Close-up on the Capital Express Central Project: New visions for Downtown, and alternatives to the costly rebuild – News

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The 8-mile Capital Express Central project is the complicated and costly middle third of TxDOT’s I-35 remodel in Austin. TxDOT is considering two alternatives – differing in how the front streets, main lanes and new “managed” lanes of the project are arranged on Airport Boulevard and Woodland Avenue – plus a “no-build” option as required by law. The agency has given up its more ambitious tunnel-based alternative 1 for the time being, which would adhere to the dictum “no wider, no higher” that TxDOT had promised and others had demanded.

The remaining alternatives 2 and 3 both require considerable new right of way, shown here in red.

I-35 today near Fourth Street, looking west (from Saltillo to the Convention Center)

TxDOT would relocate the (much wider) motorway below street level (here the bike path and the railway line). But local groups have imagined more.

Courtesy Reconnect Austin

Reconnect Austin’s limited main streets create buildable properties along a restored East Avenue.

Replacing the freeway with a multimodal mixed-use boulevard, Rethink35 expects Austin’s travel habits to adapt to change.

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