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Governor Perry's plan to move the Capitol bus stop

Gov. Rick Perry and other members of the State Preservation Board want to move the busiest bus stop in town(pdf), located at the South entrance to the Capitol, and displace the nearly 3,000 riders of 27 bus routes who use the stop, based on what the Governor calls "security concerns." Perry believes that 7 or 8 buses back up all at once and block the exit closest to the stop.

The Bus Riders Union of Austin, Texas officially opposes this move as one that is short-sighted at best of the needs of our city's public transit users. Eight Central Texas lawmakers wrote a letter dated January 14, 2008(pdf), that insists that the security problem is non-existent. None of them, or us for that matter, have ever seen that exit blocked by buses, which have their own lane to operate in.

But if there is a problem with that stop, one day, instead of relocating the bus stop, which would cause headaches and distress to the thousands of riders who use it every day, it would be much more prudent to relocate the exit that the legislators and staff would use. The State Preservation Board wants to exclusively use the North gate as the entrance and exclusively use the South gate as the exit, ignoring the West and East gates.

 

Coverage of the issue: