AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[GoldenBoot]

Citywide, 2% of workers (or 20,000 people) ride their bikes to their place of business every day!?! The city’s focus should not be “citywide,” but central core…where the numbers are actually a lot higher.

Austin has not grown-up modeled after European cities (for example): more compact and urban. The urban area of Austin stretches approximately 50-55 miles N-S and 20-25 miles E-W. And the sooner COA officials realize and accept this, the better. Our city is too spread out and it is lunacy to think otherwise.

With regard to employees biking to work, Austin elected officials need to comprehend the “city” is not a dense urban environment situated in the northwestern U.S. A major example not to overlook is the fact that our summer temperatures are nowhere near as tolerable as they are in the NW (a territory in which Austin officials wish to model)!

Furthermore, they need to focus on the fact that we are a “region;” and thus, must intimately work with the other members of the “region” in an effort to make life here (the entire Austin Metropolitan Area) more “livable, mobile, competitive, attractive, etc.”

**PERSONAL NOTE: I am a cyclist and hit the roads every day (~20-30 miles) for exercise and training. However, I would never consider riding my bike 20 miles into town for work.

[KevinFromTexas]

I probably have a bit of a skewed view of biking into downtown, I guess, since my route is only 6 miles. When I say I ride 15 to 30 miles, I'm talking about round trip and that is also with detours and diversions. I can usually get into downtown and back out in around 12 miles. I've been riding more over the last 7 years, and now days a 10 mile bike ride is a cinch. At least half of the time spent getting downtown is waiting for traffic lights. If it weren't for traffic lights I'd be there in 10 or 15 minutes. The synchronized lights along South Congress have helped.

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/l...transit/nXJRH/

Updated: 6:49 p.m. Wednesday, April 10, 2013 | Posted: 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Obama plan would likely bolster TxDOT, transit

By Ben Wear
American-Statesman Staff

President Barack Obama’s budget for transportation spending in 2014 — an additional $50 billion, equating to a 50 percent increase according to an Associated Press analysis — is of course only an opening bid. With a Republican-controlled U.S. House, the only certainty is that what comes out the other end of the political process will be much different than what the president proposed.

What Capital Metro gets annually in federal funding fluctuates wildly, and it has been inflated the past couple of years by a $37 million grant for the agency’s first two “rapid bus” lines, set to open in 2014. But that proposed extra federal funding would likely trickle down to Capital Metro and to rural transit agencies in Texas.

The bulk of that $50 billion, however, would go to the “fix-it-first” program for roads and bridges that Obama highlighted in his State of the Union address this year. That is roughly what transportation projects received in the 2009 economic stimulus program, which brought more than $2 billion to Texas and paid for, among many projects, part of the U.S. 290 East tollway project now under construction.

[audiomuse]

Originally Posted by GoldenBoot

A major example not to overlook is the fact that our summer temperatures are nowhere near as tolerable as they are in the NW (a territory in which Austin officials wish to model)!

Amsterdam, arguably the top bicycling city in the world (along with Copenhagen) has 214 rainy days per year. Yet, over 50% of people commute by bike. If you plan accordingly, anyone can make it work. For the heat, you just need to dress appropriately and do some basic hygiene rituals. Bring wipes with you and freshen up in the restroom. If your workplace has a shower, even better! The temperatures are much cooler during the morning rush hour so you deal less with the heat than during the day. When you're going home in the evening, it doesn't matter as much because you can take a shower at home.

As for the fact that Austin is so spread out, yes it's true. However Copenhagen is quite sprawly as well and like Amsterdam over 50% of the people get around by bike. Austin is constantly densifying so the urban landscape is improving

[AusTxDevelopment]

Here's some info from the City of Austin's Transportation Department regarding the percentage of Austinites who bike to work.


City of Austin Transportation Department
Bike Commuting Hits 10% In Some Areas




Red equals higher percentages of bike commuters in Austin.

The percentage of people who commute to work on a bike has reached double digits in some central Austin neighborhoods.

In the 2012 State of Bicycling address, the Public Works Department reported the city had met a major milestone in bicycle transportation, that 2 percent of Austin's workforce is commuting by bike.

Now Bicycle & Urban Trails Program Manager Annick Beaudet has parsed the data by geographic location, and the results show that in some neighborhoods almost 1 in 10 residents are commuting by bike.

City Council set overall bicycle commuting goals for the city at 2 percent by 2015 and 5 percent by 2020, with a secondary goal was also set for the central city at 8 percent by 2015 and 10 percent by 2020.

