An urban policy agenda for conservatives, mobility innovation, bad Austin-SA rail, and more

A few items this week:

• A great profile of the key role METRO board member Christof Spieler had in the recent successful launch of METRO's revamped bus network.  Congrats Christof on the culmination of a long passion project!
• Houston and Texas at the top for small business.
• Why Austin-San Antonio passenger rail doesn't make sense.
• Michael Skelly suggests some innovative ideas for improving mobility in Houston.  As I mentioned last week, I think shared ride services like UberPool have big potential to reduce congestion.  I also like his praise for our robust HOV network, which gives us the flexibility to do a lot of great things as technology evolves.

Finally, I'm generally non-partisan here, but I have to say I agree with a lot in this proposal of an urban agenda for conservatives.  The piece makes some good points about how Democratic one-party rule in a lot of cities has lead to a decidedly dysfunctional high-regulation and anti-opportunity agenda that, at its essence, doesn't seem very progressive.  Well articulated - worth reading the whole thing - but here's the final conservative urban policy agenda they propose:

"Some some possible elements of an urban agenda that come to mind: housing deregulation, charter schools, prison reform, occupational licensing reform, expanded income supports."

I'd add reigning in public employee unions to that, especially public pension reform.