes and all of that from current funding?

"A City of San Antonio property tax rate increase is not recommended to fund the bond program. The City’s current property tax rate is projected to be sufficient to fund the debt service payments for the program"

Imagine how impossible that would be in Portland where 26 cents of every property tax dollar now goes to Urban Renewal Debt for all sorts of yesterday crap.

Eeeek!

Their officials are pushing for a streectcar.

They told voters a new tax would NOT go to Light Rail and then decided to spend it on a streetcar. Claiming it's not he same.

And they are using all of the bogus Portland claims about the streetcar.

Look at this story and the comments. Insanity!

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Light-rail-by-another-name-3397495.php

What, is their city motto "Keep San Antonio functional" or something?

Here in Houston they would like to try to keep up with Portland. We've got an openly gay mayor, but ours is lesbian. We've got an expensive light rail system that pretty much no one rides (although it's not very long). We even have our own 'sustainabilty' czar, who no one pays attention to (we stole her from San Francisco). Down here we have garbage picked up twice a week, they will haul away ANYTHING that you can haul to the curb, INCLUDING sofas, beds, transmissions. We do have recycle containers, pretty much no one uses them. But we're trying, well, sort of.

Oh, forgot to mention, there is no 'extra' charge when you haul something like a bed to the curb. My monthly bill that covers water, sewer and garbage is about $50 a month.

Why do Texans hate bikes, trolleys, and convention center hotels?

"Why do Texans hate bikes, trolleys, and convention center hotels?"

Because they are rational people.

Thanks
JK

Oh, we don't hate them. With the exception of the city-financed convention center hotel in downtown Dallas (pushed through mostly as a big payout to the owner of the Dallas Morning News, who owned the property on which it was built), we're happy to let people pay for their own. Heck, we've had our own trolley in Dallas since the Seventies, but we don't have the mayor chirping "go by streetcar" every five minutes. (That, however, may change. We have hipsters, too, and between Critical Mass rides and demands for kayaking facilities down the Trinity River, Dallas could be as screwed up as Portland before too long.)

Transparency? Understandable accounting?

You're thinking of Bizarro Portland where everything is backwards. Besides Portlandians aren't that good with math like the Texans.

So, does all that infrastructure get ordered up as an emergency, with an important no-bid urgency? Or is this constant emergency purely Portland as we are too creative and dramatic to do math?