Transcripts For CSPAN2 Megan 20240703

Megan kimball is my name. The way i should say this first is gilbert garcia. Im an opinion writer and columnist with the san antonio expressnews, but thats not important. Important here is our author, megan kimball. Shes an austin based investigative journalist, author of the 2015 book unprocessed. Shes a former executive editor of the Texas Observer. She writes about housing and urban development for texas monthly, the New York Times guardian and, bloomberg, citylab. Her latest book, which came out a few days ago, is called city limits inequality and the future americas highways. And it examines the toll that ever expanding urban highways have taken on our communities. And it does so through the prism three texas cities, austin, houston and dallas so please help me welcome our author megan kimple. Thank you, gilbert. Thank you all for being here. Its really a delight now, megan, you as you point out the book, you were born in austin, you grew up in Southern California, and california. And that that area particularly in california, like texas, has a very strong car geographically, big, very spread out. Was it during that time period growing up in Southern California that if you first started to question the role that urban highways have in or our society, it wasnt really growing up, but i moved back l. A. After college and i was trying to work as a journalist. So i was an Editorial Assistant at the los angeles times. I made minimum wage and i was tutoring High School Students to like pay rent. And so as a result, i was driving all over los angeles and. Its this was the era before smartphones. So i had this like printout of, you know, mapquest and passenger seat. I would like, obsessively check. Siegler econ if anybody remembers that. Before i left house to to kind of navigate where i was going. And i often spent three or 4 hours a day in the car. And thats you know, i the impact on my quality of life was enormous. And thats when i really started to kind of wonder like, why, why is this . Why we built cities this way . What does this do to us, you know, as drivers, as people, a community and i moved to tucson, arizona, to go to graduate school. And that difference of quality, of life, of moving somewhere. I relied on my car to get everywhere i needed to go to somewhere where i could bike and walk most places was so, so significant that like that is certainly what triggered this interest. I think many of us tend to see highway construction as, a response to demand. We are the populations of our cities that are growing. Weve got more more cars, more wanting to drive, and were just trying to keep up with that. But your book explores the idea, and its an idea thats been about for a while that widening our highways, expanding our highways really the effect of inducing demand. And i was wonder if you could talk a little bit about the concept of induced demand and how it works. And i think that, as you describe it, people in texas particularly will itll sound familiar to them. So the phenomenon of demand has been well understood since 1960s when we started building these highways to begin with. And the basic principle is when you add car capacity, cars will fill that up. Its basic supply and demand. When you make a good, cheaper and for people to access more people will access it. So they will move farther from their. Jobs. They will move farther from their schools. They might take more discretionary trips to the Grocery Store or the mall, more often than they otherwise would have. And that was first documented in 1962. And it has been documented again, again saying that when add lane miles cars thought those lane miles. Researchers at the university of california davis found that when you add 1 of lane miles, 1 more traffic results and, that is controlling for population growth, that has nothing to do with like more people driving. Its just people drive more per capita driving increases. So, again, this has been documented again. Again, some people call it the fundamental law of road congestion and. Yet we have a department of transportation, the Texas Department of transportation known as texting, who comes to every major city in the state and says, hey, were going to fix traffic by widening this highway. All the evidence shows that doesnt fix traffic. And so a lot of that kind of catalyst for my book was learning about a highway expansion in austin where i live, i35, which runs right through the middle of the city, just as it does here learning that intended to expand that from 12 to 20 lanes, promising to fix congestion and adding lanes would not fix congestion. And so i thought, why are we still doing this is the literal definition of insanity. Yeah. And i think i should out that while youre looking primarily at texas, i mean, texas is probably an extreme example of the phenomenon that youre describing this is this is a national issue. I mean, this is big cities throughout the country with this. Yeah, the book takes place in texas. But it is very much like kind of pitched the book as texas is the worst offender of something that everyone everywhere doing every state in the country democrat republican led. It doesnt matter every major city they have a massive highway expansion in the works. So bidens infrastructure bill you know dedicated Something Like half 1,000,000,000,000 to road what roadways. And a recent study found that about