The Planning Commission recommended a new plan for the city’s downtown streets with several amendments during a meeting on March 11, joining the Urban Transportation and Design commissions and including some of their respective recommendations for the plan.
The document in question, called the Austin Core Transportation Plan, was prepared by the city’s Department of Transportation and Public Works. The Austin Monitor has previously reported on the plan, which seeks to further reorient the city’s downtown streets around urbanist principles.
Commissioner Alice Woods proposed an amendment to recommend fully converting Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth streets downtown from one-way to two-way, a prescription favored by several transit and urbanist advocacy groups, that narrowly failed 6-3 (amendments require a supermajority of 7-2 to pass).
Adam Greenfield of Safe Streets Austin made the case for two-way conversions at the meeting while speaking in favor of the amendment, citing evidence from implementation in other cities that such conversions make streets safer and encourage engagement with downtown areas, primarily by slowing traffic down and discouraging the use of downtown streets as pass-through routes.
Commissioners Danielle Skidmore and Nadia Barrera-Ramirez raised concerns about the impact of converting those streets.
Barrera-Ramirez, who works for Capital Metro as a manager of transit and mobility programs outside of her role on the commission, said she couldn’t support the amendment because it would necessitate eliminating certain bus-only lanes downtown.
Meanwhile, Skidmore stressed the necessity of operating within “geometric reality,” saying that while she supported the intention, the commission would be irresponsible to not consider the continuing need of Austinites to access downtown by car.
“For us to just come in and say, ‘convert it, it’s easy’ – it’s not,” Skidmore said.
Commissioner Felicity Maxwell introduced a group of amendments to be considered together to include the Urban Transportation Commission’s recommendations for the plan, which include a host of suggestions to further the plan’s stated goals.
The commission approved the group of amendments with minimal discussion by an 8-0-1 vote, with Skidmore abstaining. One of the UTC’s recommendations is to explore one-way to two-way conversions for the same streets highlighted by Woods.
Commissioner Ryan Johnson introduced a similar amendment to include two recommendations from the Design Commission, which also discussed and recommended the plan, including mandating the inclusion of street trees in corridor projects and including “green costs and green infrastructure estimates” as “part of the base estimates and not a line item.”
“I think it’s a shame when the city builds transportation projects, specifically streetscapes, that don’t even meet our own city code in terms of streetscape elements, urban design features, things like trees,” Johnson said.
That amendment passed unanimously.
Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.
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City of Austin Planning Commission: This commission addresses issues of land use as assigned to it by Austin's City Code. These include the abilities "[t]o make and amend a master plan, recommend approval or disapproval of proposed zoning changes and control land subdivision within neighborhood planning areas and submit, annually, a list of recommended capital improvements." It has sovereign authority, or the right to make final decisions on certain cases.
