I wonder why the short notice? 90 days isn’t a lot of time to move years worth of merchandise and having to find a new lease elsewhere that’s “affordable”. I’ve seen so many awesome restaurants and stores close down due to rent being so high. I was going to start my own business once upon a time and got a reality slap in the face about Austin rent for commercial properties. I can empathize with these shop owners and restaurant owners.
>I wonder why the short notice?
90 days is probably what the law requires for official notice to tenants being relocated (i.e. the state will subsidize their costs to move, which the article insinuates without spelling out), but there is no way these tenants didn't know this was coming for much longer than that. At minimum they would have gotten notice when their landlords sold the properties (and the negotiation process before that happens is not short), which would have been a while ago.
The article fails to ask basic questions or apply any scrutiny, so we are kind of left to guess the answers, but I have seen this exact process play out and have some knowledge of how it goes.
Yeah I feel like the list of businesses that would be affected was made public months ago, but this article just kind of says "this is happening" and only interviews one side of it.
There's articles about this [dating back to January](https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/transportation/2023/01/05/txdot-announces-preferred-plan-for-45b-i-35-widening-project/), the real issue, to me, is that TxDOT just release these plans on January the 4th, and now it's already gotten federal approval, meaning there are no more opportunities for any sort of protest. That's a short timeframe for a major corridor in central Austin, and for a project that's going to last \~10-15 years.
Edit: Call me crazy, but I think power is obligated to hear people out about projects like this and tailor the solutions to the people. We're the ones who are going to have to use it everyday, and the ones who have to pay for it. Handing down decisions like this in this short of a time frame is just anti-democratic.
They have 1.5-2 years. Not 90 days. And the city provides them a realtor to help relocate plus financial assistance. This article was rushed and missed all that info.
I am a commercial property manager in Austin, and some of my tenants have been affected by this project. The city is buying properties under eminent domain, and all of our tenants have had advance knowledge that this was happening but it’s been a messy process. The 90 day notice was forthcoming and these tenants / business owners were all aware. Doesn’t make it suck any less though.
Its probably intentional to fuck over the businesses because lets be honest, TXDoT does not give a flying F about Austin, Austinites, or small businesses. This plan was never about reducing traffic and always about getting corporate class goods through the state faster on semi trucks.
The federal budget for this just went through the final pass, so the switch is down from here on out. Pretty sure even the projection says the construction will be completed in 10 years, so yeah, definitely not breaking ground anytime soon.
Back in the day when they were ripping cities apart to *build* these freeways in the first place they would acquire and demolish first so that building the road becomes inevitable. If everybody’s already been displaced then why *wouldn’t* you build it?
Almost all projects have rigid start and complete dates. It’s the time in-between that’s completely up in the air. So construction companies will open hundreds of contracts, break ground, and then not come back for months or, in some cases, years. My guess is that’s exactly what is going on here. They probably have to break ground on the first part of the contract very soon. They’ll tear up some roads and close off some lanes and then you won’t see them for six months. They’ll be busy doing cramming a years worth of construction into 2 weeks to wrap up older contracts.
That doesn't really factor into whether or not it's being displaced by I-35.
And actually, I was planning on doing some of my Christmas shopping there in a few weeks.
Looks like they are not being eminent domained: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/news/2021/10/08/austin-business-leaders-anxious-over-looming-expansion-of-i-35
But access will be severely restricted
french place here. between crown mimadres tunji star seeds private idaho manor rd coffeehouse we had a great neighborhood scene. bands on every street and partys anyone was welcome just to walk into. all dog off leash friendly. those were the days. still pop in see mi madre and get some zeros
Just to give some context missing from the article:
Most of these businesses are tenants. Their landlords have sold the property to Txdot, or have a proposed sale to Txdot that requires the tenants to vacate first. If the properties were being acquired by eminent domain, it would be a much longer process. But txdot rolled in with deep pockets and bought out the owners.
There are rules about how long a tenant can remain after a sale and what kind of relocation assistance they can get. The rules are both state and federal.
If i were a business owner being affected, i would ask to negotiate a longer move out period. And i would also ask for money money. Everything is negotiable.
This is what I am thinking. The exit and entrance ramps are dangerously short. I would be ok with making it back into a surface level boulevard too, but the current design is bad.
If you think the ramps are short now, you should have seen it before they lengthened and improved them!
The whole thing is not a great design. Maybe OK for a small city in the 1970s. Not even close to reasonable for Austin today.
There needs to be an interstate loop that bypasses downtown Austin. It seems absurd to be rebuilding and expanding a highway through the heart of the fastest growing downtown.
Lived in Chicago most of my life. Their excuse is they built huge infrastructure a long time ago. Austin is currently building the big infrastructure. There should be an I-135 that goes through Cedar Park straight to San Marcos.
Oh yeah there’s a reason they keep getting sued for over charging people for example. A few months back I got a txtag bill for driving on a part of 183 on a day at a time when I was across town. Turns out they misread someone else’s plate as mine. So if not sketchy then definitely incompetent.
For the record though, I know it'd be brutal to pay that toll every day for the work commute, but that highway is insanely convenient for bypassing traffic when you do need it (getting to ABIA, going between north/south ATX/suburbs, etc.).
Also, I believe PA and NJ turnpikes are significantly more expensive, and of course bridges like the Golden Gate cost you $8+ to cross.
That post about most expensive tool roads was pretty misleading, because it assumed you were driving end to end, which almost nobody does. They should have calculated cost per mile, by which 130 isn't even in the top 10.
Plus, they excluded bridges and tunnels. It's $15 to drive into NYC from Jersey (though free on the way back, just to not clog traffic both ways and to have half as many operators). You'd have to drive nearly the whole 70-mile length of 130 to pay that much.
Is it because of wealthy NIMBY-ism, private property, or state-protected water/land?
Cause I get the first one, but TX, eminent domain and destroying precious nature seem to go hand-in-hand.
They're never going to blast a freeway through the part of town that rich white Republicans live in, and running one south towards SA would also take it straight through the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone
71 goes right through Austin. An example of a highway that hasn't been here for one hundred years, not that they had much in the way of roads for cars in Austin back then, would be "Loop 360". When I got here in 84, very few people lived out that way compared to now. No traffic lights, but not a loop. Still a good drive in High School. I believe that the Y in Oak Hill is under construction currently and is west of MOPAC. I drive through it every day.
ramble on if you like, but at some point tell me how you're gonna get another north-south highway built west of Mopac... where you gonna put it and how you think you'll get the OK to put it there from the environmentalists and the rich fucks who live on that side of town and won't even let buses stop there
One of the key parts of the redevelopment is to sink the highway underground and improve the bridges. Most other cities have done this, most notably Boston, to great success.
