Today at lunch, fellow Kossack and blogger
GMB and I were talking about Tom DeLay's troubles. Later the subject wandered to urban sprawl and mass transit, inspired by
this great comment thread at Atrios.
Then, back at the computer, I stumbled across this story connecting the two. It seems that the Bugman exterminated a federal grant for a rail system in Houston -- his own city!
Congress forced Houston to pay for its first rail project -- the $324 million Main Street line that opened Jan. 1 -- entirely with local funds because House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, objected to the lack of a public vote. ...
Demand for federal matching funds has risen rapidly in the past decade as many cities -- plagued by sprawl, traffic congestion and air pollution -- seek to begin rail systems. Ten years ago, cities such as Dallas raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from Uncle Sam, often covering only 20 percent of construction costs with local tax money. ...
"We haven't received the federal funding that cities a fifth the size of Houston have," said Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston. ...
Shirley DeLibero, Metro's outgoing president and chief executive officer, said the money needs to start flowing right away. Metro lost out on $162 million in matching funds by paying for the Main Street line on its own, she noted.
I'm sure there are some rail-hating SUV owners in Houston, but there are a lot of other folks who would like an alternative (hell, even Kay Bailey Hutchinson is backing Houston's rail system, according to the article).
The fact that DeLay would stiff his own constituents like this -- and sabotage their quality of life out of some reactionary anti-transit bias -- is just another reason to loathe him.
More commentary at The Situation Room