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…
transportation
When It Comes to Parking, Austin Could Learn a Thing or Two From California
Yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2097, a bill eliminating parking requirements statewide for new housing and commercial developments located within a half-mile of major transit stations. It’s likely the most significant parking reform legislation ever passed, removing the parking mandates that often represent a significant burden to the cost and feasibility of housing construction. CA is making housing cheaper &…
South Congress Could Relax Its Obnoxious Residential Parking Rules
Nobody wants to talk about parking until they specifically can’t find any, and by now you might know our thoughts on the subject. There’s too much of it in the wrong places, it shouldn’t be free, and it’s bad for cities and architecture — not to mention the planet, but we’ll stay local — when our entire built environment prioritizes the movement…
From Riverside to Barton Springs, South Lamar’s Going on a Road Diet
One of Austin’s worst intersections, as determined by our readers no less, is located at Barton Springs Road and South Lamar Boulevard — it’s a seven-lane nightmare for cars, bikes, and pedestrians alike, and with multiple major developments on the way in this region, those issues are only going to get worse. That’s why we’re pumped to see the…
Widening I-35 to 20 Lanes in Downtown Austin is the Anti-Project Connect
It’s never been more widely understood in the history of transportation infrastructure that adding lanes to highways does not solve the problem of traffic congestion. The phenomenon of “induced demand,” a catch-all phrase used to describe the complex relationship between multiple effects causing traffic to rapidly fill expanded highway space, has filtered through somewhat to the general public — and efforts…
Here’s How Longhorn Dam Is Getting Safer for Cars, Bikes, and Yes, People
After substantial public engagement and a final engineering report issued back in July, the City of Austin’s Transportation Department has nailed down its plans for a pedestrian bridge crossing Lady Bird Lake near Longhorn Dam in East Austin — and as we’d hoped, the “Wishbone” bridge option presented alongside several others last year is the prize pig, ready to enter…