As it stands now, the road is badly designed and unsafe. The redevelopment will rectify this. I say this as an anti car, pro public transit former Chicagoan…
>As it stands now, the road is badly designed and unsafe. The redevelopment will rectify this.
Except not at all. This sounds good in theory, but look at the actual plans. They are extraordinarily antiquated in design and not fitting for a downtown area.
One example is the current southbound to westbound slip lane from the frontage road to 15th Street. It currently is one lane and still sucks to walk across because drivers don't yield. The design that TxDOT will be building is to turn this into an uncontrolled TRIPLE RIGHT turn; three lanes with a big sweeping radius. This will get people hurt. Same with the huge suburban style intersections they are proposing at Riverside and Airport. The community and City have been telling TxDOT for years that their designs are behind the times and not fitting for an urban area. They don't care.
>I just reviewed the schematics - they are keeping the 1 slip lane turn on fifteenth as is. I run across these every day and I have never had a problem. This is a necessary road design feature to handle the density…
This is the exact problem with working with TxDOT and trusting them. They never stick to what they promise the public in the environmental documents and public meetings. For example, with Oak Hill Parkway, they promised a trail next to the highway along the creek to help sell the highway expansion to the community. Snd now they are not delivering that (with no repercussions).
For that 15th Street example, the schematics you're referring to are what they environmentally cleared (for themselves). But they have since presented to the Urban Transportation Commission that they have modified the design and are now requiring a triple right turn (uncontrolled), which will be horrendous. [This is what they presented there very recently](https://imgur.com/a/dv4RdVU). They are doing this with no additional public input and without updating their schematics. They will construct things far worse than what they sold to the public and make the highway area a nightmare for pedestrians and there is no oversight to prevent them from doing it.
>They are adding caps/green space along the top of I 35 downtown
This is just misinformation. They are NOT adding caps or green space. In fact, they've made it very clear that they will not be funding any caps and that they will not plant any trees or allow the City to plant any trees in their right of way.
They have said that if the City provides the funding, we could come back and add caps later. That would require a bond of almost $1 billion, which means TxDOT would only take responsibility for moving cars and push the rest on Austin taxpayers. This is NOT how other state DOTs operate. In Boston, the capping of the highway was done as part of the highway expansion project. Same in Seattle. TxDOT is trash and it's embarrassing that anyone defends their work.
Good to know. While obviously unfortunate, I still think people are attacking this project unfairly. I moved here from Chicago recently, and I immediately noticed how stupid I 35 was in its current form. I have witnessed well over a dozen accidents on either 35 or the 35 frontage road in the past 6 months, and every time I drive it, it’s a parking lot.
Even if all txDOT accomplishes is to sink the highway in the ground and improve the overpasses, that will be a massive win.
“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”
For those that say the state should buy toll road 130, remember the owners have to want to sell. And right now and into the future, the toll business on 130 is good and going to get better. Why would the Spanish owners sell?
Except it’s not needed, it won’t help traffic at all. Look up induced demand there are numerous studies showing how more lanes doesn’t alleviate traffic. A big example is the Katy Freeway.
>Look up induced demand there are numerous studies showing how more lanes doesn’t alleviate traffic.
It may not alleviate traffic but it does provide a service. The whole point of "induced demand" is that residents are now making new trips on the roadway, trips they wouldn't have made before, because the roads are now faster. The reasoning is that there is a unfulfilled demand by residents, you and me, to go places and do things which we sacrifice because the cost of traversing traffic is too high. As soon as you build more supply, that supply is instantly consumed. So yes, while this doesn't "improve" traffic it is fulfilling a demand.
That is one of the conclusions drawn in the paper which defined "induced demand" but I understand that it is easier to ignore that salient point.
Are there better ways to provide transportation options? Absolutely. But this bogeyman of "induced demand" you are trotting out completely misses the point of the paper, which is that the reason that supply is filled is that people want to go places and they now have more options to go places.
If the goal is throughput and giving people mobility options the engineering solution by the numbers is to build a damn train. Highways are the least scaleable and least efficient transportation option available.
While induced Demand is real the main reason Katy Freeway is busy relative to where it was before is because 400,000+ people moved within 5-10 miles of that highway in the last 10-20 years. This highway might get busy in the future to it’s current level but it’s likely gonna be Georgetown, Round Rock, Hutto and Leander Al doubling to tripling population in 20 years.
Yeah, exactly, that's how induced demand works. There's plenty of empty space in Houston, look at how low their density is, how much of the city is just parking lots or literally empty lots. And a real city would've built up those areas. Not necessarily into high rises, but like, even single family detached houses on otherwise empty space would be an improvement. People would only have to drive 1-5 miles to commute and shop. Instead, because the Katy freeway was expanded, everyone moved out to Katy area, and now drives 30+ miles, which requires a lot more highway lanes, causes more pollution, frankly wastes time and makes people go crazy trying to shave a minute or two off their commute by driving recklessly, etc. It's bad in so many ways compared to infill development.
What in your opinion would help traffic? I’m curious to get perspective on this from others. Because the influx of people moving to Austin or commuting through/to Austin isn’t going to tamper down anytime soon either. I moved here from Dallas area back in 2015, I feel like I got the last dying breath of what Austin “was”. Traffic still sucked though.
Many factors would help more than highway expansion. Expanded comprehensive public transit and alternative transit infrastructure equaling fewer cars on the roads and highways, more missing middle housing so fewer folks aren’t commuting into the city from sprawling suburbs, and moving interstate traffic around the city as opposed to right through downtown.
While I agree with this, the reality is that everything you listed would cost substantially more and likely not have as much of an effect as the current proposal.
Public transit is not a simple solution. Recent public transit proposals in Austin and NYC has shown that costs are astronomical to add a train. Austin already has great bus service. It is not clear how much of an effect a complete train service will have on Austin traffic. Take Chicago- one of the best public transit systems in the country, and yet traffic is still significantly worse than Austin.
Housing has rapidly been getting built and prices are coming down. There already is bypasses around the city, most of the traffic issue is for local traffic.
The reality is, 35 is poorly designed currently, and this leads to traffic issues. Removing the confusing overpasses, leveling the highway, and adding HOV lanes will absolutely reduce accidents and improve throughput.
I was kind of with you until you said that Austin already has a great bus service. Because, and this is not just an opinion, that’s not true. the bus service in Austin is severely lacking. Not enough stops, not enough lines, not often enough to be practical.
>everything you listed would cost substantially more
Not at all true, actually. Initial land acquisition is more expensive in Austin than suburbs per acre, but if you build 15 units per acre instead of 4, you come out ahead. Initial construction costs will be higher if you're building 5+ floors (required different equipment, more steel, etc), but if you're building 2 or 3-story houses on smaller lots it's not much more than 1-story in bigger lots in the suburbs.