a quarter of that funding is going to highway expansion. So, you know, hundreds of, billions of dollars across the country are laying down more pavement for promising to fix. And like all the evidence shows that wont. I think one of the things thats underappreciated, i think you really emphasize this in the book and i think really i be very important for everyone to be able to to to read and understand stories is the fact that these highways are, again, not only dealing demand and trying to deal with traffic issues cities, but theyre shaping our cities. You know, theyre not this is always responding sprawl in many cases. If you look historically they have led to sprawl. Theyve contributed to sprawl and they have it which you talk about with houston and austin they contributed segregating the city and. I think if you would talk a little bit about i10, how i10 cut through fifth ward in houston and the impact that that had on and on the community there. Yeah. I mean its a kind of an adage that development follows roads roads dont development roads open up new land for development. And we have seen that in almost every city in texas. But when these highways were first built in the 1950s and sixties. So the interstate highway passed in 1956 under president eisenhower. Lots federal money became available to build highways and urban planners and cities across the country saw this opportunity not only kind of accommodate all the demand for cars also get rid of quote unquote blighted neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods that had been made blighted by the federal government a decade earlier through redlining, which is the practice of systemically denying access to credit to neighborhoods simply because black and hispanic lived in those neighborhoods. So a decade later, as were drawing these interstate routes, they to these neighborhoods, which there were lower property that people there had did not have the Political Capital to resist highway construction. And i came across a study that a modern day study found that red line neighborhoods, again, like neighborhoods that were denied access to credit just because they had minority populations in them were three times more likely to have an interstate highway routed through them than the best rated neighborhoods. Its you can see it again and again in the historical documentation. I spent a lot of time in library archives. I went to the National Archives in washington, d. C. To look at the Bureau Public roads, which is the predecessor of the federal highway administration. Its written in the record that these highways were an opportunity to of clean up, quote unquote, putting that big air quotes blighted neighborhoods. This coincided with the era of urban, which is a like a very acknowledged policy by the federal government to to demolish black and hispanic communities and the kind of the engine driving all of that was the creation of the suburbs. We, through our federal housing policy, incentivized white homeowners to move far from city centers they could access, you know, really great government, more government backed. So these white families were kind of flocking out to the suburbs and to get them there we built these massive highways. And a great example is you mentioned interstate ten in the fifth ward and houston. The fifth ward was then and a black community in the 1950s. You know, i talk to people who grew up there who remember it in the 1950s and sixties. It was like complete community. People walked everywhere. They needed to go. Most people didnt have cars. They didnt lock the doors on their houses. People just came and went, you know, it was like everyone knew everyone. So there was just really no reason to leave before integration. Well, you know, one day people started hearing rumors about a highway that was going to come through their neighborhood. This is before the Voting Rights act passed this before the Civil Rights Act passed. People, you know, got their mail one day and it said, hey, we need land for highway. We need your home for highway. And people had basically no way to resist or or do anything except move. So i talked to this one woman. Her name is honoree guidry. Her family was in middle school when her family got that letter. The texas Highway Department needs your home. And so they move, you know, three miles north of where they had lived before. But she was determined to graduate from Phillis Wheatley high school, which is like one of the most prominent black high schools, houston. So she walked to school day three miles to school there through high school because her family had been displaced by that highway. You know, i talked lots of people like her, that highway just like plow through the community. It demolished more than 1200 structures, took three full city blocks, and it just like emptied out the community, people started leaving, you know, the neighborhood they knew gone, the their friends, peoples friends were gone. People themselves like own area had been displaced. And so just like really like literally cut barrier through that community. And so its like split in half now people call the southern half of the fifth ward the bottom because its below the freeway. It was an example of someone who was a cheerleader and was forced to go to the dedication just, kind of celebrate the dedication of something that had really decimated this neighborhood where she grew up. Yeah. So