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Opposition is rising against plans to expand Interstate 35 in Austin, which could destroy many businesses and homes along the freeway.
Several members of the Austin city council and numerous community leaders, including the leaders of Environment Texas and the Austin NAACP, condemned plans presented by the Texas Department of Transportation at City Hall on Tuesday.
Austin City Councilor Natasha Harper-Madison called the freeway the “flagship of stifled mobility systems,” pointing to the freeway’s past as a dividing line used to promote racist policies that harm minorities and East Austin.
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Harper-Madison said TxDOT executives “want to displace dozens of businesses and homes, take 20 lanes of freeway through downtown Austin, and what for?
Where is the I-35 expansion project planned in Austin?
The central portion of the $ 7.9 billion project is expected to disrupt between 142 and 147 lots off I-35, with a significant concentration between 51st and Dean Keeton Streets.
The 24-hour Diner Stars Cafe, where Harper-Madison was accompanied by Austin City Council members Kathie Tovo, Paige Ellis and Greg Casar, would be one of those properties TxDOT either bought or confiscated for demolition. Others on this list include most of the properties immediately east of I-35 between 38th and 30th Streets, such as Escuelita De Alma Daycare, Avalon Apartments, Texas Game Lounge, Hector the Barber, and Chicas Bonitas.
Protesters put pink tape 30 meters from the curb of the I-35 facade to indicate how much property the extension of the freeway could take. The line was far behind the back of the Stars Cafe and included parts of the former Days Inn next door.
“TxDOT doesn’t have to take away our special places without speaking to us,” said Shannon Sedwick, owner of Stars Cafe. “We want the neighborhood to have a voice.”
Attendees at the event continued to reiterate the February 2020 statement made by Texas Transportation Commission Chairman J. Bruce Bugg Jr. that the plan would go “no further and no higher.” TxDOT’s District Engineer Tucker Ferguson at TxDOT spent part of the Tuesday meeting with the Austin City Council reading back Bugg’s comments and reading from a transcript of his entire testimony, which appeared to show that Bugg made that promise only where possible was.
That seemed to have little effect, as the participants were holding signs with Bugg’s quote and the opposition may have accidentally tagged them with a slogan.
“Do not say any further and no higher,” said Casar. “We can do a lot better with that.”
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