AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by freerover

Just discovered Cap Metro is considering converting 4th St to transit only lanes from San Antonio to Trinity. It would basically be express East-West service in downtown connecting the downtown rail station and Convention Center to Republic Park at the Guad/Lavaca Bus corridor. This would go along with making improvements to Republic Park.

This isn't the only east west service currently in the plan of study phase. They are also looking at a circular bus that would outline Red River, 3rd, Lamar and 15th. It would require building a new bridge over shoal creek. This route could be a Streetcar, Shuttle, light rail or bus priority.

What's the source of this?

when you say convert to transit only lanes, you mean add a transit lane (while keeping other lanes) or converting the entire street to transit-only?

[Maximusx1]

Originally Posted by freerover

This isn't the only east west service currently in the plan of study phase. They are also looking at a circular bus that would outline Red River, 3rd, Lamar and 15th. It would require building a new bridge over shoal creek. This route could be a Streetcar, Shuttle, light rail or bus priority.

This is the monorail route I have always dreamed of (although I would go up to MLK instead of 15th)!

If they want to do streetcar, that's fine. But I'd go up to MLK to help get drunk kids home from the bars. Also an elevated train on 3rd Street would disrupt the Congress Ave view of the Capitol, so I can easily be talked out of it. Long live the Dillo!

[chinchaaa]

Originally Posted by Maximusx1

This is the monorail route I have always dreamed of (although I would go up to MLK instead of 15th)!

If they want to do streetcar, that's fine. But I'd go up to MLK to help get drunk kids home from the bars. Also an elevated train on 3rd Street would disrupt the Congress Ave view of the Capitol, so I can easily be talked out of it. Long live the Dillo!

I agree! Make it count and send it up to MLK. That hill going up MLK from Lamar might be tough for a train though?

[DoubleC]

Dang, I was hoping there would be access from Cameron road to the 183NB-35NB connector, looks like that too will be inaccessible for me since I don’t take the 290NB-183NB because of the dam toll they have to charge. Would’ve been a nice alternative to 290NB-35NB since there’s no connector there.

Unless I take Springdale...

[freerover]

The 183 Expressway hit a major milestone today. The loyala crossing is closing for a year so they can convert it to a bridge that will carry traffic over the tolled mainlanes. The project also recently diverted Airport Blvd traffic to the new ramp and is in the process of demolishing the old one. Then it'll connect 7th St to the new bridge, demolish that ramp and then connect 1st. At that time, they'll either go ahead and decommission the Monotopolis bridge for car traffic or they'll keep it open just as a way to get traffic to Monotopolis Dr as they start to build the future frontage road over the existing road that was used to connect Airport/7th/1st to 183 SB. The bridge will eventually be closed for car traffic and become used for bikes and pedestrians only. It's possible they convert that bridge back to 2 way traffic in order to avoid detouring Monotopolis traffic south to U-Turn at Vargas when they demo the Monotopolis to 183 N ramp. That'll be a pretty confusing detour.

Originally Posted by Novacek

What's the source of this?

when you say convert to transit only lanes, you mean add a transit lane (while keeping other lanes) or converting the entire street to transit-only?

It's buried in the Project Connect documents. It's proposal MH-3 on 4th from San Antonio to Trinity to create a transit mall with "Two-Way Transit Only Lanes."

Maybe in misinterpreted what that meant? Maybe they get rid of street parking, keep 2 car lanes and add a single lane for a transit vehicle that would go back and forth along that 1 lane.

Originally Posted by DoubleC

Dang, I was hoping there would be access from Cameron road to the 183NB-35NB connector, looks like that too will be inaccessible for me since I don’t take the 290NB-183NB because of the dam toll they have to charge. Would’ve been a nice alternative to 290NB-35NB since there’s no connector there.

Unless I take Springdale...

Why does Cameron Road need access? There is a right turn ramp from 183 N Frontage to 35 N Frontage that doesn't go through the light. You just have to wait for a space and then you can get on 35 via a normal entrance ramp before the next light. It does suck that you can't get on 183 before Cameron.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by freerover

It's buried in the Project Connect documents. It's proposal MH-3 on 4th from San Antonio to Trinity to create a transit mall with "Two-Way Transit Only Lanes."

Thanks.

Looks like it was carried forward from the All Systems Go 2004 plan. Maybe there's more details in there. I'll give it a look sometime.

Edit: Actually, "source plan 1" may refer to CMTA Connections 2025 (2016) instead

[Novacek]

The first draft of the "Proposed Corridor Construction Program" for the corridors from the 2016 bond is supposed to be out tomorrow.

http://www.austintexas.gov/page/2016...nd-recent-news

I'm not sure if it'll just go live on the web site or if there's some sort of public reveal.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by Novacek

The first draft of the "Proposed Corridor Construction Program" for the corridors from the 2016 bond is supposed to be out tomorrow.

http://www.austintexas.gov/page/2016...nd-recent-news

I'm not sure if it'll just go live on the web site or if there's some sort of public reveal.

