A number of rezoning cases on the agenda for Austin City Council’s February 1 meeting later this week point to big change on the map for the St. Elmo neighborhood of South Austin. But what’s interesting about the projects seeking these rezonings is that none are planned for the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare along St. Elmo Road, but instead a few…
walkability
Here’s Our First Look at the Centro Project’s Second Act in East Austin
The block-sized Centro office and retail development at 1401 East Sixth Street in East Austin is one of our favorite projects in this forever-growing district — the building by local firm Riverside (née Riverside Resources) features handsome warehouse-inspired good looks with plenty of masonry from the Austin office of mega-architects Gensler, and an above-average helping of pedestrian-friendly landscape…
An Austin Holiday Tradition Goes Car-Free at the 37th Street Lights
The elaborate and offbeat displays of Christmas lights fashioned yearly by residents along West 37th Street in the city’s North University neighborhood are one of those “Keep Austin Weird” situations that actually lives up to our eclectic reputation. Though participation dipped in the 2000s after a group of neighbors first started the tradition in the mid-1980s, the 37th Street Lights came back strong in…
Raise a Glass to Austin’s Planned Abolition of Bar Parking Mandates
Minimum parking requirements are bad for cities. Once upon a time you’d risk getting run out of town for saying this in public, but we’ve seen an increasing awareness over the last decade of these and other invisible rules shaping how places like Austin grow, and the results aren’t always great — ask yourself, why does every new tower downtown have a…
Designing Streets for Everyone in Downtown Austin Starts With You
The Austin Transportation Department’s ongoing study of mobility options and street infrastructure in downtown, known as the Austin Core Transportation (ACT) Plan, has entered its second phase of community engagement — and before you completely glaze over, we’d like to make a case for why you ought to care. With the future public transit improvements of Project Connect seemingly in the lurch at the…
Austin, It’s Time To Take Back Your Streets for Good
We’ll get right to the point — you’ve got until October 23, or this coming Sunday, to complete the latest community survey for the ATX Walk Bike Roll program, providing input on future transportation policy including the placement of bike paths, urban trails, and other pedestrian-friendly infrastructure to the city’s Public Works and Transportation Departments. But there’s one specific topic…