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Austin City Council is pushing for the latest plans to expand Interstate 35, which suggest that dozens of lots bordering the freeway could be displaced by the multi-billion dollar project.
Earlier this month, the Texas Department of Transportation released draft plans that would require between 30 and 32 acres of land acquisition to expand the highway. According to TxDOT, that could displace between 142 and 147 properties. They are distributed almost evenly between residential and commercial properties.
The latest designs suggest that most of that land would be taken up by businesses and homes between 51st Street and Dean Keeton Streets.
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CommUnityCare, a U-Haul center, a tattoo parlor near Airport Boulevard, Wendy’s in Hancock Center, and the Stars Cafe are among the dozen of properties TxDOT could destroy before the first major expansion of I-35 built by Central Austin since the completion of the upper decks being completed in 1974.
Mayor Steve Adler said Tuesday that he is backing the expansion of I-35, but said TxDOT needs to find a way to do it while less real estate seizures are made.
TxDOT should accomplish this by “really studying what is being done across the country and making it leaner and narrower.
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The Austin Department of Transportation is already proposing alternatives to this end. Department Director Robert Spillar, along with TxDOT’s senior engineer for the Austin area, Tucker Ferguson, gave a duel presentation to the Austin City Council on Tuesday.
Spillar offered that TxDOT could rebuild I-35 underground as the agency intends for most of the northern half of the project, but instead of extending the front roads outward from the freeway at ground level, TxDOT would instead cantilever them over the main road build and managed lanes of the proposed project.
Adler also said the state should pay for a cap on the underground portions of the highway expansion and convert them into parks. TxDOT’s Ferguson said the department included this as a possibility in their plans, but the state wouldn’t pay for it.
TxDOT plans to spend $ 7.5 billion on upgrading I-35 in Austin from the Williamson County Line to Texas 45 South Austin and downtown.
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It still looks like most of the lanes of I-35 are tunneled downtown. Southbound lanes could be tunneled under portions of the University of Texas campus in the Texas Longhorn Football Practice Facilities.
Potential disruption to South Austin appears to be less severe than plans to expand from Lady Bird Lake to US 290, and particularly between Jan.
Ferguson said TxDOT has also rejected alternatives to the road works authority’s plans, which several organizations have advocated, including burying the entire freeway from Lady Bird Lake to Airport Boulevard or demolishing the freeway and turning it into a boulevard. According to an analysis presented by TxDOT by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, both of these would lead to a lot of traffic being driven onto the streets of the city.
“It’s just not the right thing,” he said.
Some of the design elements were included, Ferguson said. However, no information was given.
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