Austin Among Top Ten Greenest Cities

If Austin is one of the greenest cities, the standard isn't very high. Traffic sucks, air pollution is bad, there's lots of litter (that could be recycled), virtually everyone commutes in a single occupancy vehicle, the rate of recycling is pretty low, the growth rate is high.

We're good, we just should be better.

Transportation should be about 1.5. Lots of people ride the bus compared to any other Texas city (really), but it's mostly those who have no other attractive choice, with a few oddballs like me to round it out.

Bad traffic doesn't disqualify from being green - bad traffic with no transit alternative, however, does. New York's traffic is bad, but I'd give them a 9.0 on transportation.

And I wouldn't blame them for the recycling score either. The jury's way out on whether this will be an improvement - some cities end up discovering the sorting machines don't work as well as advertised, and they end up sending a bunch of stuff to the landfill that could otherwise have been recycled.

Tarvin, do you have any proof that the air pollution is bad? I'm not saying it isn't what it used to be, but heck its better than most places.

I bike right across town from South of the River to North of 183 a couple of times every week, and some of it in peak commute times. I've never got to work and found any noticeable black dust on my head or in my teeth, or felt I had to wear a mask. The same couldn't be said for New York, London, Brussels, Madrid, even the relatively rural Montpellier in France, all of which I've lived and cycled in for a period of time.

I do agree though, could do better. I was disappointed to hear that Cap Metro are planning to cull the Dilo on South Congress. Sure they might not get used much, but they are still better than no alternative. And heck, couldn't the Dilos be electric ??

You people really need to get outside of Austin more often and see how bad it is in most other cities. Traffic here is not that bad, try living in California. It really only gets bad during rush hour, and mostly just on Mopac and 35 near downtown. Light rail would be great, and as the city grows it will become more and more appropriate. Pollution is bad? Seriously, you need to get out of Austin more.

Sure, we could always do better, and I think Austin usually is trying to do better. Most other cities don't care.

Very true. There is not a traffic problem in Austin, anyone who has lived in a "real" city can tell you that (by real I mean large). Anyone who thinks otherwise really needs to take a day off and drive at times other than 7:30-9am and 4:30-6pm.

Everyday at 7th and Red River (where I work) there are hundreds of cars waiting to get out of downtown and onto or past I-35, and the two lights (at 7t/RR and 7th/I-35) are completely out of synch, allowing nothing but gridlock. Hundreds of cars repeatedly stopped on a 1-way street for over an hour. This is a microcosm of Austin traffic.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Fix the lights in this town so that we actually move at a controlled speed, and we will all experience an increase in mobility. It'll take some time, but more importantly, it takes forethought and a plan that makes sense.

You can't fix our capacity problems in and around downtown with more light synchronization. It's a common cry from road warriors; but believe me - the city engineers pay a lot of attention to that stuff - and they do it about as well as it can be done. You mess with one side, and ten other intersections will get even worse - that's how it usually plays out.

The problem at I-35 especially is that frontage roads suck for moving cars. Most of the time, frontage road intersections with major arterials end up with 4 separate traffic light cycles, instead of the 2 main ones + turning cycles you get at most 2-way 2-street intersections. That's a lot less efficient for moving cars.

Of course, even a good non-Texas design for I-35 would still have long backups, because of the fact that I-35 is still so much over capacity. But there's nothing we can do about that other than build a time machine and go back to 2000 and stuff the ballot box for light rail; which still wouldn't help I-35 but at least would have given another capacity boost to people trying to get into downtown.

No, commuter rail won't help.

HZ, not really - they can force hazardous traffic to detour, but there's no way to make ordinardy 18-wheelers go there.

Of course, we could get them to go that way if we tolled I-35 and made SH130 free, but that would send the idiotic anti-toll people into a frenzy, wouldn't it?

HZ, not really - they can force hazardous traffic to detour, but there's no way to make ordinardy 18-wheelers go there.

Of course, we could get them to go that way if we tolled I-35 and made SH130 free, but that would send the idiotic anti-toll people into a frenzy, wouldn't it?

As much as M1KE maintains that the opposite is true, to continually sit at red lights, watch no traffic go through the intersection until it turns green, just in time for the light in front of you to turn red, really makes no sense. We end up not getting anywhere and wasting gas, whether the driver is a Texan or not.

To insist that this is best that the City of Austin can do with what we've got in front of us is akin to beating your head with a rock and then complaining that there's no aspirin.

But, yes, lets insist that we're a Top 10 Green City, pat ourselves on the back, and sit in traffic that is a lot worse than it ever should be. Please.

I realize this is in the never-gonna-happen category, but I'd love to see I-35 re-routed outside the city. Having every semi going from Mexico to Canada drive through the middle of downtown Austin (and San Antonio and Dallas and wherever else) makes no sense to me.

Mike, it's behooving to be on a one-way street facing red lights. To say this is happening partly because of the frontage road fails to address that the frontage road is a one-way street, and lights should be set up green as you advance on that as much as 7th St.

It's a basic philosophical change that the City needs to address: How to keep us moving rather than making us stop. It seems that every new light I come across serves the purpose of the latter than the former, and so I fail to see how our current, dare I call it mindless, fashion of light placement and timing isn't in need of repairing.

This morning, right outside Starseeds, 15 of us sat at a red, on the frontage road, and waited for NOBODY to make the protected left hand turn from 32nd St (aka, the U-turn from Frontage Road South) for about a minute. How is this helping anyone? The environment? The pocketbook? And it happens all day, every day. Just get rid of the protected left turn and encourage a light pattern that won't have people sitting at the red on 38 1/2 St. In fact, I double dare the City to do this.

If the City approached one square mile a week to making traffic move with a plan, that we would have, in good time, a logical, more advanced mode of driving rather than the same old rigamarole that doesn't impress, or move, anybody. And every part of town will benefit, especially as we approach $4/gallon.

I'll grant you that the on-and-off-ramps on I-35 stink, but the City did something about them by removing a couple on-ramps to I-35 South downtown, so it's not like they haven't attempted to re-create a situation. Nothing will be perfect, but to claim that it can't get any better is wrong on so many levels.

We can't go back in time and give Austin a grid of parallel streets, and we can't dig into the ground and place meters onto these traffic lights. But we can change their timing patterns by making in synch with the traffic lights around them. And if this means getting rid of some protected left turns, then do it. The good to the community will be seen in a more regulated form of driving rather than cluster fuck and high speed situations we've got these days.

I'm surprised more people don't get into and die because of car accidents around here. I'm also very grateful that I have a mere 5 minute car commute, and that I live close enough to work that I can choose to walk there.