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Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas
And agreed on the cars issue in that area. One of the stark differences between the Rainey Street area and say, around where the central library and Independent are is the traffic. Even with the area around The Independent turning into the most dense area of downtown, the traffic over there is almost non-existent. When Jdawgboy, theGenral and I were walking around there last week, I was snapping pics in the middle of 2nd Street and only one car came by. The difference is most of the uses in the area around the Independent are residential, and most of those residents walk or bike to locations in downtown. The Rainey Street area, while it does have residential, still has a lot of bars that attract a lot of people to that area from outside of downtown from areas that at are more car dependent. Those people are driving in Rainey Street to hit the bars and it's creating way more traffic there than there should be.
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Honestly (and this is speaking as a Rainey St. resident) I think the difference is that really the main attraction to the area is the bars, and nothing else. There are restaurants, sure, but not much else. Whereas the independant/seaholm area has the library, shopping, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. So people in that area can kind of migrate from other areas of downtown, whereas rainey street right now is sort of a one-purpose destination, that brings people from all over austin to drive and park...
But I did wonder about traffic control here. Even without anything at Waller Park Place built, it's becoming a pretty big issue around the area at night. I don't usually mind it, but at 10:00 on a saturday it can take me an extra 5 minutes just to get the last 1/4 mile home. And with more buildings, it's going to be an even bigger issue with ubers/taxis/buses coming into the area and stopping in the middle of the road (since everything only has one lane for the most part). I've wondered that especially with the big limos and buses coming into the Hotel Van Zandt. If WPP ever gets developed like the plans were, there's no way a couple buses can just hang out and park for 3 hours in the street like they do now. But I have no earthly idea where they could go, unless that alley street west of rainey were totally re-vamped...