Posted on 07/23/2008 6:54:30 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Taylor used to be a player in Williamson County, with it and Georgetown vying for funds and the attention of passers-through.
But no more, and despite what many city officials will tell you, it will not be a player unless something is done to counteract the rapid growth of surrounding communities. What needs to be done is, Taylor needs to forget its past and embrace something residents see as so vile, that when I first arrived here I thought its mere mention was a dirty word. I am speaking of Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor.
The Texas Department of Transportation (another dirty word in Taylor) shows the superhighway running just west of town, next to the airport and up through U.S. 29 just west of S.H. 95 — coincidentally, right through the property of the avid TTC opponent who showed me the possible path.
Certainly this would destroy the farmland of several area farmers. Some it would leave alone. To the losers, any compensation would not make up for these agriculturists losing their most prized possession.
Still, with rising expenses in an already risk-laden enterprise, I wonder how many farmers would object to their land being sold at the highest reasonable value possible. And if negotiated right, those who would be hardest hit by eminent domain (yet another Taylor dirty word; I’m on a roll here!) may end up with incredibly valuable commercial real estate as businesses would clamor to snatch up land adjacent to the highway.
The superhighway would singlehandedly put Taylor back on the map in Williamson County. It’s no secret that west Williamson County is getting all the attention lately with county spending. And this is not due to any vindictiveness of commissioners or a conspiracy. It is pure numbers. People are going to Leander, Cedar Park and Liberty Hill, so that’s where the money is going, too.
The similarity between those three cities? Their location along an expanded toll road. Those cities’ willingness to accept large highways has led to their prosperity, and henceforth greater benefits.
Still not getting the picture? Look at Hutto, which has grown so rapidly that government Web sites still list its population as less than a 10th of its actual size. In less than a decade it has gone from Taylor’s whipping boy to the bully next door.
Taylor may still have a slight advantage over Hutto as of now, but with its continued rapid growth, more than doubling in two years, believe me, soon Taylor will be Hutto’s whipping boy.
And why?
State Highway 130, the toll road (eww dirty!) which opened less than two years ago.
The TxDOT superhighway would send hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks through the area a day, with vast amounts of out-of-towners opening their wallets to local businesses. It would deposit thousands of Austin commuters into residential areas, thus increasing property values and therefore school funding. It would attract businesses that want to be in the metropolitan area but not in the hyper-expensive Austin downtown, thus creating more jobs for Taylor.
In the end it may not be up to us. But to be fundamentally opposed to something that very well could be a boon to the city’s economy is less than unsound, backward thinking — it is self-destructive.
So, naysayers may as well end road repair projects, shoot down any municipal spending, and disband the Taylor Economic Development Corporation. Hey, why not? If you can’t embrace progress, let’s embrace a slow death.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
Some of us, including many of the residents of Taylor, enjoy the “small town, leave me be, don’t tread on me, my property is exactly that” mentality that a small town delivers.
The author is one of those types that moved from a hell hole to Texas and, despite all reason and logic, is now working to change yet another part of Texas to be more like “home”.
Look where it’s gotten us. Aint that “progressive”. Leave our small towns alone you dipshit. We were fine before you got here and we’ll be fine for a long LONG time to come.
I wish I had a pic of that Anti-TTC protest wagon out on 95, I drove past it last weekend. Taylor has issues. A definte town in need of revival. I used to work there, and found it is in a slow revitalization. Ever since ERCOT got located there.
Man you hit that nail on the head. Send the carpet baggers home to the filthy, multicultural hell holes they created for themselves.
Typical "All change is good and Naysayers are Neanderthals" spiel.
As The Obamasiah said:
"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.
I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it."
BTTT
I am beginning to think that a few of these people need to hear the sound a bullet makes when it hits the wall next to your head or shatters the coffee cup in your hand. Just feeling the heat from the round is something you never forget. That’s when you fully understand the definition of “a close miss”.
Sooooo.... sell out Texas, sell out America, embrace globalism, and strengthen China and Mexico... all in the name of some more money.
Yeah, that’s working wonders for the United States now.
I’ve always thought that the first shots in the next American revolution will be heard in Texas.
If they keep screwing with the state it may come to that. The musings of an independent state have been growing louder over the last 10 years. The first thing that’d happen is a forceful removal of all these dunderheads that should’ve stayed in California.
If I move down there from Maryland, will you let me stay if I wear a cowboy hat and yell “yeeeeeeeee-haw” a lot?
Of course! You will have to learn ‘howdy’ and ‘yall’ also.
Yes. All small towns must assimilate to the big city mindset. Serve the borg. Serve the state. Surrender your rights.
Houston used to be the biggest small town around until Mayor Lanier (term limited out) and his two hand picked successors (Mayor Brown and Mayor White) got with the downtown business partnership to run things as they saw fit.
Brown and White were both figures from the Clinton administration. Brown had a past history with Houston but also a past history in the NYPD.
I’m sick of carpetbaggers mucking it up.
As a resident of Taylor for the past 13 years, I would like to throw in my two cents. I moved here from the west side of Houston to get away from the hustle and bustle. The only drawback that I find in Taylor is the lack of a fully stocked grocery store.
I don’t want hundreds of thousands of people driving through town every day. I like the pace of life, the fact that I can see fields of crops every day as I drive to work, and the relative silence of the evenings.
By using 973 or 130 I can be in Austin in 20+ minutes. I have worked in Hutto for 13 years and have seen first hand the horrible effect of un-checked growth. Cheap houses are springing up at an alarming pace, traffic is congested, roads are terrible because of all the construction.
TTC? I know it for what it is. A vehicle to ship duty-free Chinese made products into the US. A vehicle to hasten the NWO by ‘uniting’ North America. When I-35 was built, ample right of way was purchased for expansion. Use that land, not some of the richest farm land in Texas, or better yet don’t build the stupid thing - just expand the highways we have already paid for.
If this writer wants change so much, maybe he should live in Cedar Park, or Pflugerville, or south Austin, or move his yankee ass back up north.
If he wanted what I want, peace and quiet, rodeos and tractor pulls, dove hunting, farmer’s markets, the ability to hear church bells Sunday mornings, community festivals, and family values, then Taylor is perfection.
Exactly.
That’s unnecessary (though funny). We’re just a bunch of “good ol’ boys” with old fashioned morals and values and prefer to be left alone. Nothing irritates me more than a high falootin’ city boy coming out here with his fast talk manipulating the non street wise natives into whatever he deems appropriate.
Now, I do know some cowboys who do wear cowboy hats (coworker actually). They don’t yeehaw too much, but they’ll educate you in a hurry :)
Preferably in the same sentence and placed closely together.
It may give them a reason to sit down and read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence for, I am quite sure, the first time in their lives. They may also realign their value of a dollar with corrupt business practices.
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