Super exciting! Can't wait to see if the council ward politics the proposal. Construction is going to have to be spaced out by 5-6 years. I'm going to guess that S. Lamar projects and the Drag are earlier on the schedule and FM969 is at the tail end. William Cannon closer to 35 in order to complement improvements to the WC accessibility with 35. Slaughter closer to mopac might be sooner in order to complement the new high capacity crossing at MoPac. The Burnet and Riverside improvements kind of depend on what the Cap Metro plan is for those corridors but there are enough projects in those two areas that need to be done regardless of what kind of mass transit is in place.

Orange lines are construction eligible. Green are just corridors that have ongoing studies that will need future funding:


The total cost for all of the projects on the orange line are about 2.5 billion. The 2016 bond gave them maybe 450-470 million to spend on construction plus whatever funds they can find in other places.


I wish they could just build it all at once.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by freerover

Super exciting! Can't wait to see if the council ward politics the proposal. I'm going to guess that S. Lamar and the Drag are earlier on the schedule and FM969 is at the tail end. William Cannon closer to 35 in order to complement improvements to the WC accessibility with 35. Slaughter closer to mopac might be sooner in order to complement the new high capacity crossing at MoPac. The Burnet and Riverside improvements kind of depend on what the Cap Metro plan is for those corridors but there are enough projects in those two areas that need to be done regardless of what kind of mass transit is in place.

There's definitely a lot of outstanding questions, hopefully tomorrow will start to answer at least some of them.

1. What's being done about the TxDot owned/controlled corridors/segments. At one point, there was noise that CoA would have to take over those segments to actually implement the corridor plans there. But I haven't heard of any progress on that. It's possible those segments end up deferred entirely this bond.

Burnet north of 183.
North Lamar north of 183.
Part of Airport
969
South Lamar (loop 343).

2. What work gets delayed waiting on potential TAP funding (and what happens to that work if it isn't selected)?

That reminds me, I meant to post that list from the council meeting. Another post upcoming.

3. Will work on Guadalupe continue while Project Connect is still outgoing?

There are some advocating for it to wait, since there might be wasted work or at least wasted planning (for inside transit lanes vs. outside transit lanes).

I'm of the opinion that you start on Guadalupe now. It's critical to our transit system, and there's no guarantee Austin passes a transit bond (which probably wouldn't even go before the voters until ~2020).

The danger of wasted work is the less evil IMO, and most of the work (especially over on Nueces) is an invariant. RoW acquisition is an invariant (or at worst a subset). Etc.

Originally Posted by freerover

I wish they could just build it all at once.

Considering they had to hire new people just to commit to finishing in 6 years, it's understandable it's going to be stretched out.

Hopefully they can get enough started that people start to see progress, and are willing to vote for another transportation bond on ~2020. Whether project connect/mass transit related or just the next set of corridors.

[Novacek]

As promised:

I noticed the city council, in the last meeting in December last year, approved a list to pass forward to CAMPO for potential projects for federal matching funds. I misspoke above, it's various federal funding sources not just TAP.


http://www.austintexas.gov/departmen...171214-reg.htm

Item 56.

Several 2016 corridor projects are listed, especially Slaughter and WC.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Novacek

The first draft of the "Proposed Corridor Construction Program" for the corridors from the 2016 bond is supposed to be out tomorrow.

http://www.austintexas.gov/page/2016...nd-recent-news

I'm not sure if it'll just go live on the web site or if there's some sort of public reveal.

And it's up

[Novacek]

MOTHERFUCKER

No transit lanes on Guadalupe?

[freerover]

This report they put out is well presented but I just like boring data heavy PDFs. Have they proposed an actual schedule?

I'm VERY happy to see they are widening the Metro Rail crossing on FM 969 along with adding dedicated sidewalk/bike lanes and a pedestrian crossing at Sedero Hills. The improvements should get 969 ready to support a train station for the green line.

Originally Posted by Novacek

MOTHERFUCKER

No transit lanes on Guadalupe?

Susan Somers asked about it and was told, "Was assured that if other planning processes [Project Connect] call for stuff everything will be made to sync up."

They are converting Nueces to two way, converting 24th to a 2 way with a median turn lane so it looks like they are doing most everything but the transit lane with the official corridor program.

[urbancore]

pretty sure this will get glossed over.

http://kxan.com/2018/02/06/drivers-a...ustin-traffic/

down 9% from 2016.

