AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[KevinFromTexas]

Oh boy. That's gonna be fun. Those are our two main routes out of our neighborhood onto I-35...

I actually remember back in the day when Stassney Lane dead ended at Congress and you had to either take William Cannon or Ben White to get onto I-35. That was before 1992 when they put Stassney through to I-35 and beyond into Southeast Austin.

[lzppjb]

Those turnaround lanes at Wm Cannon and Stassney are going to be a huge help. Can't wait!

[The ATX]

As far as that I-35/Riverside mess, I found this update at Mobility35. The project is scheduled to be let in February 2016, and the schematics phase is 30% done. It doesn't have the direct connect flyovers that were talked about a year or two ago, but it will be another baby step in making I-35 more tolerable.

Schematic from project update:


http://www.mobility35.org/projects/T...sidedrive.aspx

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by electricron

http://austinrailnow.com
I believe the editorialist figured it out mostly, only failing to understand why a top-down planning failed at the polls. The last urban rail plan wasn't designed to meet the citizens of Austin needs. It was designed to meet qualifying for the maximum amount of federal matching funds.

Austin Rail Now is as full of it as they always were.

They said vote against rail last fall, and they promised there would be another light rail plan on the ballot in 3 years.

While others of us said that wasn't going to happen, _especially_ with the change in format of the city council.

So now they're surprised light rail isn't in the immediate future (and the editorial lies, it hasn't disappeared, it's just on the plan for 10 years from now, 2025).

And electricron, the last rail plan _was_ designed to meet Austin's needs. It ran through some of the densest areas of the city, and some of the highest usage bus lines and stops. It was a good plan, but Austin Rail Now helped to try to kill it (by joining with anti-any-rail concerns). They made their deal with the devil.

[Tech House]

Originally Posted by Novacek

...the last rail plan _was_ designed to meet Austin's needs. It ran through some of the densest areas of the city, and some of the highest usage bus lines and stops. It was a good plan, but Austin Rail Now helped to try to kill it (by joining with anti-any-rail concerns). They made their deal with the devil.

You make good points. I voted against the last rail plan, believing that we should not take a half-assed approach with what looked to me like a fairly odd route. In the time since the election, I've increasingly come to realize that almost the entire length of that route (with the exception of Hyde Park) is not only dense now, but is slated to be much more intensively developed in the very near future. We've got the med school and all that will develop around it, new highrises on the east side of downtown, many new projects in the works for the east Riverside corridor, and of course the forthcoming densification of Highland/Airport Blvd.

I'm still holding out hope for a major rail proposal that will cover a much broader area, while utilizing above-and-below-grade solutions for avoiding street conflicts. Maybe I'm just dreaming.

[JoninATX]

Love the Southbound U-Turn, but should also build one Northbound as well. Also Austin should look into installing a stop light sensor at intersections that contains heavy amounts of traffic. I notice them all over San Diego and it seems to work for them.

For example:
http://goo.gl/maps/kzTt1

[drummer]

So, this KVUE article about the Lone Star Rail was on one of the San Antonio forums. It's from January, but I glanced back and didn't see it. Just wanted to put it on here.

http://www.kvue.com/story/news/local...onio/22125561/


In some of the video, it shows a future extension to Taylor, branching off after the Round Rock station. I think it'd be good if there were a lot of commuter options between MetroRail and LSR around the area to downtown (Manor/Elgin, Hutto, Lakeway, etc...already have Leander/Cedar Park with the red line). Of course, some form of more efficient mass transit would be helpful once they get to downtown...commuter rail doesn't replace the need for urban rail (or subway, etc.).

[Jdawgboy]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Oh boy. That's gonna be fun. Those are our two main routes out of our neighborhood onto I-35...

I actually remember back in the day when Stassney Lane dead ended at Congress and you had to either take William Cannon or Ben White to get onto I-35. That was before 1992 when they put Stassney through to I-35 and beyond into Southeast Austin.

You know what I still can't get my head around is why these bridges weren't designed in the first place to accommodate expansion needs? For some reason TxDot half asses infrastructure in Austin and they have been doing it for years. There wouldn't be a need to rebuild all these bridges which is going to cost more than if they had done it right to begin with let alone the resulting traffic nightmare the reconstruction will cause.

It's like they hire idiots who don't consider the needs in the future or who only half complete interchanges then wait 5 to 10 years to complete them. Actually I'm being too harsh on the engineers. It's not really their fault, its the amount of funding TxDot sends to the Austin region which I would guess is the leftovers after the bulk of the funding goes to Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Oh who cares about the state capital city, they don't need an updated infrastructure that can be expanded when needed easily. Even if the population has more than tripled in the last 30 years it doesn't matter, we'll just keep giving them the scraps.

At least we are finally getting something but again it all goes back to my original assessment. If you put enough money to do it right the first time then there wouldn't be a need to spend so much now.

So are they going to stagger these bridge reconstructions doing one at a time or are they going to do them roughly at the same time?

[airwx]

Austin opened up a website for voicing your mobility ideas: https://mobilityatx.com/forum

[hereinaustin]

Hi guys, hopefully this isn't a re-post, but mobility35 has a few updated documents on their site (from 12/2014), including this one: http://www.mobility35.org/SiteAssets..._AppendixC.pdf

Page 17 and 18 show that it would cost just $270M for Segment 5 (MLK to South of Holly) to be fully depressed, a new lane added in both directions, and the existing bridges rebuilt. They show that an intermittent cap (different from the fully fleshed-out Reconnect Austin proposal) would cost an additional $290M, for a total cost of about $615M.