Currently, the total central city mode share averages at about 6 percent.

The first three months of 2013 have seen five important bicycle construction projects reach completion or make steady progress: the Lance Armstrong Bikeway Downtown Section (3rd Street), the Southern and Northern Walnut Creek Trails, the Austin to Manor Trail Phase I, and the Barton Springs Road Cycle Track/Bicycle Lane Improvement Project.

These projects, which are funded with a combination of federal grant funds and local bond funds totaling approximately $17 million, will create about 13 lane miles of high-quality physically-separated bicycle facilities.

In 2012, the Public Works Department completed 40 miles of bicycle projects. This work included building 23.5 miles of new bicycle lanes, widening 10 miles of existing bicycle lanes, and installing 1.3 miles of separated bike lanes).

Upcoming improvements are planned for St Johns Avenue (from Berkman to Lamar), Burnet Road (from Koenig to Research), South Lamar Boulevard (from Cinco to Mary), and others.

http://www.austin-mobility.com/

[ivanwolf]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I probably have a bit of a skewed view of biking into downtown, I guess, since my route is only 6 miles. When I say I ride 15 to 30 miles, I'm talking about round trip and that is also with detours and diversions. I can usually get into downtown and back out in around 12 miles. I've been riding more over the last 7 years, and now days a 10 mile bike ride is a cinch. At least half of the time spent getting downtown is waiting for traffic lights. If it weren't for traffic lights I'd be there in 10 or 15 minutes. The synchronized lights along South Congress have helped.

Kevin I think your view is skewed a bit as you do it so much. I have thought about riding but I would come from 183/Jamestown Dr area up north and have to go to 8th/Guad. That's 8 miles one way. I was thinking getting to Guad up north to 46th to Duval to San Jacinto and over 8th. OR Woodrow to Shoal Creek to Rio Grande to 8th. Either way is quite busy and a long time to be in traffic with only bike lanes. This trip should take 40min or so twice as long as my car trip and I would have to clean up a bit too. I'd be weary to try Lamar or the busy section or Guad as bikers are not liked there even by me driving, they tend to not stay in lane or really slow traffic when the bike lanes disappear. And the bus drivers are the worse to the bikers. Why can't we just put a bike path next to the train on Mopac?

[KevinFromTexas]

You can always take neighborhood streets as an alternative to a main thoroughfare. I did that last month in San Antonio when I wanted to ride the 6 mile route from the AT&T Center in East San Antonio to downtown. Instead of braving East Houston Street, which has no bike lanes, I took a quiet neighborhood street one block over, and only encountered 2 cars both ways. I got to downtown in 15 minutes.

[GoldenBoot]

Originally Posted by audiomuse

Amsterdam, arguably the top bicycling city in the world (along with Copenhagen) has 214 rainy days per year. Yet, over 50% of people commute by bike. If you plan accordingly, anyone can make it work. For the heat, you just need to dress appropriately and do some basic hygiene rituals. Bring wipes with you and freshen up in the restroom. If your workplace has a shower, even better! The temperatures are much cooler during the morning rush hour so you deal less with the heat than during the day. When you're going home in the evening, it doesn't matter as much because you can take a shower at home.

As for the fact that Austin is so spread out, yes it's true. However Copenhagen is quite sprawly as well and like Amsterdam over 50% of the people get around by bike. Austin is constantly densifying so the urban landscape is improving

One: How was Amsterdam's survey conducted? Two: Amsterdam may have 214 days of "rain;" but, they receive almost the same amount of rain as Austin does in a usual/common year (~32-35 inches). And please don't tell me you are too good to ride a bike in the mist. Three: Have you been there? I can walk across the majority of the city in less than 30 minutes!

Amsterdam's urban area is roughly 10 miles E-W and 10 miles N-S. Comparing Austin to any European city is crazy!

Copenhagen is roughly 15 miles E-W and 13 miles N-S...not much different. There are areas that sprawl around and down the coast toward Koge (but, I doubt 50% of those people bike into Copenhagen to work). Even if they did, it's just over 22 miles away. Even Roskilde is only 22 miles from the Kattegat "Sea" via downtown Copenhagen.

One cannot easily and accurately compare city-to-city or region to region as the amount of people who bike to work is directly related to where they live, specifically, in conjunction to where they work. Thus, denser, urban environs will always have better numbers than those in which are more spread out. Take a look at the list again...several of the Top 50 are suburbs of a core city in a metropolitan area. Depending on the size of that suburb, how many people which live and work within that suburb, how many of those who ride their bikes to work, you may see those numbers increase. The ranking is not an equal or fair evaluation of said cities.

