You can argue your empty shade all you like, I don’t care.
I’m talking about the ones who don’t want help and are a scourge to the ordinary people who want to go about their business without being molested or subjected to the filth that they generate. I have read plenty from downtowners who have described how Republic Square at times is not a place they’d care to visit because of the street bums.
Get them off the streets and into a facility for treatment. But that is for another thread.
Given the state of lack of control by the current & recent city “leadership, spending $130 million will attract more of the same and will cut back access to the central core and Capitol area for all Texans. That is pure folly IMO.
New York City had a brilliant idea by converting a defunct elevated railroad line snaking through the city into a beautiful walking promenade & park. You are probably aware of the now famous High Line project.
While Austin obviously doesn’t have ant defunct elevated rail lines, similar structures could be built from scratch for the pedestrian/parkways - have one a block or two west of Congress running north & south and another a block or two east of Congress with both stretching from Caesar Chavez up past the Capitol complex towards UT.