i was looking for people who had been by the highways original construction. So i just started talking to the kind of like neighborhood leaders in the fifth ward, and i had barbecue one day with this woman, jane, who was telling me about the highways construction, and she happened to be like a majorette in the marching band at Phillis Wheatley high school. And so as part of that, you know, all these highways were big celebration. So there was a Ribbon Cutting when this highway opened. And the Phillis Wheatley High School Marching band performed. And so she marched down that highway. You know, its its totally clean. No cars have ever been on it, and its supposed to be this big celebration, right . Like progress has come to the fifth ward and shes, like, this wasnt progress. Like my neighborhood has been demolished like im not celebrating yet. Im a teenager. I cant. What can i except like trauma button on this highway go about my life and so like even at the time, i think, you know, a lot of people were really troubled by the creation of these highways. And in cities across the country, people revolted like there was a Mass Movement of against highway construction. The original freeway revolts in the the 1960s. You know, tens of thousands of people protested in golden gate park, san francisco, in washington, d. C. , you know, black and white people together, Multiracial Coalition of people protested highway construction. And a lot of these people effectively stopped highways like freeway fighters in the sixties, erased highway lines from maps before they could be built. You talked about the 1956 interstate highway act signed into by president eisenhower. And one of the many things i learned in this book that both president eisenhower and i think his chief advisor kind of helping to implement this this law, they were kind of appalled at the way this was being implemented in the various states in the country. Their for this was this is going to be something thats going to connect all the states of the country. They did not see it as this is going to be by states to deal with traffic congestion. And the idea of routing these highways through cities. This was not something that they envision right . No. Im like, i love this story. I mean, i dont love it. It makes me angry. But like, i loved finding as a reporter because it really kind of cracked the book open for me. So i went to the eisenhower president ial library, which is in beautiful abilene, kansas, and to try to find out like what was kind of narrative around the creation of the interstate system and indeed, you know, its called the national highway National Defense highway act. So sold it to congress as means to connect the country in case of nuclear attack, in case of war. Lets move goods and produce and, you know, economic across the country while at the same time the of this interstate, the interstate act passed was a 25 billion law. The biggest public works project ever attempted in american history. And the federal government agreed pay 90 of the cost of construction of these highways. Meanwhile cities like san antonio and dallas and you know, people were buying cars were so many more cars on, city streets, car car registrations jumped from like hundred thousand to 25 million in a couple of decades. So City Planners like, oh, my gosh, we have to do something to accommodate all these cars. And so had this tons of money coming in from the federal government and basically no strings attached. So they started doing what i just described, houstons fifth ward. They started building massive interstate highways right through the middle of cities to solve this kind of newly created problem of urban congestion. So the interstate highway act passes within a few years. Its running wildly over budget 11 billion over its 25 billion budget. And eisenhower appoints general john bragdon to look into the program. How is it being implemented . He wanted a report back on like whats happening with the implementation of the interstate highway program. So this guy bragged, looks into it and he realizes that the program is running wildly overbudget, largely because of urban route. Thats much more expensive. Build a highway in the middle of a city than it is out in farmland. And so he congress, hey, when you pass act did you intend for states to build highways through the middle of cities. The department of commerce goes and looks into it. They produce report and bragdon basically synthesizes all of this in a report that he he gives to eisenhower and actually that like a notecards of the presentation he gave to eisenhower. Theyve got Cursive Writing on them. You know, his his notes to himself. And the short answer is congress not intend for highways be built through the middle of cities when they passed the interstate highway system, the interstate highway act. It was not intended to solve urban congestion. And bragdon gives this really remarkable speech to eisenhower and a group assembled, you know, high ups in the government saying. Basically, all of the experts, the way to solve urban congestion is by building transit systems. And yet across the country, what cities are doing are actively out transit to build. You know, this guy is a republican hes an engineer. This is not a political conversation. This is pure geometry, like people take out more space than cars do. Like all of us in our cars would not be able to fit in this