Rethink35 plans what it hopes will be largest anti-highway protest in Texas history

Rethink35, the organization fighting the Interstate 35 Capital Express Project slated to begin next year, is organizing what it hopes to be the largest anti-highway protest in Texas history.

The rally is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Nov. 5 at the Sanchez Elementary, which is located at 73 San Marcos Street. According to a Wednesday press release, the event will feature speeches from elected officials, local leaders and community members in opposition to the expansion.

“Despite enormous opposition and environmental concerns, TxDOT refuses to back down from its threat to start expanding I-35 between Hwy. 71 and US 290 in Spring 2024,” Kelsey Huse, a Rethink35 board member involved in coordinating the event, said in the press release.

She continued: “This rally will press our elected officials at every level of government to pursue all possible means – including contacting the Federal government – to win a better solution for I-35 than expansion.”

Huse told the Austin Monitor that she hopes the group will be able to attract more than 2,000 Central Texans to the rally, which Rethink35 says will make it one of the largest in state history.

Protest isn’t the only avenue against the project that Rethink35 is pursuing. The group is also suing the Texas Department of Transportation over the project, which is due to break ground in 2024. The press release also notes statements in opposition from U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, the Travis County Commissioners Court, and the Austin City Council Mobility Committee.

Despite these objections, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Transportation Policy Board voted to pave the way for the project in August. Also in August, TxDOT published its final environmental impact statement, which is the final hurdle before construction can begin.

In his remarks at a town hall in September, Casar said, “Wider highways aren’t actually a traffic solution. We are going to endure multiple years of construction in which traffic will be way worse, as we know. And then, even if we get a little bit of relief for a short bit of time when the project is done, very soon we will have worse traffic than we have today. And so there’s so many people that want to see a solution on transportation and traffic, but a wider highway just isn’t it. It’s a project I can’t support. I think it’s a project where overwhelmingly Austinites want it to be different, and you don’t see TxDOT following through on that.”

Despite protests from community activists in Houston last year, TxDOT moved forward with its Interstate 45 expansion project. The project was briefly delayed as the Federal Highway Administration investigated complaints made under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Community advocates objected to the displacement associated with the expansion, which included more than 1,000 homes and businesses in primarily low-income communities of color.

According to a Central Health report, about 75 percent of Travis County families living along the I-35 corridor identify as living at or below the federal poverty level.

Photo by Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. This story has been altered since publication to update the rally location, which has been changed.

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