Delayed in Austin

Everyone who has been to Austin, and tried to get from North Austin to South Austin or the other way round during rush hour has experienced the trouble of traffic. In 2009, Austin was ranked the third worst city concerning traffic in the U.S.. Back then, even New York drivers were better off than the ones in Austin. In the same statistic, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston follow close behind. Even Corpus Christi and El Paso made it into the top 14 list. Obviously Austin isn't the only city in Texas with a traffic problem. It seems to span across the state.

Austin is smaller than the two cities that have worse traffic (Los Angeles and Washington). But here we get to one of the problems Austin has: it has grown a lot in the past one and a half decades. And it is expanding even more. Austin is one of the fastest growing cities in the US. It is expanding faster than the network of travel is expanding. But is the question how we got to the traffic problem, or how we get out of it? It is definitely more helpful for people to find a way out of it.

All these troubles considered, a solution has to be found.

I-35 was extended to four lanes in downtown and north of it. However, traffic is still bad. A possibility could be to extend I-35 below the ground. But this isn't a solution that would help traffic any time soon, since that project would take years and worsen the traffic during the time of construction.

Expanding the train system could be considered as well. The plans for it would have to be made very carefully though. The train system in Austin wouldn't work as the one in New York or major European cities such as London and Paris, since the area that needs to be covered, is way bigger but needs more stops. The system of busses would have to be adjusted to train or subway stops, so that the two systems could work together well. To realize plans like this, the area would have to be found to add tracks to the city. People would have to give up their land to let the city use it, which most people of course wouldn't like to do.

Another possibility to consider would be a car-free zone downtown. People who work downtown would either commute there with trains, and only drive their cars to the train stations, or park close to downtown. If they parked close to downtown, parking possibilities would have to be built for them.

Everyone who commutes over the river, knows that crossing it is one of the worst parts of the traffic hazard. Getting over the few bridges can take a tremendous amount of time during rush hour. The only solution to that would be less cars or more bridges.

All these are only ideas that should have been considered when the city started growing rapidly. But nobody seemed to have made a real plan. Any solution will need construction, and construction needs time, whether bridges, highways or railway systems are extended. So when are the plans for this finally ready to be made real? One thing is clear: the traffic situation in Austin won't change any time soon. They waited way to long for a change to happen.  

Plastic Bag Ban Bad? - No Reason to Think So!

Not even a few decades ago, it was normal to bring bags to a store instead of receiving plastic bags. Of course plastic bags are convenient, as pointed out in “Plastic Bag Ban Bad”, and the ones we received in stores are very cheap in production, but there is no denying that they are bad for the environment.

Obviously, the city has regulated the use of those thin and cheap plastic bags. It regulated the use of them as extreme as possible. The city of Austin banned the bags. In banning the bags they found a way to bring less plastic into circulation. The problem is that the regulation of plastic bag use and plastic bag recycling in our society hasn't worked so far, and there is no reason to believe that it will work any time soon. There are laws concerning these bags. One example is, that people are supposed to throw them into the trash or recycle them which often isn't happening. This is obvious if we just look at the garbage patches in the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. In those patches, collections of plastic pollute big parts of the oceans. They fall into pieces, but don't disappear since plastic isn't compostable. This causes a huge problem for animals and plants.

Paper bags don't bring such a big issue to the environment as mentioned in “Plastic Bag Ban Bad”. To produce paper bags, no new trees are cut. They are made of recycled paper. Also if those are tossed into the ocean, they dissolve pretty easily, which of course doesn't mean that we should do that.

The whole purpose in cotton bags is to reuse them. So you buy two or however many you need for one shopping trip, and then you bring them back the next time you go shopping. That's a one time investment! And I cannot see the higher taxes to a one time investment.

The environment is killed more by plastic bags in the ocean, than by the production of recycled paper bags. To use those plastic bags for trash and other things, it is probably best to use plastic bags that can be composted.