room. But here we are. And so he gives this presentation to eisenhower and others to say, you should tell the bureau of public roads to instruct states to stop using our money, federal money, which was designated to connect the country to, solve this new problem of urban congestion. So he gives this very compelling presentation. And like eisenhowers response to that is captured in like a memorandum written few days after the meeting. And he was really that his program being used in a way that he had not requested. So he responds, apparently in frustration, that the manner of running interstate routes through cities was against his wishes and those who had implemented it that way had done so against his desire. So so i found that i was like, it wasnt supposed be this way. This was not the intent of the program. This was never what was supposed to happen. But like, okay, well, why they change anything . Well, i think i found, like, eisenhower as secretary as daily notes in the archives. And she has this note that. You know, these guys were in for a meeting on the interstate highway program. Bragdon thinks that cities should directed to to not build highways through the middle of their cities, but like general parsons and others think would be murder to move in an election year. So its an election state. Money has been allocated to states. Eisenhower, is this like the states would rise up in arms if. We took away this money. The states electoral votes. The states have electoral votes. He wants, you know, his party to win reelection. And so is done. Well, you know, weve talked about sprawl. We talked about displacement and how communities have been affected. Businesses affected housing by what youre describing. One of the the mind blowing facts that is appears this book and comes from a Texas Department of transportation study was the the fact that on road emissions in account for almost one half of 1 of total Carbon Dioxide in the world. And dont know if you if you were aware of that when you started on the book but i if you didnt have it were you shocked i mean because i was when i read it i, i mean i know weve got issue with this, you know, with the emissions in texas. But thats thats an amazing statistic i was shocked and i wrote a story for the Texas Observer where used to work a cover story about highways in texas and that led to this book. And so when i was reporting that story, i was looking through like texas dot environmental and theres you know in this you know its like on road assessment of Greenhouse Gas. Its super wonky, super technical. And theres this like whatever this graph showing, texas emissions, its like worldwide emissions on road texas. And i think the point of the graph is to say we sure arent emitting that much on our roads. Look at this little circle. And i interpreted as we drivers in texas are responsible for half a percentage. All the emissions in the whole world. Thats like absolutely staggering to me that like that honestly fueled a lot of my reporting for the book is like that gives it the urgency like highway expansion is going to take peoples homes its going to pollute our air. All of those things are terrible. But what we absolutely know is it will significantly increase Greenhouse Gas emissions and its not going to solve the problem set out to solve. So we are like drivers in texas, these highway expansions that i profiled in the book have a measurable impact on Global Warming worldwide like that is really staggering to me and also is like an opportune city to be like, hey, we, we in texas if we stop these like that could also have a Material Impact on Worldwide Global climate emissions. One of things you document in the book this movement that has grown in opposition to of the the assumptions that were made about expanding highways. And you you look the opposition to expanding i35 in austin the opposition to expanding in houston and. A movement to remove. 340 4345. The elevated highway in dallas and it in the book it really felt like this something has really been building here over the last several years and its become of a coordinated multistate movement. Could you talk a little bit about how youve seen grow and and why you think that it is it has become the movement that it that it is now . Yeah, i absolutely sort of think were in a new wave of freeway revolts today. I started reporting on this in houston called stop text on i45 and thats this Grassroots Group just normal people learn about this massive expansion of a 10 billion project that will displace 1200 homes, 300 businesses and take 450 acres of land. Its absolutely. And this group. No, we dont want that. And they started going door to door across houston, knocking on doors of people lived in the footprint of the expansion or who the expansion would suddenly be in their backyards of it. A lot of them didnt know about it. Text out, had not done outreach to them. And so they started this like pretty remarkable grassroots Opposition Movement text and they successfully stopped that expansion for two years. So members of the group filed civil rights complaints alleging that the project violated title six of the Civil Rights Act because it so disproportionately impacted black and hispanic people. And the people in the footprint of the expansion, according to texas own analysis, are predominantly low income and minority populations. And so they filed civil rights complaints and