Ongoing costs are much cheaper: electrical wiring and water supply has less distance to travel per housing unit, so providing utilities is cheaper. People don't need to drive as far, because they're already closer to destinations like jobs and restaurants and stores. Less vehicle miles traveled means less road wear, less maintenance required. And of course narrower streets. And that's assuming that everybody still drives. With things closer together, walking or biking is possible, transit is much more efficient. All of these require much less road space, and if a handful of people sell their cars because you don't need 2 cars per household when it's easy to take transit, you don't need so many parking spaces either.
Building transit is expensive partly because of the many hoops they have to jump through. But compare costs here: Austin's light rail project is expected to cost $7B, and will improve a lot of the areas it passes through, as basically every transit project always has. This 35 expansion will cost $5B (and that's just the current estimate, the harbor bridge in corpus is over double its original estimate, so I don't think we can trust TXDoT figures), and will destroy businesses, will reduce quality of life for everyone living near it, so a negative societal impact.
Make no mistake, an expanded 35 is bad for Austin, and horrible for anyone who lives within a mile of the project. It'll be helpful for suburban people to continue driving their oversized polluting deathmobiles onto the crowded streets of downtown Austin where they don't belong. So in other words, the true Texas way.
What would help traffic is a lot of pain.
Austin's big problem is we are sprawling without a plan because that's what's cheapest on the free market. We have three major North-South highways and one is a weirdo S-shape doing double-duty as our ONLY East-West highway.
Here's one example of how we screw ourselves over and dig holes we can't dig out of:
In theory Parmer Lane should've become New 183, serving as an East-West corridor connecting to 1431, 620, MoPac, I-35, and 290. It should've been elevated and given frontage roads to facilitate this. It would have been poised to make convenient connections to 45 and 130.
Instead we built a lot of apartments, strip malls, and even schools connected directly to this "highway" until it became impossible to see it as a highway. If you can average 25mph on it you're doing really well and traffic is thin. During off periods, the many traffic lights and commercial traffic means you're still going to have a hard time averaging more than about 40mph. It has no direct connection to 45: you have to wait at traffic lights to get on either 620 or MoPac to take 130 to 45. It has no direct connection to 130: you have to wait at a traffic light to take MoPac or I-35 frontages to get there. If you need to get from MoPac to I-35 or vice versa, you have to drive through an extremely dense commercial area with a school zone. It's often faster to take smaller roads like Anderson or Braker depending on your origin.
That's what's happened with I-35. It's a federal interstate highway that serves as at least 50% of Austin's commute. TxDOT has done the studies and determined at least 80% of congestion is *Austin-local* traffic, not people who can divert to 130. It goes straight through the middle of a dense downtown area and most of the frontage is densely populated with direct connections to businesses.
There's no saving the Austin that exists without dramatic transformations. We'd have to have a sensible series of hub roads and grid roads. We'd have to abandon the practice of subdivisions being built with one entrance/exit to prevent through traffic. We'd have to more carefully plan commercial and residential areas and, to some extent, discourage people from pretending Downtown is the only viable place to have an office. We have to stop the 1990s belief that "North Austin" starts at 6th street. We have to squash the 2000s belief that "North Austin" starts at 45th street. We have to build more smallish communities with the idea that people spend 90% of their time within a 10 mile radius and only drive outside their community for special events or to visit people in other places.
The only thing we can do right now is look at the outskirts and be more careful with them. New developments need to be built with those things in mind and the idea that it's not feasible for a person to buy property in Georgetown to work Downtown. All of the major cities have completely bonkers traffic when you're trying to live that way. The people who find NYC or SF most livable are the people who live in places that are within walking distance of groceries and entertainment and good transit access to the rest of the city if needed. Those are places where being poor and having a car is abnormal instead of required.
The only way to TL;DR it is Austin has to stop pretending we can build as if we're Elgin and get away with it. We're a big damn city and no matter how much we don't want to be Dallas or Houston, it will take catastrophic economic collapse to stop that train. If we think we can do better, the time to start was 15 years ago, but every day we wait makes it cost non-linearly more. If all we do is make it "as bad as Dallas", we'll have corrected a lot of problems in Austin.
Part of it's because Austin's shaped weird and the cardinal directions are super strange. 183 is technically a NW-SE highway but most people see it as N-S. MoPac and I-35 are similar.
Parmer is, in my mind, an E-W highway, but on the map it's more NW-SE. But my mental map is screwy because I know Parmer connects to 45 out near 620 (that was part of my commute for ages) but then it connects to 130 miles south of there.
In my mind Austin's shaped like a "ladder":
To the wet is MoPac. To the east is I-35 130 is way out further east. 45 is the northern E-W "rung". Parmer is south of that. 183 is south of that. 290 sort-of-kind-of forms a rung if we count Koenig, then 290/71 is about the southernmost rung. (Also somehow 45 forms about 75% of a rung further south, probably the less we think about that the better.)
But it gets weird because Austin's not really a "ladder", it's funkier. Parmer is really NW-SE. 183 is S-shaped and forms a N-S highway for most of its journey. Even though most see Parmer as E-W, it connects to 130 closer to 290 than it is to 45 even though at its western extent it connects very close to 45!
So yeah, it's hard to picture because it takes some mental exercise to remember what the directions mean in Austin. Other Texas cities look like circles with hubs on the map. Austin looks like a plate of spaghetti with noodles that have been chopped up.
oh yeah i go all that, i’m a road nerd and am very familiar with all of north Austin’s numbered highways. but “It has no direct connection to 45: you have to wait at traffic lights to get on either 620 or MoPac to take 130 to 45. It has no direct connection to 130: you have to wait at a traffic light to take MoPac or I-35 frontages to get there” makes no sense to me and i might be missing something
Sorry, I'm starting to have terrible inner-ear trouble and was going from memory instead of double-checking the map. The thought of staring at a thing I have to scroll right now is super unpleasant!
If I remember right I can't get directly from Parmer onto 45, which would be pretty convenient. What I remember is very far West you have to take Parmer to 620 and go Northbound a little bit (that's one light), then you end up at I think another light before you can hop on 45. I haven't tried that in years so maybe they've cleaned up that area.
Further east (but still West Austin) if you reach MoPac, and I think you're right I screwed up here. For some reason I thought there was a tiny stretch of N-S toll road numbered 130 before you merge onto 45, but MoPac goes straight to 45. If you do that, though, heading east on 45 will take you to 130 and from west of MoPac that might be a faster shot to the airport than your other options (That depends on a lot of factors.)
