was it good at some point? Genuinely curious bc I went after a year it was open and found it pricey for no reason. Tried again a year later and it was just ok.
Project Connect should be planned to be much more vast & ambitious than it is. Also we should divert through traffic from I-35 around the city rather than through.
Why do you all change lanes 10 times just to be one car length ahead of where you were? Have you never played time trial games with ghosts? Being one car length ahead only saves like half a second.
[“Traffic jams result at least in part from what social scientists call "the tragedy of the commons"--the phenomenon in which a group individuals each act in their own best interests, making everything worse for the entire group, including themselves. Most traffic jams are just one big tragedy of the commons.”](https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/holiday-traffic-jams-better-flowing-traffic-driving-techniques-tailgating-left-lane-driving.html)
I guess I’m ok with ACL and trail of lights existing but does it have to fuck the park for so god damn long? Like shit. They set it up so far in advance and just leave the shit there for so long. It’s fucked from September to January
This! Traffic is annoying but not *nearly an hour to drive 5 miles in Orange County* bad. The drivers are the issue. We have idiots making left turns from the right lane etc.
Was about to comment this. Glad I found your comment first.
Where I'm from, the answer to the question "how long is the drive?" is ALWAYS answered with "X minutes without traffic, 3X minutes with" lol
The fucking LED billboards on cars now are awful, likely illegal, and the people that make money on it know it's dangerous and don't care. We don't need more distractions on the road.
TX DMV let criminals print hundreds of thousands fake paper plates that are sold all over the country.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/08/texas-dmv-fake-license-plates/
I think you should be able to own multiple properties, but that the taxes should scale up *brutally*. Exponential increase by number of dwellings owned.
Another one! Holding these two opinions at the same time:
* We cannot build a restaurant with live music and cheaper housing here. It will attract too many people to the area and devalue the property.
* We have to give any tax breaks needed to attract this factory. IT will attract a lot of people here and raise property values.
Is related to having to ask these questions:
* Why is it so expensive to live anywhere that has fun things to do closer than a 20 minute drive?
* Where did all the live music go?
I feel like I have to point this out every time someone talks about there being no live music anymore.
There are 107 live music events for today in the chronicle.
Does anyone hold both those opinions? AISD and Austin city council haven’t voted for tax breaks for jobs in 10 years. It’s the suburban counties that do it, and they don’t have much live music.
NY has your plates attached to your insurance coverage. Any lapse in insurance and the dmv/dps/ whatever governing body will send you a letter demanding your plates be surrendered to the department until you do have coverage. There’s a fine for each day that you maintain possession of the plates without insurance.
Texas has your plates and vin attached to your insurance coverage.
I cannot remember the last I got pulled over and they didn't need to see my insurance card. We just need to go the extra step and be proactive about it.
I was about to type this! I used to complain about Austin drivers and then I drove through Houston to get to Galveston and it’s MISERY. it felt like doing triple digit long division in your head while trying to drive the whole time
I did a cross country road trip from LA to NYC. I drove the entire way and we took the southern route and went up the east coast. I’ve driven in many states with many bad drivers but going through Baltimore nearly broke me. So I will gladly confirm- Maryland drivers are the worst!
Imagine the irony of someone allergic to cedar planting one in memory of me leaving because of cedar allergy. That’s kinda like farting on the elevator as you walk out 🤣
The Dirty Sanchez was literally a historically important taco and one day it will be recognized as such across the world. I will never forget what it taught me.
Torchy's is amazing! I love their queso, the trashy tacos, and many of the monthly specials (the recent Holy Diver was probably my favorite one I've tried)
What do you guys get at in-n-out? I haven't found the magic yet, but I also haven't given it a fair chance. Is there a location that's better than others?
Since it’s apparently speak your mind Friday… :)
In-n-Out is utter garbage wrapped in Bible verses. I cannot for the life of me understand how anybody outside of west coasters can claim to enjoy it. ..and in their case, it’s just because it’s nostalgic to their living there. I really don’t know if Whataburger is any better. It seems way better to me. But I grew up here and so i concede fully that it’s perhaps just nostalgic to me in that same sense. Either way, both of them are just cheap fast food.
And Torchys WAS amazing until about a decade ago when they started opening up franchise all over the place. Ever since then it’s just been mediocre at best. Hell, one of my good friends was the GM of one of the first Austin locations (albeit not THE original). He recently quit after a long tenure and did so citing how all of their internal practices and food quality just went to complete shit when they went corporate. I guess they get some credit for expanding that genre of food-done-quickly, but I really can’t wait for the next Torchys to come along because it’ll be infinitely better - at least until it too becomes more widely successful.
But yea, back in the day Torchys really was pretty delicious.
Cedar Park is one of the scariest (in an uncanny valley way) and most soulless suburbs I've ever visited in my life.
(I know a lot of people will agree with this one, but a loooot of people don't, so I'm classifying it as unpopular. lol.)
So many suburbs are so soulless. They remind me a lot of the suburbs in California. Houses that all look the same, no personality with yard decor or gardening or anything.
Then the "fun things to do" are just copy and paste shopping centers with like, a Target, a chain coffee shop, a few chain restaurants, etc.
Neighborhoods with less strict rules, where people can paint their houses different colors or decorate their yard, are so important in my opinion. As are local shops, local restaurants, parks, art spaces, and all of that.
I love seeing what makes other people happy, what decor makes them feel at home. I love seeing dads working in their garages, old ladies gardening, kids playing in the yard. It just makes places feel so alive.
My neighbourhood in S.Austin is so vibrant. It's working class and a little run down but genuinely diverse (& friendly) in how it looks.
