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…
urbanism
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…
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…
Enjoy the Shade at Brazos Bluff, the Hike-and-Bike Trail’s Latest Upgrade
In all the chaos of the pandemic, we neglected to notice that the Trail Foundation, Austin’s nonprofit stewards of the Hike-and-Bike Trail, reached a nice milestone — Brazos Bluff, one of the organization’s 15 trail improvement projects marking the 15th anniversary of its founding, celebrated its completion last month. The project creates a stopping point with seating and other landscaping features…