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[quote user="blue streak 1"] All right SAM  how do we convince the POLS in Atlanta and Georgia the same thing ? Atlanta's Metropolitan area has the same population density as Houston , Dallas, & Ft. Worth but roads and freeways do not have the capacity.  Even Austin and San Antonia come close to Atlanta. [/quote] My employer made me, as well as another senior manager and an executive, available to work on getting the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) referendum passed.   We took a pragmatic approach. Given the car culture extant in Texas, the first proposed initiative was to build HOV lanes, followed quickly by express bus service from the participating suburban communities. This helped get motorists and suburbanites on board. We also played to people's selfish side. We kept telling people that better public transport would get heaps of cars off the road.  And I suspect that most people thought, yep, get my neighbor onto a bus or train, and I can zip down Central Expressway in the family buggy. The initial plans for the light rail initiative were unrealistic. Once it was recognized - by that time I was back at my accounting manager job, the powers that be scaled back the plans for the light rail system, thereby making them more realistic and, therefore, more salable.  Pragmatism won the day!  For all the political bluster that one frequently hears out of Austin, the leadership community in the Lone Star state is pragmatic. Keep change proposals within reasonable bounds - a subjective definition to be sure, and many Texans will take ownership of it. Push grandiose schemes, especially those with dodgy funding proposals, and they are likely to land in the bad idea graveyard. My concern over the proposed Texas High Speed Rail Project is that it appears to be as much about grandstanding as a realistic solution to a transportation problem.  A better solution, I think, would be a gradual improvement in passenger rail along I-35 and I-45, which in time could reach average speeds of 100 mph.
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