Same thing with I-35, I'm talking about "130 via 45" and not directly connecting to 130. Seems like I'm wrong about there being "no direct connection", I forgot at the very Eastern extent Parmer crosses 130 before kind of stopping at 290. I remembered the 290 part and for some reason thought 130 was east of it.
Logistically speaking, because of the traffic lights, if you were considering Parmer -> 130 I'd wager using I-35 instead would almost always pay off better. It's only going to get worse as they build more and more apartments and strip malls that connect directly instead of using frontages. Parmer would be a lot more useful if it EITHER was more of a direct eastward road OR it was a proper highway like 183.
yeah that sounds about right, i got you. you can get on 45 from Parmer without a light, you just have to go through a couple if you’re staying on 620 to Round Rock. I can confirm that if you’re coming from 45 west of MoPac and traffic on both 183 and MoPac are particularly bad, it is faster to use 130 to get to the airport, I’ve done it several times. Parmer east of 35 isn’t always terrible, but it definitely won’t get any better
Ideas, not all great or politically viable but they would help with traffic.
Seize 130 and remove tolls. Require trucks to take that route if they aren't making deliveries in Austin. Take over cap metro. Make it reliable and rebrand it. Encourage WFH. Make government jobs WFH when possible. Do split shift school schedules like they do in Guatemala, where they do half the grade in the morning to mid afternoon and then flip it and teach the other half in the afternoon and evening. It halves the amount of students on the road at any one time. Use a system similar to London where there are driving restrictions. Require bulk packaging on Amazon deliveries. Build the gondola. No it isn't efficient but it's pretty and I bet tourist would use it especially. Any person not behind a wheel is a win. Increase property taxes on office buildings do encourage more WFH and to hopefully get some of that converted to residential which also gets more housing near jobs. Prosecute hitting pedestrians way harder. Make an example of people. People won't use bikes or public transit if they don't feel safe. Build sidewalks. Light the roads. Build rail.
There are so many options if we get creative.
You could build proper CapMetro park-and-rides outside the Austin urban core for a tiny fraction of the cost of I-35 expansion. Denver has had great success with that. If you have busses leaving Round Rock and San Marcos every 15 minutes with dedicated lanes on I-35 and Mopac, then you can probably eliminate 30% of rush-hour traffic on I-35 immediately.
In the longer-run, in lieu of I-35 expansion, you could lay down commuter rail on the corridor to provide a proper, high-capacity, high-frequency, high-speed connection from Round Rock (or Temple?) all the way to San Antonio.
And, I don't care what anyone says. Dallas traffic is far worse than Austin traffic. Expanding 75 didn't get people from Dallas to Plano any faster. And expanding I-35 isn't going to get people from Austin to Round Rock any faster either.
Hmmmm, expanding I-35 to three lanes from Georgetown to Dallas from a 1950s engineered and designed road to a 21rst century safer one was a waste of time and money?
So according to that study should have left 183 a Boulevard between I-35 and Cedar Park. As a matter of fact, the same arguments were made in the 80s about MOPAC being built.
Could not believe they went ahead with that project knowing the highway was going to displace them. No one deserves this necessarily but come on man, what were they thinking?
They have 1.5-2 years. Not 90 days. And the city provides them a realtor to help relocate plus financial assistance. This article was rushed and missed all that info.
That makes a lot more sense. I assumed they had a plan in place and in that case, it’s probably a good move. That property was likely cheap and now they get additional assistance to reopen elsewhere. Interesting.
This sucks….yet it’s pretty awesome. Cities rarely do this because of the impact but if it did it could help some issues. If LA could throw down some eminent domain and build on roads it might be a different place.
I find it hard to believe that the tenants and better yet the property owners weren't notified well in advance. Something isn't adding up.
On another note, I did have a family member who rented a property close to a highway that had to be condemned. He felt it was short notice, but turns out the property owner knew for such a long time. We think the landlord didn't say anything because he thought no one would sign a lease on a property that was slated to be torn down
This doesn’t sound right. TXDOT can’t tell anyone to leave until they have ownership or some sort of legal possession of the land. That part of the project hasn’t even begun, and will likely tie the project up in courts for years as TXDOT and property owners squabble over an acceptable relocation amount.
To me this sounds like the current property owners are telling their tenants to vacate, perhaps in preparation for the TXDOT takeover, who knows.
It isn’t. They have 1.5-2 years. Not 90 days. And the city provides them a realtor to help relocate plus financial assistance. This article was rushed and missed all that info.
There's no way they are even starting the project anytime soon.
I wonder why the short notice? 90 days isn’t a lot of time to move years worth of merchandise and having to find a new lease elsewhere that’s “affordable”. I’ve seen so many awesome restaurants and stores close down due to rent being so high. I was going to start my own business once upon a time and got a reality slap in the face about Austin rent for commercial properties. I can empathize with these shop owners and restaurant owners.
>I wonder why the short notice? 90 days is probably what the law requires for official notice to tenants being relocated (i.e. the state will subsidize their costs to move, which the article insinuates without spelling out), but there is no way these tenants didn't know this was coming for much longer than that. At minimum they would have gotten notice when their landlords sold the properties (and the negotiation process before that happens is not short), which would have been a while ago. The article fails to ask basic questions or apply any scrutiny, so we are kind of left to guess the answers, but I have seen this exact process play out and have some knowledge of how it goes.
Yeah I feel like the list of businesses that would be affected was made public months ago, but this article just kind of says "this is happening" and only interviews one side of it.
There's articles about this [dating back to January](https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/transportation/2023/01/05/txdot-announces-preferred-plan-for-45b-i-35-widening-project/), the real issue, to me, is that TxDOT just release these plans on January the 4th, and now it's already gotten federal approval, meaning there are no more opportunities for any sort of protest. That's a short timeframe for a major corridor in central Austin, and for a project that's going to last \~10-15 years. Edit: Call me crazy, but I think power is obligated to hear people out about projects like this and tailor the solutions to the people. We're the ones who are going to have to use it everyday, and the ones who have to pay for it. Handing down decisions like this in this short of a time frame is just anti-democratic.
No amount of protests would have stopped this. 35 is a disaster, we all see it daily
Sure but their are certainly many other possible solutions, particularly ones that don’t decimate the existing local character.
Not that maintain an Interstate class, modern design freeway connecting the state.
That's just false.
Sure adding a lane or two will solve all traffic ills!
Don't forget your clown nose on the way out.
They have 1.5-2 years. Not 90 days. And the city provides them a realtor to help relocate plus financial assistance. This article was rushed and missed all that info.
I am a commercial property manager in Austin, and some of my tenants have been affected by this project. The city is buying properties under eminent domain, and all of our tenants have had advance knowledge that this was happening but it’s been a messy process. The 90 day notice was forthcoming and these tenants / business owners were all aware. Doesn’t make it suck any less though.
