Recently, a friend of mine and I had this brief discussion about traffic problems in Austin.

They’re becoming legendary and infamous. I mentioned to my friend — who, because of his standing as a public official of significant standing in Amarillo and because he doesn’t know I am using what he said as grist for this blog post, I won’t name him here — that I heard a recent NPR report about traffic woes in the state’s capital city. My pal, who was talking to me just as an Austin native and a University of Texas graduate, agreed that traffic there needs fixing.

NPR’s report noted that Austin’s population is booming and figures to continue booming for the foreseeable future and perhaps beyond.

We talked about driving on that nearby race track, aka Texas Highway 130, where the speed limit is 85 mph. We talked about the city’s zero mass transit planning. We talked about how long it takes to get anywhere in Austin. We mentioned the Interstate 35 gridlock that occurs seemingly at all hours of the 24-hour day.

Then he offered this view, which he admits isn’t his own, but is what he’s heard on the street when he’s gone back to Austin to visit family and friends: It is that some folks there believe the city fathers/mothers are deliberately avoiding any remedy to the traffic woes because they want Austin to become such a miserable place that no one else will move there and that some of the residents already there will want to move out.

My first reaction was that such a view is the height — or depth — of cynicism. What an amazingly cynical view for city planners to deliberately avoid doing something just to make life so miserable in a growing city. It’s even more cynical, I believe, for others to believe that the city would consider such a strategy.

My take-away from that discussion, though, is that conspiracy theories can thrive in any scenario imaginable. If that’s the case in Austin, then the city has a potentially serious public-relations nightmare on its hands.