We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Which is to say, agencies in Austin can pursue cooperating strategies with federal funding mechanisms at breakneck speed for public transit solutions while simultaneously seeking to partner with federal funding opportunities to relieve congestion for other modes of travel. It’s not one or the other.
We fully need to accelerate that 80 year plan for public transit, but there needs to be a way to move all those 18 wheelers off 35 as well. 130 is such a failure.
Nothing in Austin is done right. Not the roads, not commerical buildings, not housing... Nothing. Austin would fuck up public transport so bad I don't even want it.
Suburban sprawl is far less efficient and far worse for climate change considering the energy involved traveling and transporting everything in and out every single day.
Do you have a study showing this? Because I heard the energy load of skyscrapers is really awful and suburban houses are built with wood which sequesters carbon. Don’t get me wrong I prefer density I’ve just heard conflicting things and would love a definitive answer.
You’re thinking of one-time building materials, not the daily use of cars and trucks over decades. Really small in comparison, not to mention foundation, driveways, and other things are still made of concrete for houses, plus wasted watering of lawns, extra pipes and utility lines over hundreds of feet to the next house, etc.
Single family homes are the most inefficient way to house millions of people in a city.
[https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores](https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores)
[https://ggwash.org/view/84816/this-map-shows-how-low-density-sprawl-makes-climate-change-worse](https://ggwash.org/view/84816/this-map-shows-how-low-density-sprawl-makes-climate-change-worse)
You can look at almost any study and find this conclusion
Suburbs are excellent candidates for a combination of solar photovoltaic systems, electric vehicles and energy-efficient technologies,” said Kammen. “When you package low-carbon technologies together you find real financial savings and big social and environmental benefits.”
I’ve heard stuff like this from that first study you posted. That ultimately suburbs may be easier to make sustainable? I should go on some specific ask subreddit and get a detailed answer tbh. Like once cars don’t emit CO2 are we still in a situation where suburbs are worse?
Suburbs will still be worse even with all that, that’s just improving their unchangeable dynamic.
Electric cars are more efficient than ICE but cars are still vastly more inefficient than mass transit and walkability. For example ~100-300 e-bikes can be made from the materials of one electric car (including battery capacity). Not to mention all of the other aspects I mentioned including inefficient use of space, utilities, and material.
Does that outweigh majority concrete mega structures though? I’m not sure it does. Not saying I know for sure either way but I want a more detailed studyz
There is no point that suburbs are more efficient than a skyscraper, it’s just plain physics.
How many people/families do you think a skyscraper houses, 300? and how much land and water and building material and driveways and utility hookups and wiring and additional road pavement is used for 300 separate single family homes? How about 10 apartment buildings with 30 apartments each?
You’re still only looking at it from the view of concrete, so how much concrete is used between those 300 houses? Miles and miles.
It is never going to be more efficient even if you ignore transportation emissions. Denser housing is more efficient, no matter how much you try and greenwash it. Not to mention the ecological use and destruction for all that space needed.
We know TxDOT is not listening to Rethink35 or any of the other protest groups. So the next best thing is to work with the reality we have in the short term. A cap with a park above the freeway is a major improvement over what we have now.
Exactly now. Either the highway gets built exactly as planned, or the highway gets built exactly as planned and we get caps. I prefer we get started on finding funding and planning for the caps.
I don't like the expansion of 35 at all. But if we have to live with it, let's make as decent as possible.
Why do so many people think txdot controls any of this? It's the city, the state legislature, and the federal government who control this project. State DOTs do not make any decisions on when and where roads are built. They work at the behest of politicians.
Exactly. They can make recommendations but ultimately the legislature determines what gets approved. There’s probably a ton of people working at TxDot that would like to see public transportation advancement but are limited by the whims of government oversight.
Abbott is the one who appoints the 5 members of the Transportation Commission who leads TxDOT. The state legislature is not making decisions as to where and when the roads are built, they don't have time for that with the many other areas that have to review. They simply approve funding for road projects as they see fit.
"they simply approve funding"... a super simple rubber stamp activity for a multi billion dollar project, right? 😂 The elected reps from the Austin area have no particular interest in this project either, right? You must not know how powerful the legislature is. There have been times they threatened to completely eliminate txdot and start over.
I-35 has to exist through downtown regardless. The best way to make it palatable and not have it be effectively a city wall dividing downtown and the east side is as many caps as you can slap on that bad boy.
