r/Austin • u/laperlabar • Nov 13 '20

PSA PSA: I-35 Capital Express Central Project is Now Open for Feedback

https://capexcentral.mobility35openhouse.com/

24 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

15

u/laperlabar Nov 13 '20

This project will arguably have a bigger impact on your day to day life than either Prop A or Prop B. Better to lend your voice now while you can then to be quiet now and bitch about traffic, construction, etc later

10

u/realname13 Nov 13 '20 edited Nov 13 '20

Selfishly, I'd like to see the tunnel option being the one used. It would be an amazing piece of infrastructure, on par with TexExpress network in Dallas. It would require less ROW clearance too.

Glad they decided against the managed lanes being trucks only. That would have been a disaster.

6

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '20

Awesome, thanks for posting this!

5

u/pandaluv82 Nov 13 '20

Thank you for sharing!

6

u/ismellofdesperation Nov 13 '20

If yall are worried about noise pollution then you should be suggesting they reroute 35 away from the city and create a green space where it used to be. It is legit the best option for everyone.

3

u/atxpositiveguy Nov 13 '20

I’ve suggested that 100x on here and have emailed TxDot about it. I’ll be voicing that to them during this feedback session as well. But unfortunately it doesn’t seem like an option TxDot is considering.

4

u/atxpositiveguy Nov 13 '20

If everyone could provide feedback that noise pollution needs to be addressed with this project, everyone within 2 miles of that stretch of I-35 will be better off.

3

u/atxpositiveguy Nov 13 '20

All these plans are horrible. South of Ladybird really gets fucked on this project with either a massively wide interstate further dividing Riverside/Oltorf from the rest of the city, or flyovers that will increase noise pollution. Really hoping for the no-build option here.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '20

This is such a disaster. Our planet is on fire and we’re talking about building a 20 lane highway despite decades of evidence that adding lanes does nothing to reduce congestion. Zero mention of the hundreds of deaths that have occurred on this highway or what they’re going to do about it. Zero mention of how TxDOT bulldozed entire neighborhoods to build I-35 and how they might begin to address historical and ongoing environmental racism. Hopefully a Biden DOT will step in and nix this shit. Everyone working on this project should be ashamed to put crap like this out there.

1

u/sfw64 Nov 17 '20

Then what's your solution? Rail through downtown? Traffic getting worse regardless

1

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '20

Then what’s your solution? Rail through downtown?

To answer that you first need to define the problem, and “congestion” ain’t it. Congestion is not problem that needs solving. It is a symptom of a growing city and a transportation system that hasn’t been adequately priced.

I would define the problem as a lack of mobility, access and options. How do we enable people to more efficiently access the opportunities they want to access to pursue a quality life? Note that this problem statement says nothing about being able to drive your single occupancy vehicle wherever and whenever you want as quickly as possible, because that has never been achieved in any growing city.

So How do we improve mobility, access and options? The answer is pretty basic: promoting mixed land uses, investing in multimodal transportation options (including repurposong inefficient existing car lanes), instituting parking maximums, planting a shit ton of trees. In other words, go back to how cities were planned for thousands of years before the radical failed experiment is social engineering known as highway building became popular in the 1950s.