the federal fha said, hey, text out, we need you to pause what doing on this project while we investigate these complaints complaints . You know, you can find out more about what happened with that in the book. But as a result of that, they really were like, were able to negotiate with texas that they had leverage. So it was like and this is just again, like young people in their twenties and thirties who really see the connection between highways and climate change, particularly houston highways, and increased like you laid out more concrete your city will flood more so kind of concurrently. As i was reporting the book, theres a group in austin, its called rethink 35 and they sort of grew up of the opposition to the i35 expansion that i mentioned earlier. And there has been for about a decade in dallas a campaign to remove i 345 which is this like elevated stretch of highway that bounds the eastern edge of Downtown Dallas and it impacts an enormous amount of land and the argument there is like we could put land to better use we could build housing on it, we could build affordable housing, we could build offices like whatever the Community Needs and wants. It is absolutely like a wasted opportunity to use that for a highway. So those campaigns are kind of happening separately. And what was very cool for to observe as a journalist is like over the four years i reported this book, they started talking to each other. They coordinating and realizing that the locus of power was not at the city council. It was not at their text on district. Its at this entity called the Transportation Commission, which oversees three that four people appointed by the governor. And so they started like organizing. They have biweekly zoom calls and they have organized several statewide protest in austin at the Texas Transportation Commission. And i think like seeing that kind of like growing coordinated movement in texas, thats also happening nationwide. There are freeway fighters in almost every city america. And they actually convened in cincinnati this fall. And i went to cover it for bloomberg. And like there are grassroots campaigns talking to each other, trying to figure out how to get to the root cause of these highway expansions. Why do they keep happening . How can we change policy to prevent them . As you pointed out, i mean, the real power, it comes to transportation in texas is the Texas Transportation Commission. And it it its really amazing to to read some of the accounts in the book and to get the sense that theyre theyre really sort of disinterested or in the sentiment of people in the communities that are going to be affected by some of these projects, whether it was the i35 expansion. In the case of the i45, you had someone that you write about ultimately filing a rights case with the federal government, put a pause on the project and my reading of it was that the Texas Transportation Commission kind, they were kind of vengeful about it and said, well, okay, parts of this project you might want, were going to, were going to were going to just didnt give that up. Youre like, i get that because youre trying to block this this expansion i45 and along those lines in san antonio we had an experience very similar where we had a project that was overwhelming only approved by voters it was a project dealing with broadway street, which runs north south from in san antonio. And the was going to provide bike lane for a stretch of of a broadway it was going to you widen sidewalks the Texas Transportation Commission had essentially turned over control of broadway to the city of san antonio. But i guess technically they still had ownership of it. So there were no objections from the Texas Transportation Commission after the bond was passed while the plans went forward and then suddenly at a certain point, the chairman of the texas transportation, bruce bugg, decided this wasnt this wasnt going to happen. And we had the mayor of san antonio adamantly in support of this. As i said, the voters of san antonio adamantly in support this. And the chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission did not care. I want to get kind of your thoughts about it. You wrote about this very well in the book. And as you point out in the book, there were a lot of questions, suggestion is that bruce bugg had had heard Governor Greg Abbott and that had affected because we hadnt really heard any objections to this for a long time and suddenly we did. Yeah, that was remarkable to me when happened like watching that unfold, as you said, the voters of san antonio approved this bond that, would have narrowed that road and added bike and pedestrian. So it would have taken away two lanes to add bike lanes and infrastructure that the voters overwhelmingly approved. And there was some technicality, like you said that the and they had not actually turned over ownership despite working texan engineers in san antonio and the city of san antonio and so like some some random meeting in february of 2022 theres an item on the agenda around about broadway and in a kind of the meeting was really remarkable kind of before he puts it to a vote says you know i want to give some context for this agenda item and says, you know, Governor Abbott has given us one directive. So all these commissioners are by abbott. They answer only to abbott. And the director of abbott has given us is to fix congestion abbott ran office