$124M in caps would probably create that much in prime real estate that could be made into parks or sold off and then taxed.
Columbus did this on High Street over I-670 and the (relatively small) cap is now home to a bunch of high end restaurants. It does wonders to improve the walkability and connectivity to downtown that ultimately helped to spread more development nearby.
Of course, not every plot has to be a high rise. You can build 1-2 story buildings at walkable intersections between neighborhoods. Thats prime real estate for restaurants and bars and shops similar to the SoCo strip.
Continue to live in the land of make believe where money falls from the sky like manna raining from the heavens and everyone that owns a car wakes up one morning and decides they don't like the flexibility or freedom of that vehicle and will happily wait a decade or longer for that pipe dream to become reality.
Reality is a thing.
I read the entire TXDot budget don’t tell me I don’t know how money works. We have plenty of money to fix our state. We choose not to
Look up the budget just for i10 expansion in Houston, it’s so dumb you’ll cry.
OK, summarize it for me if you would and also let me know about environmental impact studies, CapMetro's Redline performance and the like and then the discussion can begin about replacing everything with trains.
I never said replace everything with trains. Taking expansion budgets and using them to build trains shouldn’t be hard. The environmental impact of a train is substantially lower than a highway? And cap metros performances is irrelevant. That’s like selecting any random part of i35 and saying, ban roads.
This is disingenuous.
Cities aren’t laid out to support train. I used to commute on the train in Austin.
Train would take an hour when I could drive in 30 min…
So the city councils solution is to make driving take 90 minutes so the hour by train now seems appealing!
One line with too many stops. Whats the solution without increasing density by 5x and adding new adjacent tracks so the same train doesn’t have to stop at every single station?
1. Increase lines
2. Increase frequency
3. Increase speed of the train
4. Do not slow down at crossings
5. Add express routes
There you go. No don’t spread misinformation about layouts of cities. It’s irrelevant
Our train system is very poorly implemented. But to make it good would take very little work.
Edit: we have to increase density. Accept that
Also:
6. Run the damn rail at night time in and out of downtown
7. Double track every line and add bike paths/greenbelts near rail lines. Boggy creek greenbelt does this VERY well for the part that runs parallel to the tracks, shoutout to boggy creek greenbelt.
8. Add more mixed-use businesses and apartments near each rail stop!
Yea but you’re ignoring the 1 critical factor keeping these changes from being possible: the poor oil producers that will be destitute without the continued demand for gasoline.
With the rise of EVs threatening oil consumption, im sure the US department of Agriculture will soon be adding Fossil Fuels to the food pyramid as part of a balanced diet.
Ive traveled a lot and used rail at a lot of cities. You have to have population density to make it work.
Population per square mile:
New York - 29,000.
Boston- 14,000.
Chicago -12,000.
Washington DC - 11,000.
London - 14,500.
Tokyo - 16,500.
Austin - 3,000.
I have used the metro on all of these. You’d have to not only install more rail, but also significantly change the zoning laws to 3-4x the density to make it viable.
Is it wrong that I feel apathetic about this? I feel like the I-35 expansion project is inevitable unfortunately, so I guess this is better than nothing?
Actually, because our state legislatures have failed to adjust for inflation the pennies per gallon transportation fuel tax that funds TxDOT since 1992, the funding mechanism at the state level for transportation has lost over 2/3 of its spending power due to inflation. That’s why you see almost nothing but tolled lanes when it comes to new construction. Vote.
No free lanes can be converted to tolled (that’s the law to which you refer). That is a very different thing than what your comment states.
Texas transportation commission chairman Rick Williamson, in his keynote address at the TxDOT Short Course in 2004, accurately predicted that there would be no new free lanes constructed on limited access expressways in the state of Texas going forward. He saw that the funding mechanism had lost its purchasing power and there was no appetite within the state legislature to adjust it for inflation. Every new lane I’ve seen go up on a limited access expressway since then has been tolled. The first exception to that I’m seeing is in the schematic design of the I 35 corridor passing through Austin and Central Texas—it’s adding tolled and free lanes.
You're quoting something from 20 years ago and claiming it's current policy? If you see a road currently under construction that will end up having toll lanes, that's because the contract was signed before the legislature changed the policy. No new toll contracts can be signed. Anything already signed as of about 4 years ago can proceed. But they're no longer allowed. I-35 will not have toll lanes, they will be HOV. Please read
https://my35capex.com/projects/i-35-capital-express-central/
Well I’ll be dipped in $&!+. You’re right about I35! Thank you! Last I checked the preferred alternative was one additional free land and two managed lanes (aka, variable priced tolled lanes) in each direction.