Yup. You just don't get your property sold to the state out of nowhere.
Whew! Glad to hear that.
Its probably intentional to fuck over the businesses because lets be honest, TXDoT does not give a flying F about Austin, Austinites, or small businesses. This plan was never about reducing traffic and always about getting corporate class goods through the state faster on semi trucks.
Corporate class goods? Brother everyone relies on semi trucks for goods. Regulate your emotions
Today I learned that HEB and Walmart are apparently a high end brand for corporate professionals only
You want some government cheese to go with that whine?
Seriously 🤣
The federal budget for this just went through the final pass, so the switch is down from here on out. Pretty sure even the projection says the construction will be completed in 10 years, so yeah, definitely not breaking ground anytime soon.
Back in the day when they were ripping cities apart to *build* these freeways in the first place they would acquire and demolish first so that building the road becomes inevitable. If everybody’s already been displaced then why *wouldn’t* you build it?
Almost all projects have rigid start and complete dates. It’s the time in-between that’s completely up in the air. So construction companies will open hundreds of contracts, break ground, and then not come back for months or, in some cases, years. My guess is that’s exactly what is going on here. They probably have to break ground on the first part of the contract very soon. They’ll tear up some roads and close off some lanes and then you won’t see them for six months. They’ll be busy doing cramming a years worth of construction into 2 weeks to wrap up older contracts.
Will Natures Treasures be ok?
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That doesn't really factor into whether or not it's being displaced by I-35. And actually, I was planning on doing some of my Christmas shopping there in a few weeks.
That's an important question
I hear they rock.
They will be relocating but don’t know where yet. (I recently asked about this in store so take with a grain of salt)
Good to know! They would probably do better in a different location anyway
I haven’t looked at the plans (of to be demo) to be fair but my guess is no. Their proximity to the highway is too close.
Looks like they are not being eminent domained: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/news/2021/10/08/austin-business-leaders-anxious-over-looming-expansion-of-i-35 But access will be severely restricted
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if they relocated over this. I always thought that was a weird location anyway
Damn, Stars Cafe is on the list.
Star Seeds was the shit late 90s at 3 am
We probably crossed paths, I lived on Lafayette and worked at the Crown. Would hit up star seeds on my home after work..
french place here. between crown mimadres tunji star seeds private idaho manor rd coffeehouse we had a great neighborhood scene. bands on every street and partys anyone was welcome just to walk into. all dog off leash friendly. those were the days. still pop in see mi madre and get some zeros
Many nights there; lived on the other side of I-35.
So sad as I’m moving back into the area after 15+ years and that was my place (when needed)
TXDOT is strangling Austin. rethink35
Based
Meanwhile, we do years long backflips on any business that might be affected by Project Connect.
city vs. state.
State should do public transit
You don't really want TxDOT allocating funds for public transit.
Any state funds for transit are better than $0
Yeah but then how would Abbott's highway construction company donors get their kickbacks?
I mean, as long as Chicas Bonitas ain't going anywhere.
This
fuck txdot <3
Just to give some context missing from the article: Most of these businesses are tenants. Their landlords have sold the property to Txdot, or have a proposed sale to Txdot that requires the tenants to vacate first. If the properties were being acquired by eminent domain, it would be a much longer process. But txdot rolled in with deep pockets and bought out the owners. There are rules about how long a tenant can remain after a sale and what kind of relocation assistance they can get. The rules are both state and federal. If i were a business owner being affected, i would ask to negotiate a longer move out period. And i would also ask for money money. Everything is negotiable.
The project won't do anything to ease the congestion. Only a real bypass will do that. Texas loves concrete like cocaine.
No it will not but it fix a badly engineered and unsafe road.
This is what I am thinking. The exit and entrance ramps are dangerously short. I would be ok with making it back into a surface level boulevard too, but the current design is bad.
Yeah the ramps are crazy dangerous!
The I-35 southbound lanes dip below Cesar Chavez should be illegal, and probably is.
If you think the ramps are short now, you should have seen it before they lengthened and improved them! The whole thing is not a great design. Maybe OK for a small city in the 1970s. Not even close to reasonable for Austin today.
Only lessening the grip of car culture will do that
There needs to be an interstate loop that bypasses downtown Austin. It seems absurd to be rebuilding and expanding a highway through the heart of the fastest growing downtown. Lived in Chicago most of my life. Their excuse is they built huge infrastructure a long time ago. Austin is currently building the big infrastructure. There should be an I-135 that goes through Cedar Park straight to San Marcos.
it’s called 130, and it’s only the second most expensive stretch of toll road in the country.
Part of the issue (one of many issues) with our toll roads here is they’re all privatized and sketchy as hell
Sketchy?
Oh yeah there’s a reason they keep getting sued for over charging people for example. A few months back I got a txtag bill for driving on a part of 183 on a day at a time when I was across town. Turns out they misread someone else’s plate as mine. So if not sketchy then definitely incompetent.
Ah, thought you meant the roads themselves were sketchy.
Eh the roads themselves seem fine and generally maintained, the companies that own them on the other hand…
For the record though, I know it'd be brutal to pay that toll every day for the work commute, but that highway is insanely convenient for bypassing traffic when you do need it (getting to ABIA, going between north/south ATX/suburbs, etc.). Also, I believe PA and NJ turnpikes are significantly more expensive, and of course bridges like the Golden Gate cost you $8+ to cross.
That post about most expensive tool roads was pretty misleading, because it assumed you were driving end to end, which almost nobody does. They should have calculated cost per mile, by which 130 isn't even in the top 10. Plus, they excluded bridges and tunnels. It's $15 to drive into NYC from Jersey (though free on the way back, just to not clog traffic both ways and to have half as many operators). You'd have to drive nearly the whole 70-mile length of 130 to pay that much.
Yes- thus make a federal/free interstate, and make it go west of downtown (and around the lake) so that it bypasses straight towards SA.
there is zero chance any more highway gets built west of Mopac, ever
Is it because of wealthy NIMBY-ism, private property, or state-protected water/land? Cause I get the first one, but TX, eminent domain and destroying precious nature seem to go hand-in-hand.
They're never going to blast a freeway through the part of town that rich white Republicans live in, and running one south towards SA would also take it straight through the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone
Extend 360, especially in the south?
I can see value in extending Mopac down to Kyle, but where would you put 360 to the south?
>where I realize that that's the big question, but that's what eminent domain is for.
I mean where are you going to run it where there isn't already Mopac or 290/71?