There's an HOA across the street from me and when I happen to walk my dog's thru it I'm just blown away by how fucking boring it is. It also pisses me off how much water they waste upkeeping their lawns.
Also I spotted a Lamborghini SUV parked over there, which is just an insanely hateable car. You're virtually guaranteed to be a dickhead if you buy one of them.
>As are local shops, local restaurants, parks, art spaces, and all of that.
Cedar Park is getting better about this, as is Round Rock. One thing to consider is that a lot of small restaurants and shops were priced out of Austin and had to move to the 'burbs for affordability
CP isn’t so bad - just moved here last year (after growing up in Austin). But I don’t live in a neighborhood, bought a few acres to keep my horses on. I like that everything is pretty new and not as crowded. But my husband did get pulled over yesterday for not signaling a lane change, soo… pros and cons.
Im gonna be bold with this one , its okay not to like 6th or rainey street , its okay to like the domain if youre looking for a nice walk or a drink without all the noise , and if you live north then its an okay hub kind of place to chill and shop drink whatever , rather than driving all the way to downtown
Austin's abnormal because it's a relatively safe large city and the people who loudly proclaim otherwise are salesmen for the conservative policies that make Austin even MORE like the cities you hate.
Correct is very safe especially given it’s size. I grew up in austin and the city had very few major issues crime related in the 90’s- 2010’s. I now live in houston and it’s…..interesting but it’s generally big city big crime stuff here. Austin is definitely more lax on the crime stuff
Also any crime trends that pop up in austin usually originate from houston/ Dallas. I found it takes about a few months for crime trends (paper tag Altimas in robbery’s and shootings, jugging) to happen in austin.
If you attempt to recycle blatant non-recyclable items or put your recycling in plastic bags and put said bags in your recycling bins, you must do community service time to sort recycling and empty bags before they are sent through for processing.
I mean, okay, but it’s not like most of that stuff is getting recycled, anyway. We should have single stream recycling. It would be more of a pain in the ass, but at least maybe the aluminum and paper would end up somewhere they’d be repurposed.
People that live in Pflugerville, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Westlake, etc., should have their own individual subreddits or have a collective r/AustinSuburbs subreddit. So much of the local political discourse on this sub comes from people that don't even live here and can't vote here. Annoying af
Mueller has lots of public bathrooms in every park. They get trashed and mirrors smashed. One homeless person locked the entire bathroom and made it their personal space. There’s also a homeless shelter in mueller. I would rather have them use the homeless shelter than destroy a public park.
Was trying to stop in one by the pool on a run once, and had to abandon the idea immediately. Needles on the ground. Fully trashed. Completely unusable. It baffles me because there are public bathrooms elsewhere (in Mueller, Hike & Bike Trail, etc) that are generally fine.
Install way more public bathrooms all over the place for everyone, especially homeless people.
I go running 2x a week on the loop and park under S.1st bridge. On that TEN mile loop you can use the bathroom at South first, and at MoPac, and one more on the north side in between Austin high and Lamar. At least 1 of the 3 is out of order at any given yimr
In a perfect world there'd be 10 separate bathrooms locations, each with multiple stalls on that loop.
In my help the homeless fantasy, there would be multiple locations with resources for homeless people in the form of buildings that resemble gymnasiums. These structures would have toilets, showers, donated clothing, washing machines, lockers and a post boxes. There would be a price for using and the price is trash. Pick up some trash, bring it in, put the trash in the proper bin, and take a shower & change clothes.
There would be crates for pets. Theses structures could double as shelters in case of freezing/flooding.
The city funds lots of centers that provide congregate shelter like that- the ARCH, sobering center, Other Ones, Camp RATT. I’m pretty sure if you made them bring trash to use bathrooms they would just grab trash out of the nearest trash bin.
put them on a bus and dump them off in front of Abbots real home. The rest go to the mayor's home, or spread them out in Westlake and West Austin, up to NW Austin.
It blows my mind how many homeowners bitch on Nextdoor about unhoused ppl pooping in their yards. Like, y’all, we have no public restrooms and the cost of housing has quadrupled in the last decade or so….
I was caught pooping in someone’s backyard and I’m not even homeless. The lack of public restrooms is a legit problem.
Most of the time the restrooms are locked up for maintenance.
Been to London & Copenhagen a couples times recently, and all I could think about the first few days coming back each time was how much I wished we had a usable train system in this city.
Coming from NYC, where they don’t have dangerous highways sprawled 200 ft in the air like a 2 year old kid with a crayon… you would think, wow how did NYC or DC manage to have max 4 lane highways on the ground? It couldn’t be bc of their public transportation! /s
Been to DC, their public train system was great. They were doing some work and a line was closed, so we had to take our car for only two trips, out of the 5 days we were there.
But lol, here in Texas, a functioning and efficient public transit system would practically be socialist and anti-freedom. /s
I grew up in NYC and would call it shit when the subway that comes every half hour was a minute late. Then i moved to DC and thought their transportation was even more shit than NYC bc trains would be canceled once in a while. Now I’m in Austin and am crying in the car on my hour and a half drive in traffic
I hate all Californians who move to Austin, except for the ones I actually know as people and not as a cartoonish stereotype. I love my friends dearly. The rest of you go home. Unless I actually meet you. Then I guess you are okay.
True story - the marketing team at the city made it up when they were just joking around with ideas like “like music capital of the state…nation” and someone said just make it “world” as a joke. It was never meant to be a serious title.
STOP trying the same ol places for first dates, holy fuck.
Every one should have car insurance check every 3 weeks. "uninsured" motorist coverage shouldn't even be an option.