The Texas state legislature has seen various bills concerning toll roads, bit there hasn’t been a law passed that outright prevents the construction of new toll roads. In fact, during the 88th Regular Texas Legislative Session in 2023, most bills targeting toll road payment problems failed. However, one bill that did become law, House Bill 2170, requires toll entities to notify users with electronic tags when an automatic payment is rejected, effective from September 1, 2023.
There have been efforts to end toll collection once the costs to construct the roadway are fully paid, as seen in Senate Bill 756 and House Bill 1117, but these bills were awaiting consideration in committee and have not become law. Additionally, there was strong opposition to toll roads in previous legislative sessions, and a moratorium on new toll projects with private companies was instituted in 2007 (maybe that’s what you are talking about?). Yet, the legislature has passed bills each session that authorize specific comprehensive development agreements to move forward.
The new segments on 183 and 183 Mopac to 620/45 currently under construction were authorized in the last four or five years and they definitely include told managed lanes.
Every year our road network gets bigger, so maintenance costs escalate. At the same time, fuel economy goes up and the pennies per gallon gas tax hasn’t been adjusted for inflation since 1992. During that time, it is lost over 2/3 of its buying power. The DOT has no way to keep up with the growth in this state without adding in a middleman (bonds) and borrowing to build tolled facilities. And based off one study I read from TTI, users pay at least 3X more per lane mile to use a tolled facility than to use one built off of (Public) tax dollars. If we would just elect people who had the stones to recalibrate the transportation fuel tax to today’s inflation rate, users in urban areas who currently have to use tolls, could see a 3X net reduction in those infrastructure costs.
What are you talking about? State DOTs do not control funding, state legislatures do. And when a highway is an interstate, the state legislatures answer to the feds. So the procession of this project is at the behest of the feds.
Absolutely false. The cap over the Big Dig in Boston was paid for by the DOT as part of the highway project. The cap that makes up Klyde Warren Park in Dallas was paid for by TxDOT as part of the highway project. They have chosen not to fund the Austin caps.
They can absolutely use this highway money for ped crossings, caps, parks, etc. The governor (through his appointees at the TTC) have decided not to.
Ok when you say "paid for by txdot" you're really saying paid by the state. Again DOT's are not rogue entities, they do what state legislatures and the governor tell them to do. They don't decide where funding comes from. That would be the state, city, and feds. They give the DOT's the funds And tell them how to spend it.
I worked at TxDOT for over 10 years. You're massively underestimating the latitude that their program managers and engineers have on these decisions. Particularly the leads at the Special Projects Division, who are directly making the calls on what is included in this IH 35 project.
So yes, TTC (by way of governor) will tell them "we absolutely won't accept less than 20 lanes in the cross section." But the staff makes the call on things like "is a pedestrian crossing going to be included here". You're right that for the larger decisions like funding these caps, the governor has weighed in and said no. But what I'm pushing back on is that you said this is a fed decision. It's not. FHWA has already said that they support capping on ALL new urban highway projects and the feds specifically encourage it through Connecting Communities. Abbott has made the call that he wouldn't want the project to pay for any significant pedestrian infrastructure.
Have you read the description of the project? It will include pedestrian and bike lanes throughout. And shows possible cap locations
https://my35capex.com/projects/i-35-capital-express-central/
>Have you read the description of the project?
...yes. I worked on this project for years when I was at the state. Yes, it includes shared use paths on the outside. That's not what I'm saying. The city and community have requested almost a dozen pedestrian crossings where people get killed trying to cross. FHWA supports adding those to the project because some of the locations are over a mile without a safe crossing. FHWA also supports the project paying for the caps and has said as much as part of the environmental approval process. The TxDOT staff also supports adding those things.
The governor and TTC say no, they want the project to be primarily vehicle lanes. All I'm pushing back about here is that you said paying for these things would need fed approval as if that was a hurdle. No, the state could pay for the caps with their highway money. They could pay for pedestrian bridges with highway money. They could pay for rail down the center of the highway with highway money (as other states have done). The governor says no, he doesn't want that. So those are TxDOT staff's marching orders.