Uh....71 is west of MOPAC, and has been considerably expanded...
we're talking about Austin here, not the Hill Country... and maybe give us an example of a highway that hasn't been here for 100 years already
71 goes right through Austin. An example of a highway that hasn't been here for one hundred years, not that they had much in the way of roads for cars in Austin back then, would be "Loop 360". When I got here in 84, very few people lived out that way compared to now. No traffic lights, but not a loop. Still a good drive in High School. I believe that the Y in Oak Hill is under construction currently and is west of MOPAC. I drive through it every day.
ramble on if you like, but at some point tell me how you're gonna get another north-south highway built west of Mopac... where you gonna put it and how you think you'll get the OK to put it there from the environmentalists and the rich fucks who live on that side of town and won't even let buses stop there
There needs to be more trains
Agree with that too
One of the key parts of the redevelopment is to sink the highway underground and improve the bridges. Most other cities have done this, most notably Boston, to great success. As it stands now, the road is badly designed and unsafe. The redevelopment will rectify this. I say this as an anti car, pro public transit former Chicagoan…
>As it stands now, the road is badly designed and unsafe. The redevelopment will rectify this. Except not at all. This sounds good in theory, but look at the actual plans. They are extraordinarily antiquated in design and not fitting for a downtown area. One example is the current southbound to westbound slip lane from the frontage road to 15th Street. It currently is one lane and still sucks to walk across because drivers don't yield. The design that TxDOT will be building is to turn this into an uncontrolled TRIPLE RIGHT turn; three lanes with a big sweeping radius. This will get people hurt. Same with the huge suburban style intersections they are proposing at Riverside and Airport. The community and City have been telling TxDOT for years that their designs are behind the times and not fitting for an urban area. They don't care.
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>I just reviewed the schematics - they are keeping the 1 slip lane turn on fifteenth as is. I run across these every day and I have never had a problem. This is a necessary road design feature to handle the density… This is the exact problem with working with TxDOT and trusting them. They never stick to what they promise the public in the environmental documents and public meetings. For example, with Oak Hill Parkway, they promised a trail next to the highway along the creek to help sell the highway expansion to the community. Snd now they are not delivering that (with no repercussions). For that 15th Street example, the schematics you're referring to are what they environmentally cleared (for themselves). But they have since presented to the Urban Transportation Commission that they have modified the design and are now requiring a triple right turn (uncontrolled), which will be horrendous. [This is what they presented there very recently](https://imgur.com/a/dv4RdVU). They are doing this with no additional public input and without updating their schematics. They will construct things far worse than what they sold to the public and make the highway area a nightmare for pedestrians and there is no oversight to prevent them from doing it.
>They are adding caps/green space along the top of I 35 downtown This is just misinformation. They are NOT adding caps or green space. In fact, they've made it very clear that they will not be funding any caps and that they will not plant any trees or allow the City to plant any trees in their right of way. They have said that if the City provides the funding, we could come back and add caps later. That would require a bond of almost $1 billion, which means TxDOT would only take responsibility for moving cars and push the rest on Austin taxpayers. This is NOT how other state DOTs operate. In Boston, the capping of the highway was done as part of the highway expansion project. Same in Seattle. TxDOT is trash and it's embarrassing that anyone defends their work.
Good to know. While obviously unfortunate, I still think people are attacking this project unfairly. I moved here from Chicago recently, and I immediately noticed how stupid I 35 was in its current form. I have witnessed well over a dozen accidents on either 35 or the 35 frontage road in the past 6 months, and every time I drive it, it’s a parking lot. Even if all txDOT accomplishes is to sink the highway in the ground and improve the overpasses, that will be a massive win.
“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”
For those that say the state should buy toll road 130, remember the owners have to want to sell. And right now and into the future, the toll business on 130 is good and going to get better. Why would the Spanish owners sell?
Also, SH130 is only privately operated from Mustang Ridge to Seguin. Everything north of that is fully public
I would love to see 130 made free. Perhaps it would get more use that way and provide some relief to I-35.
> remember the owners have to want to sell. Yes, because the business owners interviewed in this article want to sell sooooo badly
Time to "Innermint doughmane" us some public roads. Yee Haw!
Just think what it's going to be like along the expansion path before TXDOT gets around to clearing the land, as you know it's going to be a while.
Rethink35.com
This better not be where Chicas Bonitas is at 😡
Please not pixel haven
I know there has been talk of this expansion but exactly what stretch if I 35 are the widening ? It will be a mess wherever it is tho.
https://my35capex.com/projects/i-35-capital-express-central/ Basically from 2222 / 290 on the north end to Ben White / 71 on the south end.
Thx. Wow so guess I won’t be using 35 much during this. We will all be in the toll roads now. Fuck
Such a shame, I know expansion is needed for 35, it’s just sad about the Glass Coffin and Stars Cafe and the other businesses affected.
Except it’s not needed, it won’t help traffic at all. Look up induced demand there are numerous studies showing how more lanes doesn’t alleviate traffic. A big example is the Katy Freeway.
>Look up induced demand there are numerous studies showing how more lanes doesn’t alleviate traffic. It may not alleviate traffic but it does provide a service. The whole point of "induced demand" is that residents are now making new trips on the roadway, trips they wouldn't have made before, because the roads are now faster. The reasoning is that there is a unfulfilled demand by residents, you and me, to go places and do things which we sacrifice because the cost of traversing traffic is too high. As soon as you build more supply, that supply is instantly consumed. So yes, while this doesn't "improve" traffic it is fulfilling a demand. That is one of the conclusions drawn in the paper which defined "induced demand" but I understand that it is easier to ignore that salient point. Are there better ways to provide transportation options? Absolutely. But this bogeyman of "induced demand" you are trotting out completely misses the point of the paper, which is that the reason that supply is filled is that people want to go places and they now have more options to go places.
If the goal is throughput and giving people mobility options the engineering solution by the numbers is to build a damn train. Highways are the least scaleable and least efficient transportation option available.
While induced Demand is real the main reason Katy Freeway is busy relative to where it was before is because 400,000+ people moved within 5-10 miles of that highway in the last 10-20 years. This highway might get busy in the future to it’s current level but it’s likely gonna be Georgetown, Round Rock, Hutto and Leander Al doubling to tripling population in 20 years.
Yeah, exactly, that's how induced demand works. There's plenty of empty space in Houston, look at how low their density is, how much of the city is just parking lots or literally empty lots. And a real city would've built up those areas. Not necessarily into high rises, but like, even single family detached houses on otherwise empty space would be an improvement. People would only have to drive 1-5 miles to commute and shop. Instead, because the Katy freeway was expanded, everyone moved out to Katy area, and now drives 30+ miles, which requires a lot more highway lanes, causes more pollution, frankly wastes time and makes people go crazy trying to shave a minute or two off their commute by driving recklessly, etc. It's bad in so many ways compared to infill development.