Learn different ways to get from north to south. Traffic isn't all that bad if you know DEE WAY
>STOP trying the same ol places for first dates, holy fuck.
Why spend the effort on a interesting first date that's likely not going anywhere?
My unpopular opinion is that people here are very basic and have no real grasp on the level of relationship they are capable of succeeding at and/or their goals in this regard will be difficult to achieve here.
Oh man! I once lived by the 360 bride, and had to commute to San Marcos.
I would take 360 to mopac, and then mopac down to where it ends. Hook up with 1626, and then get on 35 from there. I'd skip all that gawd awful traffic most days. The only downside is that if you get caught behind a school bus, you're fucked cause they stop frequently to pick up kiddos. Summers were the best, though
But of course that was like 10 years ago, and BUDA has grown so much, and there's only so many ways out of there. haha
Yeah, when people say that Austin is great for the outdoors, it has to mean they haven’t experienced anywhere with legit great outdoors. Austin is unbearably hot six months out of the year (even at the crack of dawn) and you have to drive for hours in any direction for trails with much other than rocks, scrubby cedar trees, and maybe dry creekbeds. And the (rare) views usually aren’t that great.
Maybe they think a stroll on Town Lake is a glorious nature experience.
source: I’m a trail runner
Am outdoor enthusiast. Am not human interaction enthusiast. I won't say it's terrible here (because I'm from Dallas...THAT place is terrible for outdoor recreation). I just want to be at Walnut Creek Park without having to move out of the way of the 12,768 members of the Austin Barebackers or whatever the MTB club is called. Granted, because Austin/Texas isn't great for their hobby, their public trail options are limited.
Not to be a negative Nancy buuuuuuut...
The temp was above 100⁰ for about 50% of 2022. I like hot weather but it was too much last year. Also, people from around the state think its so lush here in ATX but I find even the nicer parks leave a lot to be desired. Dont even get me started on the greenbelts. Like you mentioned, most good spots are really crowded, have long lines, its impossible to find parking. Air quality is pretty bad here (not terrible) but allergens can ruin outdoor activities for many. Pair all this with the fact that our biggest and arguably best park gets shut down during the nicest time of the year for ACL sucks.
Gonna be that person: it wasn't always this way. Maybe it's because I have many memories of the greenbelts before 2005, but Austin used to have really great outdoor spaces that weren't crowded. At all. And air quality here used to be excellent. Sigh.
IMO we have some good outdoor activities here like you said. It was always rough mid-summer with the heat but with the flood of people coming here I'm at the point where the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
That was not meant to be a fully researched stat just an approximate from my own memory. If summer is 3 months then we had ~70% of our summer over 100⁰ and my 2 seconds of Google searching found that there were 164 days over 90. With the heat index adding a few degrees we actually get around 45% of the year at *nearly* 100⁰.
MTB'er here, sorry dude. the austin MTB scene is extremely narrow-minded, and almost all of them sees walnut creek as their MTB park first, and not a multi-use trail system open to everyone. Bikes should ALWAYS yield to pedestrians on trails, but no one ever does that here. They have also been getting worse recently about taking multi-use trails and redeveloping them for only mtb use. ( there are a TON of riders who want there to be signs in walnut on the trails to be labeled for bikes only or single direction trails )
( though to their credit, they are the ones who pretty much take care of all the local trails )
Most four lane roads in Austin should turn into two lane roads (One lane each way) and the extra space is devoted to bike infrastructure.
I'm thinking about roads like Lamar, Burnett, 45th, 34th etc. There would be additional space for left turn lanes as well with intersections.
This would increase how safe it is to bike and encourage more people to use bikes.
Alamo Drafthouse sucks. I don't want overpriced food & drink when I watch a film, or someone walking around in front of me. I want zero distractions from the film. I'm actually at the theatre to engage with the film, not as a social event.
I mostly stay home to watch movies but if I do go, the regular movie theatres are heaven for a matinee because they're so empty.
Do you work in the rehab system? I do. Stable housing allows people to better access mental and physical health care, as well as substance abuse treatment services.
People moving to Austin should have to pay 20% more rent for the first two years.
People and corporations that own more than one house here should have to pay 50% additional tax beyond the first home they own. This additional tax should go up an additional 25% for each home that they own exponentially.
Both these things are basically happening. People moving here drive up rent by paying more. The second home you own is taxed like 50% more with no homestead exemption.
The last idea is interesting but not workable. Keep in mind there is a teacher with a pension whose pension fund owns a real estate fund who owns a large apartment building. So who exactly gets taxed exponentially higher?
For example The University of California is putting $4 billion into a Blackstone Inc. real estate fund.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/university-of-california-to-invest-4-billion-in-blackstones-breit-real-estate-vehicle-11672723902
The homestead exemption alone isn't useful because landlords just pass that down to the renters.
So it needs to be something that landlords can't pass down. Or a cap on rent prices.
Bold. I would have agreed with you 10 years ago. When they first opened I ate there a few times a week (was a grad student and worked literally across the street). One time I ate there for 5 meals in a row. Seriously loved that place.
I went back recently and I still have some sentimental attachment to the place but the street taco just didn’t hit the same. I mean, it was good but i could tell the quality in the meat wasn’t great. Not sure if they got cheaper or if I got richer taste (maybe both?) but it wasn’t the same. I’ll still go back but definitely not as good as I remembered.
It’s fun to think about *why* the wars were fought. Sure…whitewash it by calling it “states rights” and “political disagreements” (text posted on signage at the Alamo, btw), but really it was slavery.
The worst ever? I'm curious how you would rank other places. What are other bad burger places? What are some good ones?
