This article is my attempt to cut through the wall of transportation propaganda and demonstrate that quality public transportation is easily affordable for the State of Texas.

What if you live in a major Texas city and are concerned about climate change? What if you need to spend more on your family and less on your car? Probably the most effective action you could take is to use public transportation instead of driving. Using public transportation could increase your cash and significantly reduce your carbon footprint. Texas is the top CO2 emitter and probably the top methane emitter as well. The transit option, however, is deliberately made so impractical that very few Texans can even consider this mode. There is effectively no choice in transportation offered by the State of Texas.

This article is about a simple and obvious idea which I call Cycle & Ride.

The 2015 Texas Legislative Session must be regarded as a transportation failure. The Texas transportation system is getting worse because the partisan interest is centered on increasing highways and motor vehicles. The highway system has reached a point where congestion cannot be solved because there are too many cars, not enough space, and there will never be enough money. We can safely predict that pollution, congestion, and expenses will increase, and the quality of life will decrease, as a result of partisan mismanagement of the transportation system.

The future of Texas, as envisioned by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) in the Statewide Long-Range Transportation Plan 2040 (SLRTP), is a dystopia of vast suburban road grids, endless traffic jams, and huge highway spending. According to projections used by TxDOT, the population of Texas will grow to 45 million people by 2040, and transportation spending will rise to $21 Billion per year (2016 Budget).