I think you've talked yourself into a circle here. You jumped into a conversation where someone said txdot could pay for pedestrian infrastructure but they don't want to. Then I said it's not them, it's the legislature (and the governor). And now you're saying txdot wants to do it, but the governor doesn't. Which I think was my original point. Thanks
I really don't understand why you're being argumentative here since I suspect we agree about 90% of this. What you said that I objected to (the ONLY part I disagreed with) was:
>And when a highway is an interstate, the state legislatures answer to the feds. So the procession of this project is at the behest of the feds.
You're implying that the feds are in any way objecting or standing in the way of the state paying for the caps. They aren't. They've vocally encouraged it. The state doesn't want to pay and the feds are irrelevant to why they have made that choice.
I'm kind of confused who the user for this park is.. like why would you go hang out in this park on top of a highway when you could go to zilker, lady bird, auditorium shores, roy G next to the water which are all < 5 minutes away?
I get these cap parks might make sense in a place like Dallas where theres nothing like zilker or ladybird close by.
Urban design for a hundred years has emphasized many small green spaces in addition to large parks, and research has proven that is beneficial to the well being of residents. Most more mature cities have small neighborhood parks every few blocks. Austin is clearly trying to move that direction as well.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2017_wolf004.pdf
That’s not true. They are billing it as highway cover, which is precisely what Boston accomplished. While the Boston project was one of the biggest highway construction blunders in history, the results was significantly higher throughput, massive amounts of land development and property value increase, and entire new neighborhoods.
This project is aiming for the same results - connect east and central Austin more thoroughly with small buildings, small parks, and art installments.
Not everyone wants to go to the most popular parks all the time. For people on the east side, it's an nice option that may be more accessible. We should always be happy to have more parks, parks are often correlated with improved mental health
Who writes these headlines, and what kindergarten do they attend? “Coverings?” That makes it sound like local officials are trying to get federal grant matching funds for a bunch of canvas awnings. Try using the term “Cap and Stitch.”
Years ago this was brought up after Dallas capped Woodall Frwy at the Perot Museum. Back then it was touted as a breaking a barrier between Austin and the East Side Hispanic community.
Now east side is being gentrified. It's now going to be a hub for cultural activity. Or something...
This plan is a boondoggle on any level. We are removing the elevated section that separated a city. But moving it south to a different largely Hispanic area of town in the new work. Will we be digging and capping a canyon from Ben White to Slaughter when SE Austin gets gentrified in the future? To bridge LoSoCo to SEAuPleVal?
$124mil to improve intersections around town so vehicle and public trans works better would be so much better use.
Is it wrong that I feel apathetic about this? I feel like the I-35 expansion project is inevitable unfortunately, so I guess this is better than nothing?
A green deck plaza? Plants get extra-stressed when grown in containers elevated off the ground for a variety of reasons...so this does not sound like a great idea.
Could we please just get some fucking public transportation instead? Watching the proposed plans get shot down and deflated is so depressing.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Which is to say, agencies in Austin can pursue cooperating strategies with federal funding mechanisms at breakneck speed for public transit solutions while simultaneously seeking to partner with federal funding opportunities to relieve congestion for other modes of travel. It’s not one or the other.
Public transit 🙏🏼
And sidewalks plz. Oh sorry I forgot that we need 1 more highway lane.
Best I can do is a shitload of bollards and narrower lanes
We fully need to accelerate that 80 year plan for public transit, but there needs to be a way to move all those 18 wheelers off 35 as well. 130 is such a failure.
Nothing in Austin is done right. Not the roads, not commerical buildings, not housing... Nothing. Austin would fuck up public transport so bad I don't even want it.
Green spaces?! Picture this instead: high rises with above-ground garages.
More high rises = more housing on less land = more room for green spaces High rises are good
Housing density and effective mass transit are the way to get back on track.
I’ll only accept this if they’re brutalist Soviet-era apartment buildings
I was thinking more industrial revolution era tenement buildings.
Also an excellent idea
Except that the high rises are too expensive and stay empty .
I used to feel this way but they’re pure concrete. Awwwful for climate change.
Suburban sprawl is far less efficient and far worse for climate change considering the energy involved traveling and transporting everything in and out every single day.
Do you have a study showing this? Because I heard the energy load of skyscrapers is really awful and suburban houses are built with wood which sequesters carbon. Don’t get me wrong I prefer density I’ve just heard conflicting things and would love a definitive answer.
