TxDOT Starts Ad Campaign For Highways

Don't know why my link didn't go through... and I'm a 'he' by the way. ;)

Ali's link:

http://www.blendor.com/?p=1349

The CSM article she is discussing:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1003/p01s02-ussc.html

The CSM article nicely presents the point: we have a choice as to how growing cities, like ours, will develop. We can encourage suburban single family homes on 1/4 acre each by building highways, or we can encourage dense population pockets by building public transportation and buying public land. Sprawl is not inevitable, it is a choice encouraged by our policies.

There is no need to move all businesses into downtown (and I'm not sure how anyone read into my post that I was advocating doing so). As the CSM article mentions, these job centers will create "micropolitan areas" around them, which could be connected to downtown by rail. No need for highways.

Bottom line: Austin is developing. We can either try to shape it into something like Portland (and Manhattan) or Gilbert (and Dallas and Houston). Given that choice, I'll take Manhattan.

My response got a little lengthy (mostly from quoting an article on this subject I just read), so I posted it over here. Short version: find a good balance between urban density and sprawl. I personally prefer well-designed density for a number of reasons.

Kenneth's idea, now that's funny.

My solution would be to toll all existing freeways. There's nothing in the constitution saying we have an inalienable right to drive a-mile-and-a-half for free on interstate highways.

That would have the doubly positive affect of cutting down on unnecessary freeway traffic and boost revenues for mass transit.

Convert existing highways into normal roads when they are inside city limits.

Is this post a joke? I hope so.

Yeah! Lets turn the 60 minute rush hour i-35 commute into an all day affair!

Hundreds of thousands of people work outside the city. Where will the money to move the billions of dollars of businesses on the outskirts closer in come from? Where is this mysterious close in land? I know, lets all build high rise industrial shops. Is a "dense urban core" so you can pretend you're a new yorker worth it?

Methinks it would be easier if you just moved there instead.

This sprawl is, sadly, inevitable.

Economic growth= more people. People=houses and roads.

Population control is the only way to truly control the spread of asphalt.

This planet is doomed.

I think I-35 and 183 (and MoPac) are "bad" now becuase they encourage sprawl, tear apart the urban fabric of the city, and create dead-zones, noise and pollution, not because of grid-lock. More traffic would be an incentive to live closer to work and to take public transportation. As it is, there is minimal incentive to do either, which is why 79% of Austinites drive to work by ourselves.

Myopic and naive? The people who think highways are going to mean less traffic are the ones being myopic. More highways may mean less traffic in the short term, but they inevitably lead to more sprawl and traffic ends up worse than it was before. You can't build enough highways to keep up. Naive in that my solutions will never be implemented? Probably.

"Better planning and land use restrictions" are too vague to be real solutions. Better planning of what? There are plenty of people who plan highways all day long - the problem is not that they don't think about it enough, it is that they have the wrong goals. If they had the right goals, they would be building mass-transit instead of highways. What good do land use restrictions do? The most restrictive land use that I am aware of is single-family residential with a minimum lot size, which is exactly what I want to avoid. Do you want to restrict all use of the land whatsoever? I think that would treat unfairly the people whose land is being completely restricted, which is why I endorse government buying the land.

I agree that the toll roads will create more sprawl around Austin. But your solution to the problem is myopic and naive. Converting limited access highways to city streets within Austin would create total gridlock. (If you think I-35 and 183 are bad now, then imagine them with stoplights.) Better planning and land use restrictions along the highway corridors are what is necessary to keep Austin from turning into Dallas or Houston. But sadly, these ideas will never come into play here because this is Texas, where property rights are held second only to the bible in reverence.

I personally would like some new ads in the bus. I get bored reading the same on about spousal abuse in spanish.