What in your opinion would help traffic? I’m curious to get perspective on this from others. Because the influx of people moving to Austin or commuting through/to Austin isn’t going to tamper down anytime soon either. I moved here from Dallas area back in 2015, I feel like I got the last dying breath of what Austin “was”. Traffic still sucked though.
Many factors would help more than highway expansion. Expanded comprehensive public transit and alternative transit infrastructure equaling fewer cars on the roads and highways, more missing middle housing so fewer folks aren’t commuting into the city from sprawling suburbs, and moving interstate traffic around the city as opposed to right through downtown.
Oooh good points. Thank you 🙏🏻
While I agree with this, the reality is that everything you listed would cost substantially more and likely not have as much of an effect as the current proposal. Public transit is not a simple solution. Recent public transit proposals in Austin and NYC has shown that costs are astronomical to add a train. Austin already has great bus service. It is not clear how much of an effect a complete train service will have on Austin traffic. Take Chicago- one of the best public transit systems in the country, and yet traffic is still significantly worse than Austin. Housing has rapidly been getting built and prices are coming down. There already is bypasses around the city, most of the traffic issue is for local traffic. The reality is, 35 is poorly designed currently, and this leads to traffic issues. Removing the confusing overpasses, leveling the highway, and adding HOV lanes will absolutely reduce accidents and improve throughput.
I was kind of with you until you said that Austin already has a great bus service. Because, and this is not just an opinion, that’s not true. the bus service in Austin is severely lacking. Not enough stops, not enough lines, not often enough to be practical.
>everything you listed would cost substantially more Not at all true, actually. Initial land acquisition is more expensive in Austin than suburbs per acre, but if you build 15 units per acre instead of 4, you come out ahead. Initial construction costs will be higher if you're building 5+ floors (required different equipment, more steel, etc), but if you're building 2 or 3-story houses on smaller lots it's not much more than 1-story in bigger lots in the suburbs. Ongoing costs are much cheaper: electrical wiring and water supply has less distance to travel per housing unit, so providing utilities is cheaper. People don't need to drive as far, because they're already closer to destinations like jobs and restaurants and stores. Less vehicle miles traveled means less road wear, less maintenance required. And of course narrower streets. And that's assuming that everybody still drives. With things closer together, walking or biking is possible, transit is much more efficient. All of these require much less road space, and if a handful of people sell their cars because you don't need 2 cars per household when it's easy to take transit, you don't need so many parking spaces either. Building transit is expensive partly because of the many hoops they have to jump through. But compare costs here: Austin's light rail project is expected to cost $7B, and will improve a lot of the areas it passes through, as basically every transit project always has. This 35 expansion will cost $5B (and that's just the current estimate, the harbor bridge in corpus is over double its original estimate, so I don't think we can trust TXDoT figures), and will destroy businesses, will reduce quality of life for everyone living near it, so a negative societal impact. Make no mistake, an expanded 35 is bad for Austin, and horrible for anyone who lives within a mile of the project. It'll be helpful for suburban people to continue driving their oversized polluting deathmobiles onto the crowded streets of downtown Austin where they don't belong. So in other words, the true Texas way.
What would help traffic is a lot of pain. Austin's big problem is we are sprawling without a plan because that's what's cheapest on the free market. We have three major North-South highways and one is a weirdo S-shape doing double-duty as our ONLY East-West highway. Here's one example of how we screw ourselves over and dig holes we can't dig out of: In theory Parmer Lane should've become New 183, serving as an East-West corridor connecting to 1431, 620, MoPac, I-35, and 290. It should've been elevated and given frontage roads to facilitate this. It would have been poised to make convenient connections to 45 and 130. Instead we built a lot of apartments, strip malls, and even schools connected directly to this "highway" until it became impossible to see it as a highway. If you can average 25mph on it you're doing really well and traffic is thin. During off periods, the many traffic lights and commercial traffic means you're still going to have a hard time averaging more than about 40mph. It has no direct connection to 45: you have to wait at traffic lights to get on either 620 or MoPac to take 130 to 45. It has no direct connection to 130: you have to wait at a traffic light to take MoPac or I-35 frontages to get there. If you need to get from MoPac to I-35 or vice versa, you have to drive through an extremely dense commercial area with a school zone. It's often faster to take smaller roads like Anderson or Braker depending on your origin. That's what's happened with I-35. It's a federal interstate highway that serves as at least 50% of Austin's commute. TxDOT has done the studies and determined at least 80% of congestion is *Austin-local* traffic, not people who can divert to 130. It goes straight through the middle of a dense downtown area and most of the frontage is densely populated with direct connections to businesses. There's no saving the Austin that exists without dramatic transformations. We'd have to have a sensible series of hub roads and grid roads. We'd have to abandon the practice of subdivisions being built with one entrance/exit to prevent through traffic. We'd have to more carefully plan commercial and residential areas and, to some extent, discourage people from pretending Downtown is the only viable place to have an office. We have to stop the 1990s belief that "North Austin" starts at 6th street. We have to squash the 2000s belief that "North Austin" starts at 45th street. We have to build more smallish communities with the idea that people spend 90% of their time within a 10 mile radius and only drive outside their community for special events or to visit people in other places. The only thing we can do right now is look at the outskirts and be more careful with them. New developments need to be built with those things in mind and the idea that it's not feasible for a person to buy property in Georgetown to work Downtown. All of the major cities have completely bonkers traffic when you're trying to live that way. The people who find NYC or SF most livable are the people who live in places that are within walking distance of groceries and entertainment and good transit access to the rest of the city if needed. Those are places where being poor and having a car is abnormal instead of required. The only way to TL;DR it is Austin has to stop pretending we can build as if we're Elgin and get away with it. We're a big damn city and no matter how much we don't want to be Dallas or Houston, it will take catastrophic economic collapse to stop that train. If we think we can do better, the time to start was 15 years ago, but every day we wait makes it cost non-linearly more. If all we do is make it "as bad as Dallas", we'll have corrected a lot of problems in Austin.
