#ATXOnline: Plugging the other guys....

"Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor."
Romans 13:7

A couple of other local bloggers have posted must-read pieces with which we fully concur.

First, Andy from Travis Tracker raises good questions about a 'racial reconciliation' event held last night:

If you watched or attended the "ATX Together" forum hosted by KLRU-TV on Monday night, you may have noticed something wasn't quite ...together about it.

It was a noble, town hall-style event, and we stand behind any and all efforts to discuss plans for how to counter the kind of violence we've seen over the past two weeks. No problem there.

Many friends of this publication cheered it on, including Maura Phelan, Republican candidate for District Attorney, who took to Twitter to share her vision of a brighter future for the Travis County justice system. And we were grateful for any effort to seek common ground and bridge a deepening gap between the community and law enforcement.

But there were serious gaps in the patchwork of voices at the forum -- whatever the reason for the oversight may be.

There were no Republicans or notable conservative leaders seen in the audience, which isn't unusual for many Austin events given the local political climate. Yet the Travis County Democratic Party Chairman,Vincent Harding, was one of the emcees. 

.... 

There was no shortage of back-and-forth regarding "checking your privilege," but nothing much said of creating jobs to help the poor improve their economic conditions.

Next, Bill Oakey at Austin Affordability uses a personal anecdote to illustrate how CapMetro's bus service has gotten worse over the past couple years:

As it turns out, I had not ridden the North Lamar bus in the last couple of years. After several minutes went by, reality began to set in. Even before I looked up the schedule, I remembered something bad. North Lamar and Burnet Road are the two busiest routes in the Capital Metro system. In 2014, they thought they had created a wonderful solution by putting in those gigantic, double-sized buses – MetroRapid they are called. They have accordions on them to help navigate turns.

Those giant buses are exactly twice as expensive to ride as the regular ones. And they are “express buses,” which means that they will get you across town faster because they make much fewer stops. But here’s the bad news for the huge number of regular bus riders. When the giant buses went into service, Capital Metro more than doubled the waiting time for the regular buses. And besides that, there may not be a “giant bus stop” anywhere near where you happen to be when you need a bus.

That convenient, every-11-to-12-minute service up and down North Lamar to Guadalupe, past  U.T. into downtown that we enjoyed for 25 or 30 years no longer exists. It has been stretched into 26 minutes. So, if you throw in Murphy’s law, the last bus at my stop probably came about 14 seconds before I walked out of Dan’s Hamburgers. I was in for quite a long wait. Imagine trying to endure that in July, with blistering 100-degree heat and stifling humidity.

Seriously, do read the whole thing(s) here and here.