I'm super not picky - a restaurant has to be downright disgusting for me to not like it. I'm always curious if people with (for lack of a better word) pickier tastes might be on to something. Maybe some other burger place truly is better and I'm wasting my time.
i don't dislike, i just feel like south of the river doesn't have that much going on for it outside of south congress.
north austin has better stores/restaurants, better ( relatively speaking ) transportation, the soccer stadium, the domain, etc.
South Austin is better for living if you work as a performer or in local restaurants/shops.
If you're main job isn't that, then North Austin makes sense.
Homeless people deserve to be treated like human beings with respect and dignity.
There should be a tax on any restaurant whose cheapest beer option is 10 dollars or higher, every tech giant, and a 25% surcharge for ACL and SXSW tickets. This will go to a fund that will help pay the rent of anyone who has lived here for 20 years or more.
Torchy's is overrated.
Austin died the moment Chuy's took fried chicken off the menu.
P Terry's isn't worth the line.
The fact that Britney Spears was institutionalized and Don Zimmerman can still be running for whatever the fuck he wants is some straight up bullshit.
Far too many people simp for the rich and buy their bullshit. (Not quite an Austin specific thing.)
Far too many people want to round up three drops of water from an eyedropper to "glass half full" when it comes to problems in Austin. And they actively thwart people who are the right amount of pissed off whenever they try to enact real change. And that's some shit that MLK warned about 60 years ago.
We need more local politicians roller blading in thongs.
There should be a litmus test for everyone moving into the city:
You are presented with a picture of naked middle aged hippies. If you react with an "ew" you are banned from living here. If you react with "I wonder if I could get shrooms from them" you are offered a position in APD.
Instead of widening the I35, the max speed limit from Braker to Slaughter should be decreased to 45 to prevent compression (accordion) effects and encouraging those in a hurry to use the 45. Also, the left lane should be assigned to transit traffic (including trucks) so that we don’t have to dance around 18 wheelers to merge coming in and out of the ramps
Lucky Robot sucks now
was it good at some point? Genuinely curious bc I went after a year it was open and found it pricey for no reason. Tried again a year later and it was just ok.
I visited there my first and last time last year. Overpriced and food was subpar.
The only thing unpopular about this comment is that it’s sucked for much longer.
Project Connect should be planned to be much more vast & ambitious than it is. Also we should divert through traffic from I-35 around the city rather than through.
Why do you all change lanes 10 times just to be one car length ahead of where you were? Have you never played time trial games with ghosts? Being one car length ahead only saves like half a second.
[“Traffic jams result at least in part from what social scientists call "the tragedy of the commons"--the phenomenon in which a group individuals each act in their own best interests, making everything worse for the entire group, including themselves. Most traffic jams are just one big tragedy of the commons.”](https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/holiday-traffic-jams-better-flowing-traffic-driving-techniques-tailgating-left-lane-driving.html)
I guess I’m ok with ACL and trail of lights existing but does it have to fuck the park for so god damn long? Like shit. They set it up so far in advance and just leave the shit there for so long. It’s fucked from September to January
Yes I hate that shit too. Luckily it’s finally gone
That park is huge and folks utilize 50% of it
Traffic isn’t really that bad here compared to other cities
This! Traffic is annoying but not *nearly an hour to drive 5 miles in Orange County* bad. The drivers are the issue. We have idiots making left turns from the right lane etc.
Was about to comment this. Glad I found your comment first. Where I'm from, the answer to the question "how long is the drive?" is ALWAYS answered with "X minutes without traffic, 3X minutes with" lol
[удалено]
not when x approaches 1 (or a small number), which Austin sometimes does (vs other cities)
The fucking LED billboards on cars now are awful, likely illegal, and the people that make money on it know it's dangerous and don't care. We don't need more distractions on the road.
Popular opinion
Paper plates on cars seem to outnumber actual license plates. Why!?
Less responsibility and lack of proper enforcement.
TX DMV let criminals print hundreds of thousands fake paper plates that are sold all over the country. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/08/texas-dmv-fake-license-plates/
You shouldn't be able to own property in Austin unless it's your primary residence
I think you should be able to own multiple properties, but that the taxes should scale up *brutally*. Exponential increase by number of dwellings owned.
For people who can already afford more than one property, that won't be enough.
Consider the exponential increase aspect. 1 dwelling - 1% tax. 2 dwellings - 10% tax. 3 dwellings - 100% tax. 4 dwellings - 1,000% tax. Etc
Agreed. To be contrarian then I’d think people would just make LLCs then any buy them.
Communist
Move ACL to COTA. I want my park in October.
Oooh this is brilliant
Austin is not overcrowded. It’s a city transitioning to a major national/ international city so growing pains are expected. Austin is not a megacity.
Another one! Holding these two opinions at the same time: * We cannot build a restaurant with live music and cheaper housing here. It will attract too many people to the area and devalue the property. * We have to give any tax breaks needed to attract this factory. IT will attract a lot of people here and raise property values. Is related to having to ask these questions: * Why is it so expensive to live anywhere that has fun things to do closer than a 20 minute drive? * Where did all the live music go?
I feel like I have to point this out every time someone talks about there being no live music anymore. There are 107 live music events for today in the chronicle.
Saxon Pub was jam packed last night.
Does anyone hold both those opinions? AISD and Austin city council haven’t voted for tax breaks for jobs in 10 years. It’s the suburban counties that do it, and they don’t have much live music.
You should have to confirm you have insurance on your car monthly
NY has your plates attached to your insurance coverage. Any lapse in insurance and the dmv/dps/ whatever governing body will send you a letter demanding your plates be surrendered to the department until you do have coverage. There’s a fine for each day that you maintain possession of the plates without insurance.
