Austin’s City Council is currently on summer break, but when its members return next week for the meeting scheduled on July 20, they’re taking on a fairly significant land use resolution with the potential to shape the future of housing across the city. You’d think Agenda Item 126 might have dropped with a little more fanfare, considering its…
urbanism
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 . . . …
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 . . . Become a patron to get the full story and gain access to TOWERS’ archive….
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
In Defense of 405 Colorado
405 Colorado, an office tower by Brandywine Realty Trust now noticeably on the rise at the northeast corner of West Fourth and Colorado Streets, has managed to snatch the title of “most divisive downtown architecture” away from the Independent — and that makes sense, because it’s a pretty unusual building in its own right. Expected by 2022,…
Dreaming of a Downtown Austin H-E-B
Let’s say there’s a completely unsubstantiated rumor floating around that the H-E-B grocery company is working on building a store somewhere in downtown Austin. (There is.) That’s a great way to create some intrigue, since a project like this would absolutely change the game for downtown dwellers — yeah, we love Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, but in…