Austin is doomed by geography, always has been. Everybody with money wants(wanted) to live west/northwest (because it was the prettiest part of the area but now they've ****ed it all up with concrete) and now there's no room for anything. Lots of room to the north/south/east, I'm sure yall will continue to **** that up too.
Yes. That's why some people think that widening highways is a fruitless endeavor long-term. As someone who lived in Houston Clear Lake area for over two decades and watched I-45S perpetually under construction, there's never a good stopping point. IMHO, Austin's biggest flaw (even ahead of real estate prices) is the infrastructure. I-35 is a mess and if you want to go Buda to GTN you basically have to take it for some terrible terrible stretch. There's no easy way to bypass downtown like there is in Houston (i.e. 610 and the tollway). So you get the unholy mess of commuters and people just trying to pass through clogging I-35 at all times of day. That's above and beyond the difficulties going east-west. Often times when I need to go from I-35 to MOPAC the fast way to where is I live is crossing DOWNTOWN on 15th street. Just bananas. 188 and 270 are way too far north/south to be the major east/west corridors. Moving to dallas in a few weeks and will be happy to be out of austin traffic. /guyyellsatcloud
It allows through traffic to pass on Pecan while cars make left turns from Pecan to 685. As a result, significantly less time is needed to stop traffic on 685. As a result, it should alleviate a lot of congestion on 685 since they don't have to wait for through traffic and left turn traffic separately. Traffic on Pecan might not be helped much as time spent waiting for cars making lefts are pushed an intersection away in both directions from 685 (though maybe timing lights helps with this).
Somehow, (analytically and theoretically), it's supposed to improve traffic flow and make left turns more efficient. It's called a Continuous Flow intersection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous-flow_intersection The South Austin one isn't quite this thing, but something similar. It might be the "parallel flow intersection" mentioned on that page, but not sure. Here it is in action:
There's gonna be some breakpoint where more lanes isn't ideal. But with the same logic, there's a point where widening the highway is better. You can't claim induced demand as a reason to limit a road to a single lane. People who want public transportation instead should focus on improving the endpoint first before limiting road construction. There's no point for someone in the suburbs to take the rail for 30 minutes to have to walk 30 minutes in the Texas weather before getting to their endpoint when they can do the same commute in 1 hour in the comfort of their car and not have to deal with randos.
Yes, exactly! I moved from Houston to Austin area in early 90s, miss old Austin for sure. Also, really sucks seeing all the large houses on 1431, that drive from Cedar Park to Lago and even continuing to Marble Falls used to be a decent. Didn't always like driving 1431 but did like the view of the hills.
Of course. Widening highways is usually a necessary intermediate term step. There is no reasonable argument that Austin couldn't use more infrastructure capacity than it currently has. I've gone down the youtube rabbit hole on this topic. It's probably one of the biggest topics in urban/city planning. Big picture, solving traffic problems like Austin's requires a big rethinking of commuter culture. At least in the south, where public transportation isn't a serious consideration. Basically, the idea of urban sprawl needs to go away and people need to get back to living/working locally. Hopefully increasing WFH helps on the job front. But even with non-job related stuff, local suburbs can build out city-amenities like shopping/dining/entertainment and transition into a smaller city rather than a bedroom community. This keeps people local..... and hopefully reduces the amount of commuting. People in Kyle/Buda stay in Kyle/Buda and stop contributing to the Austin traffic problems. Conversely people with necessary jobs in the city need to consider biting the bullet and paying the premium to live closer. Bottom line, long-term planning is as much managing/reducing the demand as it is increasing the capacity/supply.
It's always been strange to me how during low traffic times you can buzz through downtown then hit heavy traffic around William Cannon -- same rolling through Round Rock and it doesn't matter if you are heading north or south either way. During even moderate traffic you are DOOMED.
Reason why areas like mueller and domain are being pushed and built around austin. Mixed-use development areas that create small towns in a greater metro area. So almost all of your daily things ideally are within minutes of where you live. More walking/biking to places. Now connect them together with a public transportation system.
This is another big project that needs to get rolling -- escape the MoPac bottleneck then hit the big open freeway and boom the Y in Oak Hill.
