Every Comment Counts to Get TxDOT to Try Harder on Plans for I-35: A look at the many roads not taken – News

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Photo by Jana Birchum

As you look at this story, think “OMG, no more about I-35” and prepare to close your eyes / turn the page / close the tab … before doing this please make a plan ( same as voting!) to submit your comments to the Texas Department of Transportation at its “virtual public session” for the so-called Capital Express Central project before September 24th. That’s two weeks from now. You have time to tell TxDOT what you think and want.

With the agency planning a multi-billion dollar rebuilding of the Austin interstate – the 8-mile stretch between US 290 East (the Manor Expressway) and US 290 West (Ben White Boulevard) – the comments it receives now must be under federal law will be dealt with in the upcoming environmental review. That will be presented as a draft in about 18 months, with more public input, and then likely to conclude with a bow by the end of 2023. (The rest of I-35 in Travis County – the smaller Capital Express North and South projects, which together cost about $ 700 million, went through a streamlined review process and should begin construction in 2022.)

Will TxDOT process the comments received to everyone’s satisfaction? Probably not! But there is real risk in blowing the public off too hard; the agency can be sued or the federal agencies can intervene, both of which are now happening in Houston because of TxDOT’s planned rebuilding of I-45 north of downtown. This project is strongly supported by the interests of the suburbs, against the objections of urban actors who feel overwhelmed by a sham process that violates their civil rights. Until a decision is reached, the agency and the Texas Transportation Commission have threatened to postpone or cancel the project and reallocate the funding, which is not really wanted by either side, but is a more accessible outcome to the critics of I-45 than their supporters .

Again, community officials, city council members and this newspaper have all pointed out that the “no-build” alternative – which by law has to be evaluated in the coming months of studies – would be preferable to the two CapExCentral alternatives that TxDOT left behind in the game. Both involve adding two “managed lanes” (with high occupancy but not tolls or just for transit, so “managed” is a bit of a stretch) in each direction; Removal of unsafe upper deck between Airport Boulevard and Manor Road; Depression of the main streets through downtown with the possibility of building “deck plazas” over them; and reconfigure everything else.

There are minor differences between the two alternatives in the layout of the traffic lanes at the airport (which cross the Capital Metro railroad tracks) and on Woodland Avenue south of the river. To achieve either alternative, TxDOT is estimated to have to acquire 30 to 32 acres of new right of way, which affects 35-40% of the parcels flanking I-35 along the 8-mile project area, and just under that displacing 150 homes and Businesses. (One of these traits belongs to the Chronicle.)

Are these our only choices?

There was a third alternative that was considered by TxDOT, which was to tunnel the new lanes underneath the rest, which are now deemed too difficult, too expensive ($ 8 billion, double estimate for the other two) and too time-consuming to give up and too demanding for emergency vehicles in terms of access and response time. These would all be more compelling justifications for community advocates if that alternative were not the one TxDOT itself had more or less promised – not by I-35 critics, but by TTC chairman J. Bruce Bugg. Jr. refers to himself as “no further and no higher”. Instead, we are told that broader and sometimes higher alternatives are the best that can be done.

There are community visions for the reconstruction or deconstruction of I-35 that go far beyond Alternative 1, which has since been abandoned (see examples here). Although these have been around for some time, TxDOT and its Brain Trust at Texas A & M’s Texas Transportation Institute have only been scrutinizing them in the past few weeks. It turned out to be impractical, which is likely to be inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that if TxDOT’s feet continue to be held to the fire now by your comments (before Aug. September, don’t forget!). and through political pressure afterwards.

“No further and no higher” was not used by the critics of I-35, but by the chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, J. Bruce Bugg Jr.

Local actors and rulers have pushed I-35 rebuilding through literally decades of fruitless debate and circular analysis, and TxDOT wanted to do almost everything else. This was only partially to do something about the traffic, bad as it is in Austin, but it’s even less so now because no one, not even TxDOT, really believes adding two “managed” lanes on either side will clear the I-35 infarct.

There’s a reason Austin voters were willing to spend $ 7 billion of their own money on the Project Connect transit plan, but skewed two-thirds of that state money on rebuilding I-35. The former is, as it is called in mobility circles, “jam-proof” and creates completely new traffic and land use patterns, while the latter, as we have seen with other motorway projects, is inevitably filled with new cars that do the same old roads just a little bit more quickly.

As the region continues to grow much faster than most of America, it is becoming clear to our newcomers in particular by the day how limited the upside potential for improving the performance of the I-35 is, how great the potential is for a few years of major construction in the middle of the City, and how maybe this whole deal deserves a fresh look and maybe a few more years to solidify, especially if DC Build Back Better Infrastructure Funds are to rain on us, TxDOT alternatives analysis reflects those realities With low odds and high constraints, dropping Alternative 1 like it’s hot in the hopes that just 150 displaced homes and businesses don’t seem that bad.

So why at all? For TxDOT this is their job and they are engineers and there is a lot of money at stake (which goes to consultants and later to construction companies). Austin’s reasons are different. It is a widespread mainstream belief that the I-35 is a toxic and dangerous expression of structural (infrastructural) racism that has harmed this city and continues to do so. TxDOT also partially acknowledges this. The fact that other cities across the country have managed to remove their outdated and unloved urban highways or to cover and cover them with new useful and popular urban spaces makes it even more depressing that TxDOT thinks this is too difficult to do .

What does nothing cost?

In fact, the belief that I-35 is bad for Austin is so widespread that some locals who have worked really hard to keep the momentum going and find funding from CapExCentral are quite worried by how flashy people and organizations are like The Chronicle are telling you all that doing nothing would be a better alternative. If it’s racist and unjust and people get killed and maimed and poisoned and the top deck is about to collapse and everything else, how can we say, “Oh, never mind”?

This is an honest concern and would be more compelling if TxDOT took all of these things more seriously in its planning. The stated rationale for CapExCentral – the “purpose and need” against which alternatives are assessed – has three main elements: 1) improving safety along the corridor, 2) improving “operational efficiency” (travel times, capacity, costs) and 3 ) “Creating a more reliable and consistent route for the traveling audience” that is not on the freeway itself (e.g. by improving east-west connectivity or adapting to Project Connect). It doesn’t consider, as we complained, the repair of what broke I-35 in Austin as part of the purpose and need for the project, despite the public approval of TxDOT staff that the repair of those things would be important is. They are just not more important than “operational efficiency”.

For all of this, each of the three alternatives works roughly the same, with different degrees of improvement over no-build that may or may not be plausible. But none of these are compared to scenarios where I-35 is made smaller, slower, or removed altogether. According to the current TxDOT mindset, such scenarios would be even worse than no building as we would have to meet certain requirements – reducing travel demand, prioritizing alternative routes and modes, building an invisible fence to keep people from moving here, whatever – these are now out of our reach.

The visions of Reconnect Austin and Rethink35 come from the opposite direction – that major structural changes on I-35 itself will be the precursors to better land use and mobility. What are lifeless concrete tracks today can become places that generate tax revenue and pay for themselves. Conditions on and along the freeway have already deteriorated so much that the proximity or access to I-35 is less attractive than in the same places without the freeway next door. The opportunity cost of having I-35 where it is for the past 60 years is immense. Imagine what they will be in the next 60 years.

Do not forget! September 24th is the deadline for your comments at capexcentral.mobility35openhouse.com/submit-a-comment.

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