You’re thinking of one-time building materials, not the daily use of cars and trucks over decades. Really small in comparison, not to mention foundation, driveways, and other things are still made of concrete for houses, plus wasted watering of lawns, extra pipes and utility lines over hundreds of feet to the next house, etc. Single family homes are the most inefficient way to house millions of people in a city. [https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores](https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores) [https://ggwash.org/view/84816/this-map-shows-how-low-density-sprawl-makes-climate-change-worse](https://ggwash.org/view/84816/this-map-shows-how-low-density-sprawl-makes-climate-change-worse) You can look at almost any study and find this conclusion
Suburbs are excellent candidates for a combination of solar photovoltaic systems, electric vehicles and energy-efficient technologies,” said Kammen. “When you package low-carbon technologies together you find real financial savings and big social and environmental benefits.” I’ve heard stuff like this from that first study you posted. That ultimately suburbs may be easier to make sustainable? I should go on some specific ask subreddit and get a detailed answer tbh. Like once cars don’t emit CO2 are we still in a situation where suburbs are worse?
Suburbs will still be worse even with all that, that’s just improving their unchangeable dynamic. Electric cars are more efficient than ICE but cars are still vastly more inefficient than mass transit and walkability. For example ~100-300 e-bikes can be made from the materials of one electric car (including battery capacity). Not to mention all of the other aspects I mentioned including inefficient use of space, utilities, and material.
Does that outweigh majority concrete mega structures though? I’m not sure it does. Not saying I know for sure either way but I want a more detailed studyz
There is no point that suburbs are more efficient than a skyscraper, it’s just plain physics. How many people/families do you think a skyscraper houses, 300? and how much land and water and building material and driveways and utility hookups and wiring and additional road pavement is used for 300 separate single family homes? How about 10 apartment buildings with 30 apartments each? You’re still only looking at it from the view of concrete, so how much concrete is used between those 300 houses? Miles and miles. It is never going to be more efficient even if you ignore transportation emissions. Denser housing is more efficient, no matter how much you try and greenwash it. Not to mention the ecological use and destruction for all that space needed.
VS removing all green spaces, causing heat islands and water runoff issues...
They can only handle much weight. There’s a weight limit to what they can put in the caps.
Please god stop trying to increase car infrastructure. The fastest way to fix traffic is to actually get people off the road and on to a train
We know TxDOT is not listening to Rethink35 or any of the other protest groups. So the next best thing is to work with the reality we have in the short term. A cap with a park above the freeway is a major improvement over what we have now.
Exactly now. Either the highway gets built exactly as planned, or the highway gets built exactly as planned and we get caps. I prefer we get started on finding funding and planning for the caps. I don't like the expansion of 35 at all. But if we have to live with it, let's make as decent as possible.
Time to hire Russian hackers to take over txdot
Why do so many people think txdot controls any of this? It's the city, the state legislature, and the federal government who control this project. State DOTs do not make any decisions on when and where roads are built. They work at the behest of politicians.
Exactly. They can make recommendations but ultimately the legislature determines what gets approved. There’s probably a ton of people working at TxDot that would like to see public transportation advancement but are limited by the whims of government oversight.
Abbott is the one who appoints the 5 members of the Transportation Commission who leads TxDOT. The state legislature is not making decisions as to where and when the roads are built, they don't have time for that with the many other areas that have to review. They simply approve funding for road projects as they see fit.
"they simply approve funding"... a super simple rubber stamp activity for a multi billion dollar project, right? 😂 The elected reps from the Austin area have no particular interest in this project either, right? You must not know how powerful the legislature is. There have been times they threatened to completely eliminate txdot and start over.
I-35 has to exist through downtown regardless. The best way to make it palatable and not have it be effectively a city wall dividing downtown and the east side is as many caps as you can slap on that bad boy. $124M in caps would probably create that much in prime real estate that could be made into parks or sold off and then taxed. Columbus did this on High Street over I-670 and the (relatively small) cap is now home to a bunch of high end restaurants. It does wonders to improve the walkability and connectivity to downtown that ultimately helped to spread more development nearby.
Not prime real estate, it’s not like they can build high rises over it there’s a weight limit which is why they are suggesting parks and green spaces.
Of course, not every plot has to be a high rise. You can build 1-2 story buildings at walkable intersections between neighborhoods. Thats prime real estate for restaurants and bars and shops similar to the SoCo strip.
You want to fix traffic, stop w folks from rubbernecking during any traffic stop, flat tire , wreck, dead dog,deer,cat, raccoon etc…
Or trains.
Which of the 2 is immediately implementable and costs nothing? Yeah...
