Lots of people love the bucolic life outside the city limits. They love the trees, the wildlife and the lack of proximity to other people, but they don't love traffic and they really don't love paying taxes - some even live outside the city limits specifically to avoid paying City of Austin taxes. Trouble is, they need taxes to pay for their roads. So they got an idea. Travis County got a wonderful, awful idea: take the taxes paid by people living in the City of Austin and use them to pay for roads exclusively outside the city limits!
Travis County has two bond proposals on the ballot November 8. They are nicely divided. Proposition 1 is $123 million for road improvement projects, mainly to connect subdivisions to highways. It includes $3 million for TBD "bike safety projects," which they have rated last in their list of priorities. Proposition 2 is $82 million for parks and land conservation projects. It is understandable that Austinites might want to pay for parks outside the city limits, but why should we pay to build a road to your subdivision?
Travis County takes nearly as big a chunk of Austinite's property taxes as the City of Austin, but Travis County spends those taxes disproportionately outside the city limits. That's fine so long as the projects benefit all Travis County taxpayers, but roads to subdivisions only benefit the people living in those subdivisions. They should pay for their roads themselves. Vote "NO" on Travis County Proposition 1.
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