How Might the Stimulus Package Affect Austin?

Austinite Ryan Pollack tipped us off about this great way to see how the proposed $825 billion federal stimulus package, which is currently being debated in the Senate, could potentially benefit Austin.

StimulusWatch.org is a volunteer-compiled wiki that lists all of the proposed "shovel-ready" projects that each city has proposed. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as the stimulus package is officially called, won't directly fund any of these projects, but if passed will allocate the money necessary to enable some of these.

The clear leader among Austin's proposed projects, both in terms of the number of people that it would employ and its total cost, is Cap Metro's Phase II Expansion of the MetroRail Red Line, which weighs in at a hefty $190 million and involves nearly 6,000 people. Other heavyweight proposals include the Waller Creek Tunnel Project (1836 jobs, $127M), a "Public Safety Training Facility" (198 jobs, $25M), and assorted classroom technology upgrades for AISD (40 jobs, $20M). All told, over $1 billion in projects were proposed by Austin.

You can view Austin's full list here, as well as add your own comments or votes as to which projects are worth funding.