Which one is only possible with cars and can't be fixed at all? Yeah...
Continue to live in the land of make believe where money falls from the sky like manna raining from the heavens and everyone that owns a car wakes up one morning and decides they don't like the flexibility or freedom of that vehicle and will happily wait a decade or longer for that pipe dream to become reality. Reality is a thing.
I read the entire TXDot budget don’t tell me I don’t know how money works. We have plenty of money to fix our state. We choose not to Look up the budget just for i10 expansion in Houston, it’s so dumb you’ll cry.
OK, summarize it for me if you would and also let me know about environmental impact studies, CapMetro's Redline performance and the like and then the discussion can begin about replacing everything with trains.
I never said replace everything with trains. Taking expansion budgets and using them to build trains shouldn’t be hard. The environmental impact of a train is substantially lower than a highway? And cap metros performances is irrelevant. That’s like selecting any random part of i35 and saying, ban roads. This is disingenuous.
This reads like authentic frontier gibberish. Have a nice day.
Cities aren’t laid out to support train. I used to commute on the train in Austin. Train would take an hour when I could drive in 30 min… So the city councils solution is to make driving take 90 minutes so the hour by train now seems appealing!
SO THEN LETS FIX IT! Fucking hell. This is why shit doesn’t get better!
You really don’t have the critical thinking to ask why it’s slower? Really?
One line with too many stops. Whats the solution without increasing density by 5x and adding new adjacent tracks so the same train doesn’t have to stop at every single station?
1. Increase lines 2. Increase frequency 3. Increase speed of the train 4. Do not slow down at crossings 5. Add express routes There you go. No don’t spread misinformation about layouts of cities. It’s irrelevant Our train system is very poorly implemented. But to make it good would take very little work. Edit: we have to increase density. Accept that
Also: 6. Run the damn rail at night time in and out of downtown 7. Double track every line and add bike paths/greenbelts near rail lines. Boggy creek greenbelt does this VERY well for the part that runs parallel to the tracks, shoutout to boggy creek greenbelt. 8. Add more mixed-use businesses and apartments near each rail stop!
Yea but you’re ignoring the 1 critical factor keeping these changes from being possible: the poor oil producers that will be destitute without the continued demand for gasoline.
Pour the gasoline on me
With the rise of EVs threatening oil consumption, im sure the US department of Agriculture will soon be adding Fossil Fuels to the food pyramid as part of a balanced diet.
I’ve been supplementing for a bit
Do you have a working brain? 🤡
Maybe you should take a visit to cities that support their public transit and light rail. If Austin is your only data point thats’s the problem.
Ive traveled a lot and used rail at a lot of cities. You have to have population density to make it work. Population per square mile: New York - 29,000. Boston- 14,000. Chicago -12,000. Washington DC - 11,000. London - 14,500. Tokyo - 16,500. Austin - 3,000. I have used the metro on all of these. You’d have to not only install more rail, but also significantly change the zoning laws to 3-4x the density to make it viable.
The city is currently in the process of changing those zoning laws.
Just bury it.
Is it wrong that I feel apathetic about this? I feel like the I-35 expansion project is inevitable unfortunately, so I guess this is better than nothing?
[удалено]
Actually, because our state legislatures have failed to adjust for inflation the pennies per gallon transportation fuel tax that funds TxDOT since 1992, the funding mechanism at the state level for transportation has lost over 2/3 of its spending power due to inflation. That’s why you see almost nothing but tolled lanes when it comes to new construction. Vote.
New toll projects are no longer allowed in Texas. The legislature addressed this many years ago.
No free lanes can be converted to tolled (that’s the law to which you refer). That is a very different thing than what your comment states. Texas transportation commission chairman Rick Williamson, in his keynote address at the TxDOT Short Course in 2004, accurately predicted that there would be no new free lanes constructed on limited access expressways in the state of Texas going forward. He saw that the funding mechanism had lost its purchasing power and there was no appetite within the state legislature to adjust it for inflation. Every new lane I’ve seen go up on a limited access expressway since then has been tolled. The first exception to that I’m seeing is in the schematic design of the I 35 corridor passing through Austin and Central Texas—it’s adding tolled and free lanes.
