Why do people want to work and live in Austin if it is already overcrowded, expensive to live there ? (Houston: cost, gardening)

[scm53]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

They did build it...it's called Texas 130.

The problems on 35 have been proven to be more local originating and destinating traffic than through traffic. 130 can't do a thing about that - as has been proven.

[winkosmosis]

If Austin was spiderwebbed with highways like the Houstonists want, it wouldn't be the attractive city that it is

[ctk0p7]

Originally Posted by scm53

The only inner city highway in the '85 plan is one I probably would have opposed as well - the Koenig freeway. But 360 should be a freeway as was always envisioned, 183 should already be freeway from 290 to 71, and we should have a ring road because of our growth in jobs in the outer ring (10-35 mi from downtown), where we had the third largest percentage growth in the nation. We are a polycentric job market, with a unicentric road network.

The bastardization of the "induced traffic demand" argument is interesting. What's has happened is that that urban religionists have taken that theory - where added road capacity in static populations is filled because of:

• Diverted traffic that changes its route onto the improved capacity.
• Rescheduled traffic that previously used the facility at a different time (spreading or contracting the peak).
• Shifts from other modes -- which may or may not have used the facility before -- including changes in occupancy.
• Destination shifts resulting from the improvement of the facility.
• Additional travel by persons already using, or in the market for, the facility.

They have perversely used this theory from static populations, to falsely argue against added road capacity in growing populations - because not adding capacity in Austin has worked so well, right?

Well said scm53. The length of 183 needing upgrading between 290 and 71 is only a few miles, yet from my understanding, this is to be another toll project. I'm not sure that capacity can be added to I-35 now that the city is so developed, not without substantial cost. Even if Austin adds capacity to every road we have now, I don't think in the end it will be enough with the projected population increase.

[atx1626]

Originally Posted by ctk0p7

Well said scm53. The length of 183 needing upgrading between 290 and 71 is only a few miles, yet from my understanding, this is to be another toll project. I'm not sure that capacity can be added to I-35 now that the city is so developed, not without substantial cost. Even if Austin adds capacity to every road we have now, I don't think in the end it will be enough with the projected population increase.

This link agrees:

Current Long-Term Plans Do Nothing to Improve Austin

And burying I-35 would be far more extensive than the advocates of that plan think.

[Chimpie]

Originally Posted by Portrait55

Why can't people live elsewhere? ...

Not to go off-topic from the (somewhat) off-topic conversation, but the reason people want to live in Austin is because it's different from where they are now.

I currently live in Florida, nicknamed "God's waiting room." I'm tired of the "old". I visited Austin two years and loved it. It seemed like there was no one under 55. There was so much energy, so much drive. People wanted to be out, learning, playing, having fun, being social.

Did I get stuck in traffic on my way around? Yep, and it felt like the opening scenes of Office Space.

What can Austin do to help the situation (in my opinion)? Encourage new businesses to locate around the county, not just in the center of Austin. The surrounding towns/cities should make their towns attractive to new businesses. (This is an outsiders point of view. They may already be doing this.)

[TexasHorseLady]

Long ago I used to think that Frank Erwin, of not-so-blessed memory, was pruriently aroused by concrete. It seems that he was not alone in this

I hear calls for roads, roads, and more roads to "solve Austin's traffic problem". Well, it might - by destroying the very qualify of life, of which traffic is only one minor part, that makes people want to live here, If everyone not only stops moving here but those that have move on to yet another place that has not yet been made just like everywhere else because it's been paved over, that would sure solve the traffic problem. Sometimes it seems that's the goal.

[RooCeleste]

Originally Posted by scm53

The problems on 35 have been proven to be more local originating and destinating traffic than through traffic. 130 can't do a thing about that - as has been proven.

Exactly. 130 serves me absolutely NO purpose unless I'm going to San Antonio or the airport. It doesn't go anywhere near my state office building, which is where I go five days per week. The traffic on 35, 183, Mopac, etc during rush hour is local work traffic, not travelers who are trying to get through Austin to go farther south or north.

[atx1626]

The traffic on 35 has a substantial amount of long haul truck traffic coming out of Laredo to points north and the boundary shock experienced by trucks on 35 through the downtown core only exacerbates the problems by local traffic.

The inability to get trucks to use 130 is what makes it a failed concept. I was checking the traffic numbers for the Georgetown-Mustang Ridge portion and they've stayed flat since opening.

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by scm53

The problems on 35 have been proven to be more local originating and destinating traffic than through traffic. 130 can't do a thing about that - as has been proven.

Oh I agree with you.
But recall all the hoop and hollering about how all those 18 wheelers would bypass Austin because they could get on Texas 130.

Even 4 years ago posters were talking about the insane Austin traffic.

Did SH130 toll road improve traffic in Austin?

[scm53]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Oh I agree with you.
But recall all the hoop and hollering about how all those 18 wheelers would bypass Austin because they could get on Texas 130.

Even 4 years ago posters were talking about the insane Austin traffic.

Did SH130 toll road improve traffic in Austin?

Truck AADT counts on 35 N and S of Austin are about 13,000. Downtown 35 AADT is around 200,000. If people thought those trucks would make a dent - even if 100% diverted - they weren't making their minds up on facts.

Which is nothing new here.