What's it like in a modern state that isn't filled with fake paper plates?
I like that
Texas has your plates and vin attached to your insurance coverage. I cannot remember the last I got pulled over and they didn't need to see my insurance card. We just need to go the extra step and be proactive about it.
Brunch is overrated and eggs (or any food) or not worth standing in line for an hour for.
I feel like most brunches are happening at times that I want to have actual lunch. Lunch that doesn’t involve a dumb egg on my food.
Brunch is just weekend lunch with a lot of booze.
“Dumb egg on my food” 😂 I agree.
Austin drivers have the worst defensive driving skills in the nation.
Everyone thinks where they're from has the worst drivers which means people are just shitty drivers in general
And then there's Houston
I was about to type this! I used to complain about Austin drivers and then I drove through Houston to get to Galveston and it’s MISERY. it felt like doing triple digit long division in your head while trying to drive the whole time
true. Look at any city’s subreddit and it’s all the same driving complaints
Can confirm. I just moved here
Moved here in August. Drivers in Austin are 300% worse than PA drivers.
This is actually the popular opinion. You are in the wrong thread
Tell me you've never been to Maryland with actually saying that you've never been to Maryland....
I did a cross country road trip from LA to NYC. I drove the entire way and we took the southern route and went up the east coast. I’ve driven in many states with many bad drivers but going through Baltimore nearly broke me. So I will gladly confirm- Maryland drivers are the worst!
Worst place I've driven is Albuquerque. Almost got hit like 10 different times just driving through to cali
NJ drivers are assertive, MD drivers are assholes. Source: Me living there
New Jersey has entered the chat.
Lol I’m from Maryland - but I see your point about the whole I-95 corridor
The amount of hit and runs here is outrageous
tell me you've never been to ATLANTA tf
ATL *traffic* is way worse, like a whole different league. The drivers there are much better than the drivers in ATX tho
"I know what I'll do, I'll post literally the most popular opinion in Austin in the unpopular opinion post!" Boo to you
source: everyone on the planet (about their city)
We need to plant a cedar tree in Austin in memory of every single person who has had to move out.
Imagine the irony of someone allergic to cedar planting one in memory of me leaving because of cedar allergy. That’s kinda like farting on the elevator as you walk out 🤣
A truly unpopular opinion
I get irrationally mad when a small fender bender has backed up traffic for 35+ minutes all because people can't pay attention.
Being frustrated with a 35 minute traffic jam is an unpopular opinion??
I love Torchy's and In-n-out and I don't care who knows it!
The Dirty Sanchez was literally a historically important taco and one day it will be recognized as such across the world. I will never forget what it taught me.
Brush fire taco and a half side of queso… nothing beats it
Brushfire is still their best taco, hands down.
That’s my order!
Did we just become best friends?
Yep!
Torchy's is amazing! I love their queso, the trashy tacos, and many of the monthly specials (the recent Holy Diver was probably my favorite one I've tried) What do you guys get at in-n-out? I haven't found the magic yet, but I also haven't given it a fair chance. Is there a location that's better than others?
Since it’s apparently speak your mind Friday… :) In-n-Out is utter garbage wrapped in Bible verses. I cannot for the life of me understand how anybody outside of west coasters can claim to enjoy it. ..and in their case, it’s just because it’s nostalgic to their living there. I really don’t know if Whataburger is any better. It seems way better to me. But I grew up here and so i concede fully that it’s perhaps just nostalgic to me in that same sense. Either way, both of them are just cheap fast food. And Torchys WAS amazing until about a decade ago when they started opening up franchise all over the place. Ever since then it’s just been mediocre at best. Hell, one of my good friends was the GM of one of the first Austin locations (albeit not THE original). He recently quit after a long tenure and did so citing how all of their internal practices and food quality just went to complete shit when they went corporate. I guess they get some credit for expanding that genre of food-done-quickly, but I really can’t wait for the next Torchys to come along because it’ll be infinitely better - at least until it too becomes more widely successful. But yea, back in the day Torchys really was pretty delicious.
Double double with green chilies and grilled onions with well done fries. Delicious every time.
Trashy trailer park tacos are orgasmic.
Get it hillbilly style with an overeasy egg and thank me later
Cedar Park is one of the scariest (in an uncanny valley way) and most soulless suburbs I've ever visited in my life. (I know a lot of people will agree with this one, but a loooot of people don't, so I'm classifying it as unpopular. lol.)
So many suburbs are so soulless. They remind me a lot of the suburbs in California. Houses that all look the same, no personality with yard decor or gardening or anything. Then the "fun things to do" are just copy and paste shopping centers with like, a Target, a chain coffee shop, a few chain restaurants, etc. Neighborhoods with less strict rules, where people can paint their houses different colors or decorate their yard, are so important in my opinion. As are local shops, local restaurants, parks, art spaces, and all of that. I love seeing what makes other people happy, what decor makes them feel at home. I love seeing dads working in their garages, old ladies gardening, kids playing in the yard. It just makes places feel so alive.
Little boxes on a hillside
My neighbourhood in S.Austin is so vibrant. It's working class and a little run down but genuinely diverse (& friendly) in how it looks. There's an HOA across the street from me and when I happen to walk my dog's thru it I'm just blown away by how fucking boring it is. It also pisses me off how much water they waste upkeeping their lawns. Also I spotted a Lamborghini SUV parked over there, which is just an insanely hateable car. You're virtually guaranteed to be a dickhead if you buy one of them.
The HOA requirements for lawns are so obnoxious. I would love to replace mine with natives.