As the city "fills in" you have less reasons to travel long distances for the things you want/need.

I've lived central since '83 and it takes me EXACTLY the same amount of time to get to the places I've always visited. (less than 20 minutes anywhere central -rush hour notwithstanding) We are spoiled and people who move here from REAL cities think our traffic is "cute".

Anyone who complains it takes a long time to get to Leander...need to ask someone what it was like from '89-'02. And then ask themselves why they bitch when they live in a town that is 20 miles from Austin and is 2 towns away? Same thing with RR and Kyle.

Rant over.

wait, not over......we will NEVER have any real mass transit (other than buses) due to our town being zoned like a suburb (resulting in low density, and Code Next will do zero to change it), and the skyrocketing cost of construction. We will never raise our property taxes to give a few thousand urbanists a quick ride around downtown.

https://www.citylab.com/transportati...the-us/551408/

[freerover]

-Corridor-wide Mobility Improvements along the length of all nine corridors.
-Initial design of Enhanced Multimodal Improvements on Airport Boulevard and William Cannon Drive as well as sections of North Lamar Boulevard and South Lamar Boulevard.

Full design and construction of Enhanced Multimodal Improvements on East Riverside Drive between Shore District Drive and Montopolis Drive.

They city is all in on E. Riverside.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by freerover

Susan Somers asked about it and was told, "Was assured that if other planning processes [Project Connect] call for stuff everything will be made to sync up."

So IF project connect selects Guadalupe AND IF project connect selects transit-only lanes AND IF a city wide vote advocates for spending another couple Billion dollars.

Then we'd finally get transit lanes on Guadalupe in 2030 or so.

Originally Posted by freerover

They are converting Nueces to two way, converting 24th to a 2 way with a median turn lane so it looks like they are doing most everything but the transit lane with the official corridor program.

So literally everything but the entire point of that corridor program. The _entire_ point of converting Nueces was to enable transit lanes on Guadalupe.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by freerover

Full design and construction of Enhanced Multimodal Improvements on East Riverside Drive between Shore District Drive and Montopolis Drive.

They city is all in on E. Riverside.

"Additionally, design and construction will occur on multimodal enhancements between Shore District Drive and Montopolis Drive. This
includes elements like full street reconstruction to extend the life of the roadway; bike lanes that are protected from vehicular traffic;
intermittent median islands for safety; and streetscape enhancements."

http://www.austintexas.gov/sites/def..._Riverside.pdf

But not a word on the transit lanes that were in the corridor plan.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by Novacek

So IF project connect selects Guadalupe AND IF project connect selects transit-only lanes AND IF a city wide vote advocates for spending another couple Billion dollars.

Then we'd finally get transit lanes on Guadalupe in 2030 or so.

...yep. I mean, everything has a huge asterisk next to it because if Laura Morrison is elected Mayor and brings one of our cronies with her from Troxclair's district then you can forget a meaningful 2020 mobility bond. She's not going to push for a billion dollar proposal the way that Adler will. It's amazing how he was able to push the 2016 proposal across the finish line and he had to fight tooth and nail for 700 million.

Also, if Cap Metro decides against pursuing center transit lanes on the drag than that could open the possibility of using regular funds to implement the previously proposed bus transit lanes. How much could that cost if the bond program is doing all the sidewalk paving adjustments, 18th st bus adjustment and intersection work?

Edit: I believe they are adding the proposed NB bus only lane to Guad between 18th and MLK. This doesn't involve removing any car lanes so it shouldn't attract much controversy. This will allow buses From downtown to access the drag from the southern side of Guad at MLK instead of turning left onto MLK from Lavaca and right on Guad.

From Construction Plan:


From Corridor Proposal:

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/news/city-p...EsCtOSoinz75N/

City proposes spreading $450 million over nine Austin roads


Ben Wear American-Statesman Staff
1:56 p.m Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018

The city of Austin, with just a third of what it needs to completely rebuild all nine road corridors included in the 2016 bond program, would do part of the work on all nine — rather than all of of a smaller number of the corridors — under a staff recommendation released Wednesday.

That means that the initial construction likely would focus on sidewalks and pavement rehabilitation as well as intersection, transit, bike lane and traffic signal improvements.

The more sweeping corridor changes — full street reconstruction, as well as installation of medians and aesthetic streetscape touches like trees, benches and lighting — would be part of a later phase that isn’t funded yet.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

http://www.statesman.com/news/city-p...EsCtOSoinz75N/

The wording makes it sound like the city is recommending spreading the money out on all 9 corridors when they are actually legally required to.


Is anyone aware of a transportation based message board? I looked at the citydata forums and it's just a bunch of guys talking about swapping the names of 35 and 130.