promising to fix traffic and texas when he was elected he created this 5 billion program called texas clear lanes, which is kind of responsible for all of these needs across the state. And he said, i think that were moving capacity on this roadway would go against Governor Abbotts directive to us therefore we must take this facility back and keep it as a six lane road and its its absolutely undemocratic. Yeah. I dont im like speechless even now. Im like, i think, you know, everyone in san antonio was shocked by that. And i and like, it was sort of a mystery. Lots of people speculated i was never able to prove. Governor abbott called bruce back. But like bruce lives in san antonio like to mention like shout out if hes listening he know you can look in the property tax appraisal district and find out where he lives. Lives pretty close to broadway like he he knew about that project. There was absolute no way he was unaware of was happening and what the city of san antonio was planning and to just have this sort of vindictively removed from this project removed from the voters of san antonio like i found to be remarkable and i got a little bit of clarity on a few months later at Texas Tribune festival in austin, like a high up guy at textile was on a panel and there was a local reporter from Texas Tribune who said, like, hey, what happened . I was up with that and he was like, theres this quote and its in the book. And i still find it stunning. He said, like, you know, part of the the bond was to make that road safer. Lots of people injured or die on that road because its not welldesigned for bike or pedestrians. Cars move very fast on it. And so that part of the project and he said Something Like you know we understand the need to make texas roads safer but not at the expense of vehicular capacity because thats that should be the priority, right . Because thats our highest priority not texans lives. It is moving texans quickly. A car. Well, i mean, im going to pause to think about that for a minute. You know, one of the things that that i think that many of us have heard over the years is, you know, texas is unique geographically were such a big state. A lot of our cities kind of developed after the advent of the automobile, unlike of the cities in england and in the northeast. And so i was curious to get your take on the argument that we sometimes hear that Public Transit cant work on the same level in texas cities, that it would that we might see it elsewhere and that we and texans love the freedom of being able to drive their own cars. And its just the nature of the state. Its just not going to adapt to what we might see in other states. I want im just going to present that devils advocate argument and kind of get your take on it. Yeah, i love that question. And argument. I mean, how many of you love to drive . Okay, were going to gamble. Were going to gamble. I dont love to drive, but i in austin have to drive everywhere to get where im going there no other alternatives. And i think we have been sold this narrative that cars are freedom. Cars offers independence and autonomy and therefore should do everything in our power to incentivize car travel because thats what americans want thats what americans have so like thats what we do like our behavior is dictated by the infrastructure that is built for us. And then a state like texas, there just arent options. So i like i want to quarrel with the like and i know obviously not with you just with the argument that like texans love their cars like i would gladly get rid of my car if i had viable alternatives. The reason i am counted in the number of drivers on i35 is because i have no other options. So i think indeed, like to the people who love driving in here, like those who love driving should still encourage transit because it gets people like me off the road and you have a clearer road. You know, its like everyone should support that. Thats yeah, its a win win. Yeah, exactly. Its were to start taking questions in a minute. But i want to ask you one last thing. I think at one point, someone in the book and i apologize for not remembering who it was in regard to this this issue that were talking about is asked, whats the transition plan . Because obviously, even if we if we say were going to maybe remove some highways, that that better have caused more damage than than anything. And if we end, we start to move more toward Public Transit. Its its not an easy process. Its a time consuming process. What what would the transition look like . How would that work . When you look at that. Yeah, and thats a great question. And texas engineer asked that. And to go back to your previous question about sprawl like we have built cities the car its not easy to to reverse that its not going to happen tomorrow like we have to retrofit our cities in some way and there is going to be like some perhaps short term with that. I mean, i would argue that term pain is much less than the pain of living through the hottest summer on record for example like that like we absolutely have huge urgency to change how get around and move but like indeed that that and im not trying to undersell how difficult of a challenge that is i think for me its like i look at the money are going to spend on these highway expansions 65 billion over the coming decade imagine what we could do if put that money into bus Rapid Transit like imagine what we could do if we