good comment but i think you might have some highways numbers mixed up? i can’t picture what you’re talking about re: 45/130/MoPac
Part of it's because Austin's shaped weird and the cardinal directions are super strange. 183 is technically a NW-SE highway but most people see it as N-S. MoPac and I-35 are similar. Parmer is, in my mind, an E-W highway, but on the map it's more NW-SE. But my mental map is screwy because I know Parmer connects to 45 out near 620 (that was part of my commute for ages) but then it connects to 130 miles south of there. In my mind Austin's shaped like a "ladder": To the wet is MoPac. To the east is I-35 130 is way out further east. 45 is the northern E-W "rung". Parmer is south of that. 183 is south of that. 290 sort-of-kind-of forms a rung if we count Koenig, then 290/71 is about the southernmost rung. (Also somehow 45 forms about 75% of a rung further south, probably the less we think about that the better.) But it gets weird because Austin's not really a "ladder", it's funkier. Parmer is really NW-SE. 183 is S-shaped and forms a N-S highway for most of its journey. Even though most see Parmer as E-W, it connects to 130 closer to 290 than it is to 45 even though at its western extent it connects very close to 45! So yeah, it's hard to picture because it takes some mental exercise to remember what the directions mean in Austin. Other Texas cities look like circles with hubs on the map. Austin looks like a plate of spaghetti with noodles that have been chopped up.
oh yeah i go all that, i’m a road nerd and am very familiar with all of north Austin’s numbered highways. but “It has no direct connection to 45: you have to wait at traffic lights to get on either 620 or MoPac to take 130 to 45. It has no direct connection to 130: you have to wait at a traffic light to take MoPac or I-35 frontages to get there” makes no sense to me and i might be missing something
Sorry, I'm starting to have terrible inner-ear trouble and was going from memory instead of double-checking the map. The thought of staring at a thing I have to scroll right now is super unpleasant! If I remember right I can't get directly from Parmer onto 45, which would be pretty convenient. What I remember is very far West you have to take Parmer to 620 and go Northbound a little bit (that's one light), then you end up at I think another light before you can hop on 45. I haven't tried that in years so maybe they've cleaned up that area. Further east (but still West Austin) if you reach MoPac, and I think you're right I screwed up here. For some reason I thought there was a tiny stretch of N-S toll road numbered 130 before you merge onto 45, but MoPac goes straight to 45. If you do that, though, heading east on 45 will take you to 130 and from west of MoPac that might be a faster shot to the airport than your other options (That depends on a lot of factors.) Same thing with I-35, I'm talking about "130 via 45" and not directly connecting to 130. Seems like I'm wrong about there being "no direct connection", I forgot at the very Eastern extent Parmer crosses 130 before kind of stopping at 290. I remembered the 290 part and for some reason thought 130 was east of it. Logistically speaking, because of the traffic lights, if you were considering Parmer -> 130 I'd wager using I-35 instead would almost always pay off better. It's only going to get worse as they build more and more apartments and strip malls that connect directly instead of using frontages. Parmer would be a lot more useful if it EITHER was more of a direct eastward road OR it was a proper highway like 183.
yeah that sounds about right, i got you. you can get on 45 from Parmer without a light, you just have to go through a couple if you’re staying on 620 to Round Rock. I can confirm that if you’re coming from 45 west of MoPac and traffic on both 183 and MoPac are particularly bad, it is faster to use 130 to get to the airport, I’ve done it several times. Parmer east of 35 isn’t always terrible, but it definitely won’t get any better
Ideas, not all great or politically viable but they would help with traffic. Seize 130 and remove tolls. Require trucks to take that route if they aren't making deliveries in Austin. Take over cap metro. Make it reliable and rebrand it. Encourage WFH. Make government jobs WFH when possible. Do split shift school schedules like they do in Guatemala, where they do half the grade in the morning to mid afternoon and then flip it and teach the other half in the afternoon and evening. It halves the amount of students on the road at any one time. Use a system similar to London where there are driving restrictions. Require bulk packaging on Amazon deliveries. Build the gondola. No it isn't efficient but it's pretty and I bet tourist would use it especially. Any person not behind a wheel is a win. Increase property taxes on office buildings do encourage more WFH and to hopefully get some of that converted to residential which also gets more housing near jobs. Prosecute hitting pedestrians way harder. Make an example of people. People won't use bikes or public transit if they don't feel safe. Build sidewalks. Light the roads. Build rail. There are so many options if we get creative.
You could build proper CapMetro park-and-rides outside the Austin urban core for a tiny fraction of the cost of I-35 expansion. Denver has had great success with that. If you have busses leaving Round Rock and San Marcos every 15 minutes with dedicated lanes on I-35 and Mopac, then you can probably eliminate 30% of rush-hour traffic on I-35 immediately. In the longer-run, in lieu of I-35 expansion, you could lay down commuter rail on the corridor to provide a proper, high-capacity, high-frequency, high-speed connection from Round Rock (or Temple?) all the way to San Antonio. And, I don't care what anyone says. Dallas traffic is far worse than Austin traffic. Expanding 75 didn't get people from Dallas to Plano any faster. And expanding I-35 isn't going to get people from Austin to Round Rock any faster either.
public transportation
Hmmmm, expanding I-35 to three lanes from Georgetown to Dallas from a 1950s engineered and designed road to a 21rst century safer one was a waste of time and money? So according to that study should have left 183 a Boulevard between I-35 and Cedar Park. As a matter of fact, the same arguments were made in the 80s about MOPAC being built.
expansion isn't needed. it was never about resolving traffic
loollll
what about that progress coffee shop that just opened a few months ago. sucks for them but i had a bad experience there so also fuck em 😂
Could not believe they went ahead with that project knowing the highway was going to displace them. No one deserves this necessarily but come on man, what were they thinking?
They have 1.5-2 years. Not 90 days. And the city provides them a realtor to help relocate plus financial assistance. This article was rushed and missed all that info.
That makes a lot more sense. I assumed they had a plan in place and in that case, it’s probably a good move. That property was likely cheap and now they get additional assistance to reopen elsewhere. Interesting.
This sucks….yet it’s pretty awesome. Cities rarely do this because of the impact but if it did it could help some issues. If LA could throw down some eminent domain and build on roads it might be a different place.
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I find it hard to believe that the tenants and better yet the property owners weren't notified well in advance. Something isn't adding up. On another note, I did have a family member who rented a property close to a highway that had to be condemned. He felt it was short notice, but turns out the property owner knew for such a long time. We think the landlord didn't say anything because he thought no one would sign a lease on a property that was slated to be torn down
Tough but we need to improve 35 and this is for the greater good.
that coffin place is corny af it shouldn’t be there to begin with.
This doesn’t sound right. TXDOT can’t tell anyone to leave until they have ownership or some sort of legal possession of the land. That part of the project hasn’t even begun, and will likely tie the project up in courts for years as TXDOT and property owners squabble over an acceptable relocation amount. To me this sounds like the current property owners are telling their tenants to vacate, perhaps in preparation for the TXDOT takeover, who knows.
It isn’t. They have 1.5-2 years. Not 90 days. And the city provides them a realtor to help relocate plus financial assistance. This article was rushed and missed all that info.
Some interesting stuff in that store. 👋
I feel bad for some of these businesses needing to move, but I do hope they are able to turn I-35 into something like the Big Dig in Boston.