City Council Speech
The following is a speeches I delivered to the Austin City Council on June 8th, 2023, pertaining to the planned expansion of Interstate-35:
Mayor Watson, Council members, and Staff, thank you for hearing me today. My name is Ches Weinfeld, and I am from Central Austin. I am here to voice my concerns about the expansion of I-35. I want to address how this expansion relates to your legacy, our current city government
It has been roughly half a century since the last major expansion of I-35. In this time our leaders have made decisions that has shaped city, creating the successes, and problems we face today. Our leaders at that time made the decision to respond to that period of extensive population and economic growth by supporting highways and sprawl. Their decision has left a legacy of congestion, a lack of affordable housing, a more dangerous urban environment, and a less united city.
Today we are at a similar crossroads. With the prospect of even more population and economic growth, and the struggles of climate change and an increasingly digital society, it is clear that the next 50 years will contain as much, if not more, change as has happened in our recent past. Like those made in years past, the decisions you all are making now in response to change will create a lasting legacy.
Please think carefully about what kind of legacy you want to leave. It has been shown time and again that highway expansion create more pollution, divide neighborhoods further, car-depedendence and therefore more housing unaffordability, increase the risk of auto and pedestrian fatalities, and don’t even fix the main problem they are meant to solve, traffic. Do not make mistake of expanding I-35 your legacy; instead, I am urging you all, particularly Mayor Watson, to vocally, and through a resolution, oppose TexDOT’s proposed expansion of I-35.
Your legacy will be my future; I am 18 now, and what happens to i-35 now will shape the city for the rest of my life. You can either support the expansion, a repeat of our past mistakes, creating a future for myself and the rest of Austin’s youth with more of our current problems, or you all can strive to create a better legacy, finally standing up to the endless cycle of bigger yet ineffective highways, and support and urban environment we can be proud of, instead of loathe like how many austinites feel towards the current state of I-35, by supporting alternatives to this expansion.