Voter ID Laws - The Troubles are There

Senate Bill 14 (SB 14) was passed in 2011. This bill requires voters to show one of seven legal photo identification to vote in elections. Even the Supreme Court decided that this bill is legal.

As long as the name matches the voter ID card, it is easy to vote, but if there is a slight difference, like the middle name's initial in a different spot on the documents, voters will have to sign an affidavit confirming that they are the same person. Only people with disabilities or religious reasons may be exempted from the law.

There are people who claim that the new Voter ID Laws don't cause any change to voters on election day, except that they have to show identification when they vote. Texas' politicians, such as Greg Abbott (Texas Attorney General) claimed on Twitter on election day, that Voter ID laws are “not a problem at the polls”. However he includes a link to an article on news-journal.com, in which problems of the voter ID laws on election day are stated – including examples.

In general the idea of identification at the polls makes perfect sense. Everyone needs an ID for some actions, whether they drive a car, open a bank account, buy alcohol, or enter a bar. And complaints of having to identify oneself for one of those actions are barely heard. So why is the fuss about Voter ID Laws so great?

Here lies the problem: It is generally known, if not before 2011 it is now, that not everyone in Texas who is eligible to vote has a state issued ID. It is not about the fact that some people don't want an ID, it is about the fact that some people simply don't own one. Still, the law was passed in 2011, and after that, it was made easier for people to apply for IDs at the DPS by extending office hours.

Now why were the hours extended after the law was passed, and not before? Wouldn't it have been sensible to take care of people who don't have IDs before the law was passed? By requiring people to have an ID to vote, they are limited if they don't fulfill the required needs of the law. If a law had been passed first that every citizen who is resident in Texas is required to have one of the seven forms of identification that is now needed to vote, it would have saved some people a frustrating election day.

The law was passed, but nobody cared that even if a person is arrested in Texas, they don't have to show identification. They only have to provide their name, their residency address and their date of birth, but not a state issued photo ID.

Now, after the elections on November 5^th, some of the problems have become obvious. Many women never adjusted their voter registration cards after they got married. Also, many people didn't think much of small name differences on their voter registration card, and on their ID until they stood in front of the ballot box and had to sign an affidavit, confirming that they are the same person.

These are just some problems that appeared due to the voter ID laws, and the probability that the majority of the people didn't have to fulfill any extra steps to cast their vote is high, but even if it had been only one person who was sent away due to the lack of an ID, or due to name differences (like the maiden name instead of the married name) it is one too many. The problem lies not in the law itself, but in the way it was enacted. If a law had been passed first, that required Texans of the age of 18 to have an ID, there wouldn't have been so many reasons to be against the law of voter IDs.

Texas DREAM Act - Is Everyone Allowed to Get Higher Education?

In his blog's article “Texas GOP Needs Abbott to Lead”, which is about the Texas DREAM Act, David Jennings states that it is a problem that all four republican candidates running for Lt. Governor oppose DREAM. The Texas DREAM Act would allow “illegal” children to pay in-state college tuition. He explains, that if Texas already puts so much money into the K-12 education of those children, it doesn't make sense to have them pay out of state college tuition. Most republicans voted for the bill, so why are all republican candidates for Lt. Governor against it? Greg Abbott, who will probably run for Texas governor doesn't oppose the Act, so Jennings thinks that he should make his opinion clear and stand up for the children.The blog is written for people who are interested in DREAM, who are affected by DREAM, and who want to see different opinions on DREAM. To underline his argument, Jennings uses several links to official websites to show evidence of the time when DREAM passed.

Since the Texas DREAM Act doesn't help to establish permanent residency, as the US DREAM Act does, I don't see a reason why it would hurt to keep it. It only helps them to get a higher education. Many children who come from illegally immigrated families don't even get to the point where they even consider college. Either they weren't good enough in high school, or they don't even see a chance of paying the colleges' tuition. Now, when they are ambitious, and want to use the chance they have by going to school in the US, why not make it a little easier, and allow them the benefits everyone gets, who received a high school diploma from an institution in Texas? And to get to another one of Jennings points, why did republicans vote for the Act, and now they are turning away from it? Is this a change in the republican philosophy? Or does it just depend on who you'd ask, no matter whether the person would be republican or democrat? Questions that remain unanswered for now, but influence many children's lives in Texas.  

