[ad_1]
August 24, 2021
The Texas Department of Transportation is leading a $ 4.9 billion project to rebuild the eight-mile stretch of I-35 that runs through Central Austin. At the moment, TxDOT is considering a number of alternatives for designing the project, and TxDOT expects it will select the preferred alternative in the fall of 2022.
Now the residents have the opportunity to get involved in the process and to support TxDOT in its design decisions. A virtual open house is now available, in which you can submit your feedback online or by post until September 8th. To review the designs in person, stop by the Austin Central Library, 710 W. Cesar Chavez St., and the Austin Public Library Carver Branch, 1161 Angelina St., anytime the library branches are open.
The Austin Transportation Department is an agency involved in the project along with the Capital Planning Office, which oversees the development of cap-and-stitch projects or decks or wide bridges over the freeways to improve east-west connections. Read more about the role of the city and its goals here.
All Austin Public Library branches are 50% busy and masks are required inside for visitors over 2 years of age.
After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, many US cities honored the civil rights activist by renaming streets. According to KXAN’s Robert Sims documents, Austin City Council approved the renaming of 19th Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in 1975, but the process was not an easy one.
Sims writes that many residents and business owners on the west side of I-35 opposed the name change, citing the “cost of signs and the inconvenience of updating their address to a new name.”
Dr. John Jarvis Seabrook, a well-known community leader in the area and past president of Huston-Tillotson University, pushed for the name of 19th Street to be changed on either side of I-35. At the May 1, 1975 meeting where he made his remarks to the council, Seabrook collapsed from a heart attack. He died later that night. Five days later, the city council approved the renaming of MLK Jr. Boulevard on either side of I-35.
Today, as Sims notes, the bridge over I-35 along the MLK is named after JJ Seabrook, along with a green belt in East Austin and the neighborhood association east of I-35 with MLK Jr. Boulevard as the southern border.
Thanks to KXAN for sharing a great piece of Austin history!
This press release was produced by the City of Austin. The views expressed here are your own.
[ad_2]