built light rail with that money. So i think like beginning to think about how we spend our as a state and what is it prioritizing and incentivizing is like to me the transition plan is like a bus that comes every 5 minutes instead of every 30. And as you pointed out in, in the book state law dictates that texas devotes, what, 97 of its budget, the roadways or highways . Yeah, according to the texas state constitution, 97 of our state funding is required to be spent on roadways. Right. Okay. So we can start some questions. We, though. Okay, lets start with sir. Thank you. We. This is kind of more of an observation, but, you know, we talk about how we dont like to drive. Right. And we talk about how these highways are just creating more congestion. But in this in san antonio, the voters have routinely against alternatives such as light rail. So do we change that narrative . Is it is it fear of the unknown . Why keep doing this . Its been born. How many times . Three times. Yeah. And overwhelmingly. And until such time as we feel the pain, i dont think you know. Or they or legislators change that percentage. Is there any i mean, any hope that the voters say one thing, but we act when go to the polls in a whole different manner. And so how do we bridge that gap . Yeah, i dont know that much enough about the votes that happened in san antonio. The same thing happened in austin. We rejected a transit bond twice. I will say, though, like i didnt vote on the i35 expansion, i havent voted on any highway expansion in the state of texas. And so im like, why are asking to be asked to vote on transit and . The answer is because the state does not fund transit. So cities are being asked to pony up more money to pay for transit system. So in austin where i live, we pass project connect agreeing as a city to raise our property. I think that was a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. Housing is incredibly expensive in austin and so the idea of paying more for housing to get transit was a hard sell. We ultimately passed it. I dont know the specifics of san antonio, but i would imagine voters are being asked to pay more in sales tax or some other kind of bond to for a transit system. And i think its like certainly like understand people are strapped for money and they might reject that but again like thats actually be the responsibility of the state our state transports an agency is only funding highways. I think thats the bigger. You speak to any document table connection between the oil industry and highways and everything youre talking about now. Yes. Is one i dont know enough about the oil industry specifically, but the connection like concrete companies and highway construction companies, is very clear. And the associated general is the lobby arm for the highway industry in texas. The people who build and maintain our highways and spend millions of dollars electing people like greg abbott and dan patrick. And so like the connection highway and concrete companies is very clear. The members of the Texas Transportation Commission certainly have connections to oil and gas money. I dont i didnt do the Investigative Journalism to document it. But like, you know, the laura ryan, whos a former commissioner, owned dealerships. I wonder if you think can you hear me whether gerrymandering is an issue here, too . We have 65 of the states, 30 Million People live in the five metro areas. And yet getting on i35 from here to austin and back as a nightmare, theres no level initiatives to deal with that. We had a 34 billion surplus in the last year of the Texas Legislature. There were no substantial mass transit initiatives that tapped into that money. So it just seems to me that the Republican Leadership in the state either doesnt accept the driven science induced demand or is some other reason for why they simply engage in mass transit. Yeah thats a great question. I mean, i think it is true of a lot of texas politics, which is like cities are dominated, rural interests like there is that absolutely dynamic in the Texas Legislature of like the liberal cities need to be constrained needs cant be you know that that that was the whole dynamic of the last session is like cities dont have the Authority Pass regulation the death start bill like basically kneecapped cities so like i think you see it in transportation which is like the chairman of the texas at the senate Transportation Commission is this man, robert nickels. He rural texas. He has an enormous of power. But like his constituents dont really need or want transit. I certainly think like in rural texas are an appropriate solution. But like, i mean, the like voters in texas dont have much power in the state legislature in many ways. Anifest n and one of them is transportation. Yes. In the book you dont really address the highway lobby, which is oil and gas motor vehicles, highway construction and suburban development. All those industries make a lot of money off of highway building and, you know, are you sure its the Transportation Commission thats making these decisions . Is it the highway lobby . Oh, i mean, its absolutely a story of political corruption. And i did do that reporting for my story in the Texas Observer that ran in 2021, looking the associated general contractors just as a as a slice of that highway lobby of how much money they give to texas politicians. And like i said, they give now theyve given more than