Voter ID Laws – More Trouble than Good

The article “Editorial: Shakedown for Silly Voter ID Law” in the Dallas News, comments on the new laws about voter IDs. Since the new law concerns all voters, it is written for people who would like to know more about voter IDs, and the cons concerning the laws, since the article is very obviously against the IDs.

The author's point of view becomes very clear right in the beginning of the article. After describing the state's governments effort to help voters to get IDs, he comments on those with an anaphora (“Of course […]. Of course […]. Of course […]”), which underlines his dislike of the new voter ID laws. Even though voter fraud was never proven, the bill passed after the Republicans refused to include the Democrats' idea to extend office hours to make it easier to get voter IDs. After a filed lawsuit, this changed immediately. People went exactly for that problem: the Democrats' mandate that was struck down. However, the author assumes that the newly extended DPS hours were only made due to politics, not to help voters to get their hands on IDs. The next problem that came up, which he mentions, was the question, on whether the DPS would run a background check before issuing the IDs, but the DPS soon denied that this would happen. The author is sure that the need of voter IDs and the confusion about it will cause a low voter turnout in upcoming elections.

There are definitely pros and cons concerning voter ID laws, but over all, the way the laws are enforced, causes more trouble than good. Of course it makes sense that you have to identify yourself, as you have to for so many other things. But if it is obvious that so many people don't have IDs they can show, how can those laws be put into effect, without taking care of the ID-problem first?

It is well known that mainly voters of color, voters with low income and elderly people don't have IDs. So by simply enforcing the laws of voter identification, their right to vote is denied, and this should be known by the politicians who made the law. And even if the IDs are issued for free, there is documentation needed to apply for IDs. Some of those documents, cost money. So the IDs aren't really free. If people live on the edge of existence, will they spend the money and time to become eligible to vote after they didn't have to for the past decades? Probably not. The costly part of getting an ID explains where the idea of poll-taxes comes from, and yes, from that perspective it makes sense. Some people even go as far, and compare voter IDs to Jim Crow Laws, or "Separate, but Equal", but here, I can't say whether they go too far or not. And as the author of the article “Editorial: Shakedown for Silly Voter ID Laws” says: There is no evidence for a high amount of fraud. 

In the past, the laws that were passed usually extended voting rights, but this one seems to take a step backwards.  

The Big Conversation: ObamaCare

In the past years many Americans followed the news for the Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act, that was signed into law in early 2010. The steps to enacting it completely are taken slowly until 2022. While many people oppose the idea of it, others are glad to get more medical support.

The Texas Tribune article “TheBrief: Texas Political News for Sept. 17, 2013, The Big Conversation” by David Mutto, describes Texas governor Rick Perry's newly taken steps to his opposition to ObamaCare. In a letter Perry stated that “Texas will not expand Medicaid under ObamaCare”. Furthermore he said that investing amounts of money into the problem, as the federal government does, won't help it to go away. The plan for Medicaid is to reform it without “federal approval”, and to keep on the testing who is eligible for it. People are supposed to be responsible and at the same time more independent from the government. Also, Perry wants the costs of Medicaid to be steady, thus he wants to improve its organization. Texas is one of many republican states that wants to expand Medicaid instead of ObamaCare. Since according to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius, negotiations with the Obama administration haven't started yet, it remains unknown whether Texas' request will be accepted.

Health insurance is a topic that probably all of us will have to care about at some point, especially due to the fact that almost all Americans have to get insurance in early 2014. However the way people will deal with it depends a lot on peoples' history concerning medical conditions, their political views and the state they live in. This article reflects the way Texas plans to deal with the topic of health care in the future. Since at some point, we will all be affected by ObamaCare, or here in Texas to the changes of Medicare, it is interesting and maybe even helpful to know how our state of residency deals with the topic of healthcare.