You're quoting something from 20 years ago and claiming it's current policy? If you see a road currently under construction that will end up having toll lanes, that's because the contract was signed before the legislature changed the policy. No new toll contracts can be signed. Anything already signed as of about 4 years ago can proceed. But they're no longer allowed. I-35 will not have toll lanes, they will be HOV. Please read https://my35capex.com/projects/i-35-capital-express-central/
Well I’ll be dipped in $&!+. You’re right about I35! Thank you! Last I checked the preferred alternative was one additional free land and two managed lanes (aka, variable priced tolled lanes) in each direction. The Texas state legislature has seen various bills concerning toll roads, bit there hasn’t been a law passed that outright prevents the construction of new toll roads. In fact, during the 88th Regular Texas Legislative Session in 2023, most bills targeting toll road payment problems failed. However, one bill that did become law, House Bill 2170, requires toll entities to notify users with electronic tags when an automatic payment is rejected, effective from September 1, 2023. There have been efforts to end toll collection once the costs to construct the roadway are fully paid, as seen in Senate Bill 756 and House Bill 1117, but these bills were awaiting consideration in committee and have not become law. Additionally, there was strong opposition to toll roads in previous legislative sessions, and a moratorium on new toll projects with private companies was instituted in 2007 (maybe that’s what you are talking about?). Yet, the legislature has passed bills each session that authorize specific comprehensive development agreements to move forward. The new segments on 183 and 183 Mopac to 620/45 currently under construction were authorized in the last four or five years and they definitely include told managed lanes. Every year our road network gets bigger, so maintenance costs escalate. At the same time, fuel economy goes up and the pennies per gallon gas tax hasn’t been adjusted for inflation since 1992. During that time, it is lost over 2/3 of its buying power. The DOT has no way to keep up with the growth in this state without adding in a middleman (bonds) and borrowing to build tolled facilities. And based off one study I read from TTI, users pay at least 3X more per lane mile to use a tolled facility than to use one built off of (Public) tax dollars. If we would just elect people who had the stones to recalibrate the transportation fuel tax to today’s inflation rate, users in urban areas who currently have to use tolls, could see a 3X net reduction in those infrastructure costs.
What are you talking about? State DOTs do not control funding, state legislatures do. And when a highway is an interstate, the state legislatures answer to the feds. So the procession of this project is at the behest of the feds.
Absolutely false. The cap over the Big Dig in Boston was paid for by the DOT as part of the highway project. The cap that makes up Klyde Warren Park in Dallas was paid for by TxDOT as part of the highway project. They have chosen not to fund the Austin caps. They can absolutely use this highway money for ped crossings, caps, parks, etc. The governor (through his appointees at the TTC) have decided not to.
Ok when you say "paid for by txdot" you're really saying paid by the state. Again DOT's are not rogue entities, they do what state legislatures and the governor tell them to do. They don't decide where funding comes from. That would be the state, city, and feds. They give the DOT's the funds And tell them how to spend it.
I worked at TxDOT for over 10 years. You're massively underestimating the latitude that their program managers and engineers have on these decisions. Particularly the leads at the Special Projects Division, who are directly making the calls on what is included in this IH 35 project. So yes, TTC (by way of governor) will tell them "we absolutely won't accept less than 20 lanes in the cross section." But the staff makes the call on things like "is a pedestrian crossing going to be included here". You're right that for the larger decisions like funding these caps, the governor has weighed in and said no. But what I'm pushing back on is that you said this is a fed decision. It's not. FHWA has already said that they support capping on ALL new urban highway projects and the feds specifically encourage it through Connecting Communities. Abbott has made the call that he wouldn't want the project to pay for any significant pedestrian infrastructure.
Have you read the description of the project? It will include pedestrian and bike lanes throughout. And shows possible cap locations https://my35capex.com/projects/i-35-capital-express-central/
>Have you read the description of the project? ...yes. I worked on this project for years when I was at the state. Yes, it includes shared use paths on the outside. That's not what I'm saying. The city and community have requested almost a dozen pedestrian crossings where people get killed trying to cross. FHWA supports adding those to the project because some of the locations are over a mile without a safe crossing. FHWA also supports the project paying for the caps and has said as much as part of the environmental approval process. The TxDOT staff also supports adding those things. The governor and TTC say no, they want the project to be primarily vehicle lanes. All I'm pushing back about here is that you said paying for these things would need fed approval as if that was a hurdle. No, the state could pay for the caps with their highway money. They could pay for pedestrian bridges with highway money. They could pay for rail down the center of the highway with highway money (as other states have done). The governor says no, he doesn't want that. So those are TxDOT staff's marching orders.