Take a look at Austin's map. The number of those who bike to work are several times larger than the 2% citywide. Cut the city up into areas the same size as Boulder or Chico and you might see a truer comparison.

[lzppjb]

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/s...r-roads/nXKzC/

Perry wants to use longterm (100yrs) debt to take advantage of the low interest rates for road and infrastructure projects. A number given was $41 billion from various sources, including the longterm loans.

I hope Austin gets some of that!

[KevinFromTexas]

That's from the state's rainy day fund. I'd rather the state hang on to that change and let the Feds do us a favor as Obama has proposed. We might as well get some of that money back from Washington that we sent them. Obama's plan would be for $50 billion in projects, but of course Texas would see a smaller slice of that since it would be divided among other states. Texas is one of the states, along with California, that sends more money to Washington than we get back. We mostly subsidize poorer states like Mississippi.

[The ATX]

TxDot is planning to add two "free" lanes to IH35 in San Antonio inside Loop 410. The two additional lanes offered as improvement to I35 through Austin at a recent Mobility open house were described as most likely to be tolled. Why must Austin roads always be tolled?

[lzppjb]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

That's from the state's rainy day fund. I'd rather the state hang on to that change and let the Feds do us a favor as Obama has proposed. We might as well get some of that money back from Washington that we sent them. Obama's plan would be for $50 billion in projects, but of course Texas would see a smaller slice of that since it would be divided among other states. Texas is one of the states, along with California, that sends more money to Washington than we get back. We mostly subsidize poorer states like Mississippi.

Some of it will be from the rainy day fund, which only has about $12 billion total from what I understand. The rest of the $41 billion would be from the loans.

[lzppjb]

Originally Posted by Hill Country

TxDot is planning to add two "free" lanes to IH35 in San Antonio inside Loop 410. The two additional lanes offered as improvement to I35 through Austin at a recent Mobility open house were described as most likely to be tolled. Why must Austin roads always be tolled?

That's such crap. I don't understand it.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Hill Country

TxDot is planning to add two "free" lanes to IH35 in San Antonio inside Loop 410. The two additional lanes offered as improvement to I35 through Austin at a recent Mobility open house were described as most likely to be tolled. Why must Austin roads always be tolled?

I'm not too familiar with San Antonio, but is it possible that those new lanes there are in existing right of way (relatively cheap) while additional lanes here in Austin are much more expensive to build (due to lack of right of way and the existing double-decking cluster####).

[lzppjb]

My pipe dream: I-35 below ground level through town with a lot of lanes for through traffic, and capped at ground level by some lanes and a green median for in-town traffic. Could harken back to East Avenue.

[BevoLJ]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

My pipe dream: I-35 below ground level through town with a lot of lanes for through traffic, and capped at ground level by some lanes and a green median for in-town traffic. Could harken back to East Avenue.

Can you imagine what sort of tolls TxDot would put on such a build in Austin?

[jngreenlee]

If the core central Austin segment of I-35 had to be converted to a spur or something, and I-35 re-routed, what would you prefer?

1. Realign I-35 over 71E/183N
2. Realign I-35 over Toll45/Toll 130

*Here, re-align means building continuous lanes through the interchanges s.t. you never 'exit' to stay on I-35, and renaming everything accordingly.

What would the leftover spur be named? I'd use I-735.

[lzppjb]

130 would have to be widened.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by jngreenlee

If the core central Austin segment of I-35 had to be converted to a spur or something, and I-35 re-routed, what would you prefer?

1. Realign I-35 over 71E/183N
2. Realign I-35 over Toll45/Toll 130

*Here, re-align means building continuous lanes through the interchanges s.t. you never 'exit' to stay on I-35, and renaming everything accordingly.

What would the leftover spur be named? I'd use I-735.

By rule it'd have to be something like I-235 because it'd be connected on both ends.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by jngreenlee

If the core central Austin segment of I-35 had to be converted to a spur or something, and I-35 re-routed, what would you prefer?

1. Realign I-35 over 71E/183N
2. Realign I-35 over Toll45/Toll 130

*Here, re-align means building continuous lanes through the interchanges s.t. you never 'exit' to stay on I-35, and renaming everything accordingly.

What would the leftover spur be named? I'd use I-735.

Realignment number 1. It could be done and would cost a huge bundle and involve the acquisition of additional right of way. It should happen and would solve a lot of problems, but it won't happen. Let certain individuals who regularly post here tell you why it won't or can't happen. I have been in this discussion in the past and plan to sit this one out.