May 19, 2008
Highway to be Re-Routed Out of Downtown
According to our pal Austin Contrarian, a 4.5 mile stretch of the elevated highway will be demolished and replaced with a boulevard and park. A new highway, constructed on a parallel route, will be built in a ditch so that normal streets can pass over it. Unfortunately, this progressive plan isn't happening in Austin. Instead, Oklahoma City, our forward thinking neighbor to the north, is the one choosing to put urban fabric above highway bypassability.
Ok, OK's plan may be more about urban-washing a massive highway expansion than improving downtown life, but it's the principle of the thing. We don't really care what happens up in the great white north, except to the extent it affects us. If this plan moves Austin any closer to burying I-35 in a ditch with no exits, re-building East Avenue on top of it (new and improved with a streetcar line), and financing the whole thing by selling the freed land on either side to condo developers, then God bless 'em.
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I don't see much hope for this plan, although I'd give my left >$* for I-35 to just go away. "Financing the whole thing by selling the freed land on either side to condo developers"? Where exactly is this land, once you take into consideration a new East Avenue with ROW to accomodate your streetcar line as well.
As far as I can tell, Austin's I-35 quandary is being addressed solely by bizarre designs to try to make the downtown overpasses more pleasing to the eye. This is the best we can come up with?
If you want to solve any of these problems, you have to be serious about the gas tax, which hasn't been adjusted since the mid-90s. Not adjusting the gas tax means those of us who live in the inner city (and pay a premium to do so) or don't drive are subsidizing those choose to buy a home in Buda or Round Rock. These folks then bitch loudly about traffic coming in and out of Austin, like they have a God-given right to a superhighway that gives them unobstructed access door-to-door on demand. I say screw 'em -- we shouldn't encourage people to do this. We've subsidized suburbia for far too long.
Let's start with bringing the gas tax to an appropriate level for this era, and add in costs that are external -- health costs as well. If you want to change I-35, you simply have to change how you live, and quit incentivizing it's use.
I figure I-35 will end up like the Northwest Highway in Dallas...let sit until it's way over-crowded. Then a 30 year project to expand it will begin - but unfortunately by the time it's expanded, traffic will also have expanded so that there won't be much different.
In the meantime, I just don't drive on it during certain hours.
Looking at google maps, the 6 lanes + 2 breakdown lanes + 1 median + 2 access roads ≈ 200 feet (at its narrowest by Lady Bird Lake): more than enough space for a 4 lane boulevard with rail ROW and about an equal amount of desirable space left over.
Slickshu, good start, but raising the gas tax without also requiring a fair spending distribution continues the subsidy problem because Austin must maintain a much larger proportion of its major arterial network than do our suburban 'friends'. Granted, with a much higher gas tax, we might get to stop 'contributing' money out of the general fund for state highway projects, which would be a good start, but it's only half the problem; the other half is that our gas taxes would still be getting collected on all of our major roads, but spent primarily on suburban roads.
Trancereducer, I think most people (me included) are assuming that the thing couldn't be completely buried a la the Big Dig (which has successfully destroyed the chances of a like project for a generation, gee thanks guys), but would instead just be depressed (which could lead to a narrower footprint if you got rid of the frontage roads, which is far from a given).
The problem I see with depression is the actual construction process - does anyone know how long it would take, and how many lanes of highway/lanes of frontage they would be able to keep open?
A hypothetical tunnel would at least let the tunnel be built under the existing I-35, then traffic could be diverted after demolishing the existing freeway at say Airport on the north end and 8th street on the south end to build an entrance.
I'd like to see "the powers that be" designate SH 130/SH 45SE as I-35, leave the frontage roads in place, and then reconstruct the middle of the freeway with a linear park with a gravel jogging trail, and a paved bike trail. we could put statues of all the current city council members every mile if it helps the project get built.:)
Mike, I have no concern with contributing to a network of state highway projects -- it's appropriate for us to have a modern system that connects our urban and rural communities. What I do have a problem with is the funding of rings of suburban loops that only serve to create wealth for developers, incentivizing the development of pastures around our largest cities. Is it a coincidence that the most prolific donors to the Republican party are the homebuilders that have directly benefited from this, and that the hacks that run TxDOT place a priority of these types of projects?
Slickshu, the point is that the poor urban drivers (and even non-drivers) are subsidizing major arterials AND things you more commonly view as highways for the benefit of those suburban commuters - and it's happening from BOTH the general fund AND the gas tax.
So if all you do is increase the gas tax without, say, doing a version of what the Feds did a decade or so ago with their gas tasx (states guaranteed to get back in spending at least 90% of what they paid in), you actually make the suburban-subsidy problem worse, not better.
Austin might get back 33% of what we pay in state gas taxes, if we're lucky. Places like Round Rock get about 250%.
Agreed.