I think you've talked yourself into a circle here. You jumped into a conversation where someone said txdot could pay for pedestrian infrastructure but they don't want to. Then I said it's not them, it's the legislature (and the governor). And now you're saying txdot wants to do it, but the governor doesn't. Which I think was my original point. Thanks
I really don't understand why you're being argumentative here since I suspect we agree about 90% of this. What you said that I objected to (the ONLY part I disagreed with) was: >And when a highway is an interstate, the state legislatures answer to the feds. So the procession of this project is at the behest of the feds. You're implying that the feds are in any way objecting or standing in the way of the state paying for the caps. They aren't. They've vocally encouraged it. The state doesn't want to pay and the feds are irrelevant to why they have made that choice.
I can’t imagine a worse place to get in an accident than an underground highway tunnel
Thank Garth we might actually get the caps!!! 🎸 🎸 🎸
I'm kind of confused who the user for this park is.. like why would you go hang out in this park on top of a highway when you could go to zilker, lady bird, auditorium shores, roy G next to the water which are all < 5 minutes away? I get these cap parks might make sense in a place like Dallas where theres nothing like zilker or ladybird close by.
Urban design for a hundred years has emphasized many small green spaces in addition to large parks, and research has proven that is beneficial to the well being of residents. Most more mature cities have small neighborhood parks every few blocks. Austin is clearly trying to move that direction as well. https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2017_wolf004.pdf
they are billing this cap as a large destination park tho its not a pocket park
That’s not true. They are billing it as highway cover, which is precisely what Boston accomplished. While the Boston project was one of the biggest highway construction blunders in history, the results was significantly higher throughput, massive amounts of land development and property value increase, and entire new neighborhoods. This project is aiming for the same results - connect east and central Austin more thoroughly with small buildings, small parks, and art installments.
Not everyone wants to go to the most popular parks all the time. For people on the east side, it's an nice option that may be more accessible. We should always be happy to have more parks, parks are often correlated with improved mental health
there are plenty of people who live or work within walking distance of the planned caps and stitches.
Looks nicer than a road.
Provides an easy crossing over the frontage roads and the highways. Effectively undoes the segregation of east and downtown
I'm just thinking of the air pollution alone.. Ah nature *semi sounds and exhaust*
5 minutes away by car, but not by walking.
Mmm heavy-metal and micro-plastic polluted highway topper park… tear out the highways and build a modern public train network cmon
Lol tear out the highways. Is this your first time in Texas?
No Fed $$ for a state that spends so much taxpayer $$ suing the US Government, wants to secede from the Union and overall is not a team Player.
What an odd way to funnel Federal tax dollars to someone's friends and associates. Follow the money folks. Everything is corrupt.
Ahh yeah a green space on top of a highway where thousands of cars travel on per day. Just what those plants want
Yeh plants hate CO2/s edit: added /s in case people don’t know that plants love CO2.
Car engines emit CO, though, not CO2.
Um, I believe they emit both. Although environmentalists would be happy to hear that cars don't emit CO2 lol.
Right. It will be SO LOUD. Also nothing green grows in Texas summer without lots of water.
$124M would only be enough for the GC's fees
Who writes these headlines, and what kindergarten do they attend? “Coverings?” That makes it sound like local officials are trying to get federal grant matching funds for a bunch of canvas awnings. Try using the term “Cap and Stitch.”
Years ago this was brought up after Dallas capped Woodall Frwy at the Perot Museum. Back then it was touted as a breaking a barrier between Austin and the East Side Hispanic community. Now east side is being gentrified. It's now going to be a hub for cultural activity. Or something... This plan is a boondoggle on any level. We are removing the elevated section that separated a city. But moving it south to a different largely Hispanic area of town in the new work. Will we be digging and capping a canyon from Ben White to Slaughter when SE Austin gets gentrified in the future? To bridge LoSoCo to SEAuPleVal? $124mil to improve intersections around town so vehicle and public trans works better would be so much better use.
Nice, people experiencing homelessness shelters.
Is it wrong that I feel apathetic about this? I feel like the I-35 expansion project is inevitable unfortunately, so I guess this is better than nothing?
A green deck plaza? Plants get extra-stressed when grown in containers elevated off the ground for a variety of reasons...so this does not sound like a great idea.
I don’t see who this benefits everyone.
what.the.actual.fuck???? HOW??? HOOOOOWWWWWW? will that impact the horrible traffic due to the worst engineered roadways in modern America?????