As the Texas Department of Transportation proceeds with its Interstate 35 Capital Express project, the city’s cap-and-stitch program is working to maximize the amount of open space and other community amenities included in the final plan. At its Jan. 10 meeting, the Urban Transportation Commission heard an update on the city’s cap-and-stitch planning process. Acknowledging […]
Roads
Posted inRoads
TxDOT’s I-35 plans for Austin are out. You had questions, and we have answers.
The Texas Department of Transportation is getting ready to expand the busiest section of the busiest highway in Central Texas. Interstate 35 from Ben White Boulevard to U.S. Highway 290 East in Austin will get two high-occupancy vehicle lanes in each direction along with a raft of other changes under the state’s preferred plan, now open for […]
Posted inRoads
TxDOT narrows options for widening I-35 through Austin
Lee esta historia en español. The Texas Department of Transportation has released the most detailed description yet of plans to widen Interstate 35 through the core of Austin, explaining how the agency believes its multibillion-dollar highway expansion could affect everything from parks to pollution. As part of a 7,000-plus page draft environmental impact statement – required under federal […]
Posted inRoads
Replacement could be in the cards for historic Barton Springs Road bridge
Barton Springs Road bridge could get upgrades that include a widened bridge deck, two new bicycle lanes and pedestrian paths. “It needs to be rehabilitated or replaced to ensure the safety and longevity as well as improved circulation in this area for vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles, all the modes of transportation,” said Eric Bailey, assistant director […]
Posted inRoads
Double-decker highway coming to South Austin
Amid howls of protest and a legal challenge in federal court, the Texas Department of Transportation is plowing ahead with the first of three projects to widen Interstate 35 through Travis County. The I-35 Capital Express South project stretches from Ben White Boulevard south to State Highway 45 East. The signature feature will be two elevated […]
Posted inRoads
City seeks federal transit funds to improve east-west connections along I-35
The city has hopes of securing federal transportation funds intended to reconnect communities severed from economic and other opportunities by transit infrastructure, specifically Interstate 35. Last week City Council approved a resolution to submit the Our Future 35: Connecting Equitably Study to the U.S. Department of Transportation for funding consideration as part of the new […]
Posted inRoads
UTC calls TxDOT proposal to expand I-35 ‘just so weak’
Urban Transportation commissioners voiced their continuing concerns Tuesday about the Texas Department of Transportation’s plans to reconstruct and expand the portion of Interstate 35 that goes through Austin’s downtown. TxDOT is currently studying the environmental impacts of the two design options it has left – Build Alternative 2 and Updated Build Alternative 3 – and is scheduled […]
Posted inRoads
Lawsuit alleges TxDOT’s I-35 expansion project is ‘clearly violating the law’
Three Texas organizations – Texas Public Interest Research Group, Environment Texas and Rethink35 – have come together to file a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Transportation over its plans to expand Interstate 35. At the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization transportation policy board meeting on June 13, TxDOT reported that the three multibillion-dollar projects […]
Posted inRoads
Nueces Street in West Campus to be converted to two-way road
The city of Austin will start work this summer to convert one-way Nueces Street between 24th and Guadalupe streets into a two-way thoroughfare, part of a long-planned project that fits with the voter-approved vision to run light rail down the Drag. The more immediate changes include installing crosswalks and a traffic signal at Nueces and […]
Posted inRoads
Construction material shortages are delaying TxDOT projects and driving up their costs
A shortage of building materials like steel and concrete is driving up costs for Texas Department of Transportation road projects and could delay some construction contracts. “We have also seen significant increases (over 100 percent in some cases) in some material prices,” TxDOT’s construction division director Duane Milligan wrote in an internal memo dated April 5. After […]
Posted inRoads
Travis County to make improvements to substandard county roads
There are about 108 miles of substandard, unmaintained and “often unpaved” roads in Travis County, according to a recently circulated county document. The Travis County Commissioners Court passed a resolution Tuesday to improve these roads, specifically by increasing funding for county road infrastructure and reshaping an existing program. “The provision of safe, high-quality local road […]
Posted inRoads
I-35 expansion could destroy a 70-unit affordable housing complex. TxDOT didn’t notice at first.
The Texas Department of Transportation overlooked a 70-unit affordable housing complex when tallying how many homes could be destroyed by a move to widen Interstate 35 through Central Austin. Aria Grand, an apartment community in the Travis Heights neighborhood that opened in 2019, was omitted from the initial count of residential displacements in TxDOT’s early analysis of the expansion […]