Public Notice: Trade-Offs and Throughput: Oak Hill Parkway halted; Project Connect “15%” done – News
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One of the trees in Oak Hill where TxDOT claimed only trees under 20 inches were felled (Courtesy of SBCA)
The oak trees in Oak Hill received a reprieve last week when U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ordered the Texas Department of Transportation to halt logging for their controversial Oak Hill Parkway, at least until further legal hearings are given in a September 2 hearing Arguments hears.
Several residents and groups, including the Save Barton Creek Association, have sued TxDOT, asking it to consider a less destructive and cheaper design alternative for rebuilding Oak Hill Y – a one-level six-lane park road with a local boulevard, bridged crossroad. Roads and a new green belt in place of the 12-lane megalithic and overpasses that TxDOT intends to “remove the congestion at the intersection and keep the Oak Hill community and eponymous trees intact,” as SBCA puts it.
One of about a dozen “house-sized” piles of fallen trees that do not become a green belt (Courtesy of SBCA)
Since the lawsuit was to be heard in Pitman’s court, the plaintiffs filed for an injunction to freeze construction (rejected), but also an injunction to stop the felling of trees. During the hearing, TxDOT alleged that their contractors would not remove trees greater than 20 inches in diameter, and when plaintiffs took photos of numerous fallen trees that were much larger and went up to protected status (19 inches and up), Pitman was evidently not pleased. He issued an injunction that not only protected the 288 trees on the property that are listed as protected, heritage and legacy, but also prohibited TxDOT from removing trees larger than 8 inches, whatever.
And so it is at the time of going to press. Can the Fix290 coalition really get TxDOT to seriously consider its alternative plan? Would it really deliver the needed traffic correction they promise? Will TxDOT really step down on a project that is already under construction? Check back in September.
Also last week, the Austin Transportation Department began rolling out its “15% design” – suggesting that 15% of the planning for the massive Project Connect transit plan, which primarily includes the ambitious Blue and Orange Rails, has been completed Lines includes, a downtown subway, a new tunnel and bridge over Lady Bird Lake and the long-awaited train to the airport. But if the overall sentiment of Project Connect is still very much dependent on a bright new future for transportation, the “15% Design” presentation begins by highlighting some of the somber tradeoffs that have to be made to get there.
One of them is the loss of a car track for pretty much the entire length of the railroad, but the planners don’t really consider it a huge loss. The moderators stress that the city council has clarified its priorities in the strategic mobility plan and the goal is to get people out of their cars and onto alternative modes of transport. To this end, reducing the speed and comfort of driving is not a loss at all; it’s a function. The light rail has priority at intersections, and with its own paved rail line in the median, left turns will be limited and cars will have to make many U-turns. “Transit and throughput are the priorities,” I wrote from one of the presentations.
Obviously, other corners and edges still have to be smoothed out. Many changes in the street scene appear problematic in this draft: the right of way, which is currently used as a sidewalk, should, for example, be used for bicycles and pedestrians, which is not ideal for both. But it’s a compromise, and really, how bad is it? On the other hand, if the entire length of Guadalupe north of UT is supposed to be single lane either way, someone asked what happens if an emergency vehicle has to drive through and the answer was that they would probably have to hop on the bike / pedestrian lane, to happen. Hmmm. How bad is that
“Everything is a matter of compromise,” is another sentence I wrote down, and these are the types of compromises that staff will take away from this feedback round to refine the plan for the next round. Indeed, an important goal is to “optimize the tradeoffs” between the 15% and 30% plans.
The plan contains a ridiculous amount of detail and a ridiculous number of those compromises, and to their credit, Capital Metro and Project Connect have released many of them to the public. Cap Metro’s “Get Involved” page (capmetro.org/get-involved) contains links to the Open Houses, “the latest updates on the Orange and Blue Line projects,” including recordings of the presentations, and the breakout Working group meetings that focused on certain segments – eight for the Orange Line, which runs from Slaughter Lane to Tech Ridge, and four for the Blue Line, which runs from downtown to the airport. There are also detailed schematics down to the door-to-door level for the entire length of both routes, and you can provide feedback on any or all of them through August 27th. So take part.
Good football deeds
The 6th Annual Austin Soccer Awards Gala will be held in person next Thursday, August 12th, at the South Congress Hotel, “to meet and celebrate with our Austin soccer community.” Speakers include Amobi Okugo, a loyal Austin Bold and founder of the A Frugal Athlete financial education platform, as well as Player, Coach, and Referee Awards of the Year and Scholarship Presentations. Tickets are available at austinsoccerfoundation.org.
Austin FC’s 4ATX Foundation, in cooperation with Academy Sports + Outdoors, is organizing a campaign for football equipment: Donate new and little-used equipment such as balls, cleats, shin guards, shorts and jerseys or new, unused gloves, socks and sports bras. outside of Zebra Gate for one of the next three games, August 18, 21, and 29, to receive a $ 5 Academy Gift Certificate and a raffle for a hand-signed Austin FC jersey and two Field Club seats to participate in a future home game.
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