The stretch of Congress Avenue north of the lake is fairly important, I'd say. You might cornily consider it the spine of the ever-changing book that is Austin -- heck, all the numbered streets running across it receive prefixes of East or West in deference to its status as "The Main Street of Texas," with thousands of downtown addresses defined by their positions relative to its latitude.
Of course, this idealistic vision doesn't really hold up when you realize there are . . .