There is traffic enforcement in Austin. The problem is that is in only performed in two places and only at rush hours. North MOPAC and South MOPAC. You can see 3-4 officers shooting radar North MOPAC between 183 and Parmer every single weekday morning.
These locations allow them to write a lot of tickets in a condensed area in a short amount of time.
So when more pedestrians die on surface streets downtown or in the neighborhoods and on the arterials like congress, burnet, lamar, etc, and the public gets back in an uproar about lack of traffic enforcement, Chacon can print out the report and say, "Look, we wrote 1 brazillion tickets last month, which is on par with every other years. We're doing our part!"
But no one ever notices that those tickets were all written to people going 70 mph in a 65 mph zone on a freeway, where there is never any traffic complaints or deaths and all of the known traffic issues and red light running continues to occur in all of the same places it has always happened.