millions of dollars to Governor Abbott to get him. So the Texas Transportation Commission answers to Governor Abbott, who certainly gets a lot money from highway contractors. So like, im not diminishing that at all. I think the political corruption is really important. I think, though, like the story i was trying to get at is, okay, so theres that, the political corruption, but theres also this idea that we have been sold that like cars are freedom. And that is something that i heard again, again like in hearings and at texas capitol, there was a hearing in 2021 to open up the state highway fund to fund transit. And someone was there testifying, saying oh, you know, Public Transit is for socialists highways or capitalism. Its reductive and absolutely false. Like you can disprove we spend millions and billions of dollars subsidizing highways but that that perception remains so like absolutely theres a story of political corruption. But i think theres also like a kind of theres a wrong correlation and like politically that like highways are i mean, transit is for like liberals, cities like thats disproven when you look in the 1960s about how people were talking about in the 1970s and 1980s, like reagan raised the gas tax and funded transit this this political dynamic that we live in today. Its new that the idea that transit is for liberals. Well that that actually was going to be my question. It was this associate or how we define how we think freedom that word and how that relates to transit. So you really kind of already answered it but if you wanted to pursue it a little more, feel free free. Yeah, i dont have that much more to say except like i certainly dont feel free chained to my car. I think a lot of people feel that way, particularly young people. Okay, i think we have someone back. Yes. Um, you mentioned concrete companies have Car Companies, especially american big Car Companies affected this in any way over whether it was the building 1962 or from then to now. I mean, Car Companies like, General Motors is of behind the inception of the interstate highway program, which i document in the book, like in the 1940s, their general sponsored this exhibit called highways horizons that basically sold roosevelt the idea of creating a like a, you know, interregional highway network, which eventually morphed into the interstate highway system. I didnt do the reporting to document how Car Companies have influenced how we spend our money, but like certainly if i had a year in some. Like that, like i have no doubt that the federal infrastructure bill was influenced by car money. I just havent documented think with had for one quick question is it is there anyone else who. Yes. Well get the mike over to. What . My question is this. The subject was the future of the highways and im in the design field and i know when we were taught on roads that dont widen it, you either find alternate route or an alternate transportation. And what my question when my of my generation when i would promote broadway wont this be they would say i dont im dont do a bike but when i talk with all these 20, 30 year olds, my nieces, they live near downtown, they bike to work, they will sometimes take cars. Its that rental system that are we in 50 years going to have dinosaurs, highways. Youre going to think we put all these billions of years and you take away two generations, my generation behind, us. And then all the 15 year olds, 20, 30, they wont be driving that much and theyre going to want transportation. And i just think this is wonderful, this proactive going, we dont need it. And ive been in conferences listening to and houston and they were trying not to cry when theyre doing these presentations. They thought for over ten years. And i just wish was an alternative just the future. Yeah. I mean to your point like young people dont want these like not just like you can see like drivers license registration for among young people is much lower. Its on the decline than it has been. But also like young people see connection between highways and climate change. I talked to this activist, 60, in portland and she protested the Oregon Department of transportation for two years, saying climate leaders dont widen the freeways. So i think theres like a parallel movement i will also say that like driving doesnt serve a lot of people like a quarter of texans dont drive when i was reporting this like my dad lost his ability to drive like its not just for young people lots of older people people who have any kind of disability prevents them from driving like our form of transportation and simply does not serve them. And so like i absolutely agree, theres a huge demand theres a latent demand for other forms of transportation besides driving, did you ever talk to like a think tank or some futuristic theyre looking at 75 years. Yes. And thank you for bring up the title of the session, which is the future of american. I was is like, yeah, i checked theres indeed ive talked to lots of think tanks and researchers. The ultimate argument of the book is we should tear these highways down. So i went to the city of rochester, new york. They removed a section of their inner loop highway and filled it in and built housing on top of it. And it is absolutely remarkable to see like land that used to just be exclusively for speeding cars polluted land concrete is now like three storey apartment complexes where people live and