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First, Austin is--and ALWAYS will be--hamstrung by a terrible surface road network. The plain fact is that the basic street plan for a modest sized capital city and university just isn't sufficient for a huge metropolis. Compare the basic street design of Austin with, say, Kansas City and the difference is absolutely shocking. Hardly any decent E-W routes, few N-S routes, and UT Austin blocking up the whole thing like a cork. Oh, yes, and there is also the lovely Lake to deal with. The fundamental reason Austin traffic sucks is that the grid system was designed for 125-150K people and it is never, ever going to be upgraded. Cannot be.
Second, the work-around for the terrible grid system is that people have to use high-speed roads more frequently here. The logical solution would have been to build a robust system of bypass roads that would have diverted the interregional traffic east and west of the city. Instead, and in a feat of pure madness, those roads were stymied at every turn, forcing even more traffic on the MOPAC and I-35 high speed roadways. Technically this problem COULD be fixed, but it is unlikely to ever be seriously addressed.
So talking about traffic in Austin must start with an understanding that, if you TRIED to design a worse comprehensive road network for a major city you'd be hard-pressed to do worse that what's happened here over the last 30-40 years.
The problem is that this only addresses one side of the ledger. Pain is there. Many people would opt to live closer to where they work in dense, walkable or bikeable communities given the chance. The problem is, we don't give them the chance to do so. We have made it too expensive to live centrally for the vast majority and we have made it too difficult to add supply to alleviate prices.
We can and should re-work our land use codes to allow for dense development to occur throughout (not just in Mueller, the CBD and a very few transit corridors) as a matter of right. Only then, when you see development happening everywhere, will you get downward pressure on prices and people flowing back into the city where they can opt to get rid of a car, or ride their bike a higher percentage of the time, or walk or take transit to work.
Instead, what everyone squawks for is more roads. Well, guess what, we give them more roads . And the problem gets worse, and they want wider roads, and we give them wider and the problem continues to get worse.
So until the city gets real about what is the cause of the problem (lots of long car trips) and the solution to the problem (fewer and shorter car trips) then really anything and everything is merely stop gap.
I half agree with you, but I am not willing to sacrifice Austin's very few historic neighborhoods for the architectural horror of something like Mueller. Zoning is part of the problem, but so is history and construction standards. Hyde Park barely survived the awfulness of the Hyde Park Baptist Church and the truly terrible duplexes and apartment complexes of the 1970s and 80s.
One of the weird - so to speak - things about Austin is that historically it never had the white middle class flight from the inner city so typical of American cities - the most desirable real estate remained close to the historic core. Only central East Austin could be gentrified, the rest never really declined. I would be paradoxically be in favor of both changing the mixed use and set back ordinance and strengthening the historic preservation ordinances. Unlike you, I have little faith in the so-called free market to address Austin's growth problems - the so-called free-market gave us the paving over of the hill country and the suburban sprawl you hate. An unfettered market would destroy everything that makes those parts of Austin beautiful and desirable.
I would love to live in the West Village in Manhattan or in Nob Hill in San Francisco or in the Gold Coast in Chicago or in Back Bay in Boston. Tough **** - I cannot afford to. Now if they bulldozed all those glorious nineteenth century row-houses and built huge cheap apartment complexes, then I might be able to, but why then would I want to ? Clarksville, Hyde Park, Harris Park, Old West Austin, Swede Hill, Pemberton, Travis Heights etc are the granted much lesser Austin equivalents. I cannot afford to live there, but I don't want them destroyed just so I could. I enjoy walking there, eating there, drinking there, dancing there, watching theater there.
I am not a selfish, half-witted libertarian - Ayn Rand is to philosophy what the **** on my shoe is to filet mignon; there is such a thing as a public good. The historic neighborhoods of our city give us beauty, aspiration, entertainment, a sense of place, so many intangible, uncommodifiable things, and you want to plunk down Mosaic-like horrors in the middle of them. I'll pass.