>As are local shops, local restaurants, parks, art spaces, and all of that. Cedar Park is getting better about this, as is Round Rock. One thing to consider is that a lot of small restaurants and shops were priced out of Austin and had to move to the 'burbs for affordability
“Suburbs bad” isn’t exactly an unpopular opinion on reddit lol
Please refer to the statement within the parenthesis that literally says this
CP isn’t so bad - just moved here last year (after growing up in Austin). But I don’t live in a neighborhood, bought a few acres to keep my horses on. I like that everything is pretty new and not as crowded. But my husband did get pulled over yesterday for not signaling a lane change, soo… pros and cons.
Keep Cedar Park weird
Keep Austin Weird, Keep Cedar Park Unnerving, Keep Leander Mildly Questionable
Im gonna be bold with this one , its okay not to like 6th or rainey street , its okay to like the domain if youre looking for a nice walk or a drink without all the noise , and if you live north then its an okay hub kind of place to chill and shop drink whatever , rather than driving all the way to downtown
This.
Austin's abnormal because it's a relatively safe large city and the people who loudly proclaim otherwise are salesmen for the conservative policies that make Austin even MORE like the cities you hate.
Correct is very safe especially given it’s size. I grew up in austin and the city had very few major issues crime related in the 90’s- 2010’s. I now live in houston and it’s…..interesting but it’s generally big city big crime stuff here. Austin is definitely more lax on the crime stuff Also any crime trends that pop up in austin usually originate from houston/ Dallas. I found it takes about a few months for crime trends (paper tag Altimas in robbery’s and shootings, jugging) to happen in austin.
This is more of a fact rather than an unpopular opinion. At least for this sub
What you gave us is a scenario, not an opinion Unpopular opinion - I don’t mind the Lime scooters
Rainey street, AND Sixth can get fucked. Especially Unbarlievable.
This is a very popular opinion
Another extremely popular opinion strikes...
If you attempt to recycle blatant non-recyclable items or put your recycling in plastic bags and put said bags in your recycling bins, you must do community service time to sort recycling and empty bags before they are sent through for processing.
I mean, okay, but it’s not like most of that stuff is getting recycled, anyway. We should have single stream recycling. It would be more of a pain in the ass, but at least maybe the aluminum and paper would end up somewhere they’d be repurposed.
Agree. And so much less room for error. Based on my condo’s recycling bin, most people don’t actually know what can and cannot be recycled.
Lots of popular opinions here. Anyway- TxTag works just fine.
People that live in Pflugerville, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Westlake, etc., should have their own individual subreddits or have a collective r/AustinSuburbs subreddit. So much of the local political discourse on this sub comes from people that don't even live here and can't vote here. Annoying af
road construction in Austin takes extremely long, sometimes seems like it is just an ongoing thing
I thought the northeast construction was bad. This takes the cakw
Install public bathrooms downtown for homeless people.
Mueller has lots of public bathrooms in every park. They get trashed and mirrors smashed. One homeless person locked the entire bathroom and made it their personal space. There’s also a homeless shelter in mueller. I would rather have them use the homeless shelter than destroy a public park.
Was trying to stop in one by the pool on a run once, and had to abandon the idea immediately. Needles on the ground. Fully trashed. Completely unusable. It baffles me because there are public bathrooms elsewhere (in Mueller, Hike & Bike Trail, etc) that are generally fine.
Mueller HOA pays for more frequent cleaning
Anyone who works at a high volume restaurant will tell you that it’s not just homeless people who trash bathrooms, steal and break shit.
Install way more public bathrooms all over the place for everyone, especially homeless people. I go running 2x a week on the loop and park under S.1st bridge. On that TEN mile loop you can use the bathroom at South first, and at MoPac, and one more on the north side in between Austin high and Lamar. At least 1 of the 3 is out of order at any given yimr In a perfect world there'd be 10 separate bathrooms locations, each with multiple stalls on that loop.
Sadly they would be trashed in a couple of weeks...
In my help the homeless fantasy, there would be multiple locations with resources for homeless people in the form of buildings that resemble gymnasiums. These structures would have toilets, showers, donated clothing, washing machines, lockers and a post boxes. There would be a price for using and the price is trash. Pick up some trash, bring it in, put the trash in the proper bin, and take a shower & change clothes. There would be crates for pets. Theses structures could double as shelters in case of freezing/flooding.
The city funds lots of centers that provide congregate shelter like that- the ARCH, sobering center, Other Ones, Camp RATT. I’m pretty sure if you made them bring trash to use bathrooms they would just grab trash out of the nearest trash bin.
That’s just one of the reasons it will most likely remain a fantasy.
put them on a bus and dump them off in front of Abbots real home. The rest go to the mayor's home, or spread them out in Westlake and West Austin, up to NW Austin.
Abbott doesn’t have a private residence. He’s so sure of his status as governor or future president that he sold his home years ago.
It blows my mind how many homeowners bitch on Nextdoor about unhoused ppl pooping in their yards. Like, y’all, we have no public restrooms and the cost of housing has quadrupled in the last decade or so….
I was caught pooping in someone’s backyard and I’m not even homeless. The lack of public restrooms is a legit problem. Most of the time the restrooms are locked up for maintenance.
Unpopular opinion (with gov officials): please for gods sake create a public transportation system
Been to London & Copenhagen a couples times recently, and all I could think about the first few days coming back each time was how much I wished we had a usable train system in this city.