I'm thinking the full Reconnect Austin proposal would cost ~$1B+, but it would be done in stages, with the first part being cut and bridge: depressing the lanes, rebuilding bridges, and building new bridges to fully reconnect the grid. This would be such a beautiful way to conceal the ugliness of I-35 through DT.

Phase 1: cut and bridge the entire grid along Segment 5 - $4-500M
Phase 2: full cap: $600M, which could be built section by section over time

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by hereinaustin

Hi guys, hopefully this isn't a re-post, but mobility35 has a few updated documents on their site (from 12/2014), including this one: http://www.mobility35.org/SiteAssets..._AppendixC.pdf

Page 17 and 18 show that it would cost just $270M for Segment 5 (MLK to South of Holly) to be fully depressed, a new lane added in both directions, and the existing bridges rebuilt. They show that an intermittent cap (different from the fully fleshed-out Reconnect Austin proposal) would cost an additional $290M, for a total cost of about $615M.

What year are those dollars in? 2012 dollars? 2004?

It'll be more by the time we actually do anything (2020 at the earliest).

[Tech House]

Considering that a single skyscraper can cost upwards of a half billion, these costs for fixing the I-35 problem seem very reasonable to me. The value added to the city would be immense. It would make everything near the freeway more valuable, driving up tax revenue, and would attract new investment in the limited space that would become available for development. The overall improvement to Austin's core would be so worth it.

[ATXboom]

Originally Posted by Tech House

Considering that a single skyscraper can cost upwards of a half billion, these costs for fixing the I-35 problem seem very reasonable to me. The value added to the city would be immense. It would make everything near the freeway more valuable, driving up tax revenue, and would attract new investment in the limited space that would become available for development. The overall improvement to Austin's core would be so worth it.

Agree...

[hereinaustin]

Originally Posted by Novacek

What year are those dollars in? 2012 dollars? 2004?

It'll be more by the time we actually do anything (2020 at the earliest).

Per the document, it's "BASED ON TxDOT 2012/2013 AVERAGE BID PRICES." So, yes, the actual price will be higher.

I think the more important point is that the "modified existing plan" (no lanes depressed, one lane added in each direction, no potential for adding a cap, no potential to reconnect the grid) is quoted at $142M.

For an extra $126M ($270M total) we would also get to:
a) Depress the main lanes of the interstate below grade from south of Holly St. to north of 15th St.;
b) Structure the walls of the depressed main lanes so they can support a future cap along the entire corridor;
c) Rebuild all the bridges that currently cross I-35 and build them to Austin’s Great Streets standards;

For another $140-240M ($4-500M total), we could also:
Re-engage every historic connection across the highway with Great Streets bridges along 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th;

Add inflation for 2020 and we're still <$650M (before the cap) for the full RA phase 1 proposal.

[drummer]

While I'd support doing everything at once (sink the highway and cap it), I think if they were to sink it now and build it structurally to make way for the future cap in the future, that'd be a good compromise. All the cross streets could be in place to reconnect the grid and a cap could be done in the future (for a park, simple green space w/ lots of trees, etc.). Either way, it's going to cost a lot of money, but I agree with TechHouse in that this is most definitely worth it in the long run for the city core.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by hereinaustin

Per the document, it's "BASED ON TxDOT 2012/2013 AVERAGE BID PRICES."

Right, I saw that. Though I wasn't sure what it means by "SPEC YEAR: 2004"

Originally Posted by hereinaustin

So, yes, the actual price will be higher.

I think the more important point is that the "modified existing plan" (no lanes depressed, one lane added in each direction, no potential for adding a cap, no potential to reconnect the grid) is quoted at $142M.

For an extra $126M ($270M total) we would also get to:
a) Depress the main lanes of the interstate below grade from south of Holly St. to north of 15th St.;
b) Structure the walls of the depressed main lanes so they can support a future cap along the entire corridor;
c) Rebuild all the bridges that currently cross I-35 and build them to Austin’s Great Streets standards;

For another $140-240M ($4-500M total), we could also:
Re-engage every historic connection across the highway with Great Streets bridges along 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th;

Add inflation for 2020 and we're still <$650M (before the cap) for the full RA phase 1 proposal.

So double or quadruple the price, for no extra capacity. When we don't even have the money yet for any of the improvements.

So say we only end up with 600M total. Should we blow it all on those 20 blocks, adding 2 extra lanes for that short distance (basically useless) and nothing else. Or should we spend the money along the entire corridor and actually improve it?

[nixcity]

^And how do you suggest we actually improve it?

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by nixcity

^And how do you suggest we actually improve it?

Unless we're rolling dough (unlikely), the cheaper of the two options (elevated) which improves the actual transportation function by the same amount.

[Slappy]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Unless we're rolling dough (unlikely), the cheaper of the two options (elevated) which improves the actual transportation function by the same amount.

50 years from now, looking back, what would the Austinites of 2065 think if we just added more decks today? I know how I feel right now about the current decks from the early 70s that were supposed to help.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by Slappy

50 years from now, looking back, what would the Austinites of 2065 think if we just added more decks today? I know how I feel right now about the current decks from the early 70s that were supposed to help.

They did help - a lot. Now we need more.