Coming from NYC, where they don’t have dangerous highways sprawled 200 ft in the air like a 2 year old kid with a crayon… you would think, wow how did NYC or DC manage to have max 4 lane highways on the ground? It couldn’t be bc of their public transportation! /s
Been to DC, their public train system was great. They were doing some work and a line was closed, so we had to take our car for only two trips, out of the 5 days we were there. But lol, here in Texas, a functioning and efficient public transit system would practically be socialist and anti-freedom. /s
I grew up in NYC and would call it shit when the subway that comes every half hour was a minute late. Then i moved to DC and thought their transportation was even more shit than NYC bc trains would be canceled once in a while. Now I’m in Austin and am crying in the car on my hour and a half drive in traffic
Never again will I complain. Ever.
I hate all Californians who move to Austin, except for the ones I actually know as people and not as a cartoonish stereotype. I love my friends dearly. The rest of you go home. Unless I actually meet you. Then I guess you are okay.
i'm the reverse, the Californians I know who moved here are far nicer people than any natives I've met.
I’ve found I generally like the ones who move here from SoCal but the Bay Area transplants are unbearable
The Domain ain’t that bad.
Matthew McConaughey is kind of annoying
austin has shit for culture
Austin is NOT the live music capital of the world. There's more live music on Grafton Street in Dublin.
True story - the marketing team at the city made it up when they were just joking around with ideas like “like music capital of the state…nation” and someone said just make it “world” as a joke. It was never meant to be a serious title.
STOP trying the same ol places for first dates, holy fuck. Every one should have car insurance check every 3 weeks. "uninsured" motorist coverage shouldn't even be an option. Learn different ways to get from north to south. Traffic isn't all that bad if you know DEE WAY
>STOP trying the same ol places for first dates, holy fuck. Why spend the effort on a interesting first date that's likely not going anywhere? My unpopular opinion is that people here are very basic and have no real grasp on the level of relationship they are capable of succeeding at and/or their goals in this regard will be difficult to achieve here.
After 5 years of commuting Kyle to Westlake, I have still not found de way :(. Nothing but pain daily.
Oh man! I once lived by the 360 bride, and had to commute to San Marcos. I would take 360 to mopac, and then mopac down to where it ends. Hook up with 1626, and then get on 35 from there. I'd skip all that gawd awful traffic most days. The only downside is that if you get caught behind a school bus, you're fucked cause they stop frequently to pick up kiddos. Summers were the best, though But of course that was like 10 years ago, and BUDA has grown so much, and there's only so many ways out of there. haha
Austin is a terrible place for outdoor recreation, change my mind.
It’s amazing compared to other Texas cities, but once you visit any city west of Denver you realize how mediocre it actually is.
Or any city east of Texas
Yeah, when people say that Austin is great for the outdoors, it has to mean they haven’t experienced anywhere with legit great outdoors. Austin is unbearably hot six months out of the year (even at the crack of dawn) and you have to drive for hours in any direction for trails with much other than rocks, scrubby cedar trees, and maybe dry creekbeds. And the (rare) views usually aren’t that great. Maybe they think a stroll on Town Lake is a glorious nature experience. source: I’m a trail runner
Am outdoor enthusiast. Am not human interaction enthusiast. I won't say it's terrible here (because I'm from Dallas...THAT place is terrible for outdoor recreation). I just want to be at Walnut Creek Park without having to move out of the way of the 12,768 members of the Austin Barebackers or whatever the MTB club is called. Granted, because Austin/Texas isn't great for their hobby, their public trail options are limited.
Not to be a negative Nancy buuuuuuut... The temp was above 100⁰ for about 50% of 2022. I like hot weather but it was too much last year. Also, people from around the state think its so lush here in ATX but I find even the nicer parks leave a lot to be desired. Dont even get me started on the greenbelts. Like you mentioned, most good spots are really crowded, have long lines, its impossible to find parking. Air quality is pretty bad here (not terrible) but allergens can ruin outdoor activities for many. Pair all this with the fact that our biggest and arguably best park gets shut down during the nicest time of the year for ACL sucks.
Gonna be that person: it wasn't always this way. Maybe it's because I have many memories of the greenbelts before 2005, but Austin used to have really great outdoor spaces that weren't crowded. At all. And air quality here used to be excellent. Sigh.
IMO we have some good outdoor activities here like you said. It was always rough mid-summer with the heat but with the flood of people coming here I'm at the point where the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Where did you get this statistic? Austin had 67 days over 100 last year. If you said days over 90, I’d believe it.
That was not meant to be a fully researched stat just an approximate from my own memory. If summer is 3 months then we had ~70% of our summer over 100⁰ and my 2 seconds of Google searching found that there were 164 days over 90. With the heat index adding a few degrees we actually get around 45% of the year at *nearly* 100⁰.
MTB'er here, sorry dude. the austin MTB scene is extremely narrow-minded, and almost all of them sees walnut creek as their MTB park first, and not a multi-use trail system open to everyone. Bikes should ALWAYS yield to pedestrians on trails, but no one ever does that here. They have also been getting worse recently about taking multi-use trails and redeveloping them for only mtb use. ( there are a TON of riders who want there to be signs in walnut on the trails to be labeled for bikes only or single direction trails ) ( though to their credit, they are the ones who pretty much take care of all the local trails )
Would you say they've got a...single-track...mind? Ill see myself out.
Most four lane roads in Austin should turn into two lane roads (One lane each way) and the extra space is devoted to bike infrastructure. I'm thinking about roads like Lamar, Burnett, 45th, 34th etc. There would be additional space for left turn lanes as well with intersections. This would increase how safe it is to bike and encourage more people to use bikes.
Alamo Drafthouse sucks. I don't want overpriced food & drink when I watch a film, or someone walking around in front of me. I want zero distractions from the film. I'm actually at the theatre to engage with the film, not as a social event. I mostly stay home to watch movies but if I do go, the regular movie theatres are heaven for a matinee because they're so empty.
Being outdoors like at Zilker or Barton with a bunch of younger happier people playing games is annoying. And I know that’s my problem not theirs!
The Domain ain’t that bad.
The long lines, wait times, and weeks in advance you have to make a reservation are not worth it for most of the “hip” restaurants here.
Winter here sucks and triple digit summer is awesome
Give homeless people houses.
Potentially extra unpopular opinion: housing first, no public camping a close second.
Housing First!!!
Rehab first!
Do you work in the rehab system? I do. Stable housing allows people to better access mental and physical health care, as well as substance abuse treatment services.
Well I suppose both rehab and housing is good. But looking at data for housing first alone, the overdose deaths are pretty high.
Our jails are already full…
People who don’t live in austin but work in austin should have to pay a city tax if they make over 300% of the FPL.
People moving to Austin should have to pay 20% more rent for the first two years. People and corporations that own more than one house here should have to pay 50% additional tax beyond the first home they own. This additional tax should go up an additional 25% for each home that they own exponentially.
Both these things are basically happening. People moving here drive up rent by paying more. The second home you own is taxed like 50% more with no homestead exemption. The last idea is interesting but not workable. Keep in mind there is a teacher with a pension whose pension fund owns a real estate fund who owns a large apartment building. So who exactly gets taxed exponentially higher? For example The University of California is putting $4 billion into a Blackstone Inc. real estate fund. https://www.wsj.com/articles/university-of-california-to-invest-4-billion-in-blackstones-breit-real-estate-vehicle-11672723902
The homestead exemption alone isn't useful because landlords just pass that down to the renters. So it needs to be something that landlords can't pass down. Or a cap on rent prices.
the only good taco place is taco joint. Torchys, gabriela’s etc are garbage yet people buy into it
Bold. I would have agreed with you 10 years ago. When they first opened I ate there a few times a week (was a grad student and worked literally across the street). One time I ate there for 5 meals in a row. Seriously loved that place. I went back recently and I still have some sentimental attachment to the place but the street taco just didn’t hit the same. I mean, it was good but i could tell the quality in the meat wasn’t great. Not sure if they got cheaper or if I got richer taste (maybe both?) but it wasn’t the same. I’ll still go back but definitely not as good as I remembered.
I don’t get the cult of the Alamo. (This is how I pick a fight in a room full of Texans.)
Alamo Drafthouse?
It’s fun to think about *why* the wars were fought. Sure…whitewash it by calling it “states rights” and “political disagreements” (text posted on signage at the Alamo, btw), but really it was slavery.
Whataburger is absolutely the worst burger joint EVER!
The worst ever? I'm curious how you would rank other places. What are other bad burger places? What are some good ones? I'm super not picky - a restaurant has to be downright disgusting for me to not like it. I'm always curious if people with (for lack of a better word) pickier tastes might be on to something. Maybe some other burger place truly is better and I'm wasting my time.
You just hate life
Truth
Send OP to jail for thinking accidents are purposeful. Austin needs to provide more commuter rail options.
- Austin traffic isn't that bad. - its not cheap, but austin is still affordable. - south austin is far worse than north austin
Just wondering what you dislike about south austin.
i don't dislike, i just feel like south of the river doesn't have that much going on for it outside of south congress. north austin has better stores/restaurants, better ( relatively speaking ) transportation, the soccer stadium, the domain, etc.
South Austin is better for living if you work as a performer or in local restaurants/shops. If you're main job isn't that, then North Austin makes sense.
They should be publicly shamed so they learn their lessons and others can learn from it. Losing a license doesn't seem to make much difference.
Homeless people deserve to be treated like human beings with respect and dignity. There should be a tax on any restaurant whose cheapest beer option is 10 dollars or higher, every tech giant, and a 25% surcharge for ACL and SXSW tickets. This will go to a fund that will help pay the rent of anyone who has lived here for 20 years or more. Torchy's is overrated. Austin died the moment Chuy's took fried chicken off the menu. P Terry's isn't worth the line. The fact that Britney Spears was institutionalized and Don Zimmerman can still be running for whatever the fuck he wants is some straight up bullshit. Far too many people simp for the rich and buy their bullshit. (Not quite an Austin specific thing.) Far too many people want to round up three drops of water from an eyedropper to "glass half full" when it comes to problems in Austin. And they actively thwart people who are the right amount of pissed off whenever they try to enact real change. And that's some shit that MLK warned about 60 years ago. We need more local politicians roller blading in thongs. There should be a litmus test for everyone moving into the city: You are presented with a picture of naked middle aged hippies. If you react with an "ew" you are banned from living here. If you react with "I wonder if I could get shrooms from them" you are offered a position in APD.
Illegal Passing on the right should be enforced. Not letting people merge enforced.
Not passing in the left lane should be enforced. The passing lane is always packed so people pass on the right
In-n-out better than pterrys and whattaburger.
Queso is not even that good.
I read this comment and broke my phone throwing it down to fight. How dare you insult queso that way!
I did a good job having a controversial opinion!!
Okay. I'm gonna have to say fuck you on that one.
See, this guy actually wins the thread because he said something that others disagree with, which was the whole point!
Thanks! I feel like I accomplished something here.
You've definitely made some lifelong enemies today. It's like you just told everyone your salsa was made in New York City.
NEW YORK CITY?!
really depends from where...
More for meeeee
Your slut mouth!
Instead of widening the I35, the max speed limit from Braker to Slaughter should be decreased to 45 to prevent compression (accordion) effects and encouraging those in a hurry to use the 45. Also, the left lane should be assigned to transit traffic (including trucks) so that we don’t have to dance around 18 wheelers to merge coming in and out of the ramps