Austin needs real public transportation options, better zoning, move the highways out of the city altogether maybe. A quarter of all jobs in Austin still reside in the CBD: a multi nodal city like Dallas I think would be a disaster; there they are spending huge amounts of money to bury the highways they built which destroyed their urban core. Austin has many lessons to learn. All I can say is that very bad traffic is actually a very good thing. Winston Churchill, whom I don't usually admire, once said "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other ones." Austinites voted against sensible transportation options repeatedly. Let them sit in traffic, until they learn.
I live downtown. I walk, bus or bike to work. I get in my car on average once a fortnight. Personally, I mostly notice traffic from my balcony. I don't really care for me. But for the city, the traffic needs to get MUCH, MUCH worse, before the public and the twits they elect will do something real about it.
Until somebody figures out how to build new decent sized living spaces (1,000-2,000 sq.ft.) in Central Austin @ $100-$125/sq.ft. for upwards of 100,000 people within walking distance of good schools and HEB/Target type stores, the commuter congestion will remain at current levels.
By commuter, I mean the average state & UT employee who cannot afford to live Central, or finds the family amenity choices unattractive.
Not to mention getting most of the interstate thru traffic to move over to Texas 130.
Mesmer's post is spot on about Austin city politicians - they just plain suck.
Did you actually read those articles you linked to? The first was a dense mixed use urban development that was seeking a variance and opposed under SOS (which is an entire other kettle of fish that ends up producing more low density development). The other is a battle over schools in which, once again, an entity that wants to develop with a higher IC than is allowed in the Barton Creek Watershed.
You are so consumed by your obsession that you are blinded. #1 - nothing is in the Barton Creek watershed. But that is the low hanging fruit in your blind rush to respond, the facts be damned. Which leads to: #2 - you said only dense urban development is subject to IC limits, pressure from activist groups, etc. - obviously patently false.
The issue isn't whether or not the COA allows the low density development you so abhor. The issue is, is it more difficult to develop urban density or suburban low density? NOTHING could be more difficult than developing ANYTHING - low, medium, high, you name it - in southwest Austin. Which belies your original assertion.
You are so consumed by your obsession that you are blinded. #1 - nothing is in the Barton Creek watershed. But that is the low hanging fruit in your blind rush to respond, the facts be damned. Which leads to: #2 - you said only dense urban development is subject to IC limits, pressure from activist groups, etc. - obviously patently false.
The issue isn't whether or not the COA allows the low density development you so abhor. The issue is, is it more difficult to develop urban density or suburban low density? NOTHING could be more difficult than developing ANYTHING - low, medium, high, you name it - in southwest Austin. Which belies your original assertion.
I can't tell whether you are willfully ignorant to flat out lying. Either way I'm done talking to you.
Cramming everybody into little boxes downtown reminded me of this song from decades ago (when it applied to the 'burbs):
Never knew the origin of the term (didn't catch Weeds)--thanks!
I like how the not-so-subtle "ticky tacky" putdowns used on here are towards newer suburban homes, but weren't most post war neighborhoods in Austin designed as "little boxes" too?
Hmm, so I'm reading up on all the ticky tacky definitions I can find, and it seems the three key ingredients are:
1)low quality build out (older less energy efficient or new cheap materials)
2)basic (uninspiring) design
3)uniform (identical) build
Gee, that sounds like that could apply too to most smaller (non-custom), working class homes you see in the older inner neighborhoods, going back to the 30s. Pick your decade.
Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown
Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone
[Chorus:]
(Subdivisions)
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
(Subdivisions)
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth
Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night
Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights...
I can't tell whether you are willfully ignorant to flat out lying. Either way I'm done talking to you.
Man, is that projection. You said that everything SW was in the Barton Creek watershed, when in reality, almost NONE is (only the sliver N of SW Parkway). So when you get called out on it, who is "willfully ignorant"?
As far as the second part, if I believed it, it might be the best present I've gotten all day.
You are so consumed by your obsession that you are blinded. #1 - nothing is in the Barton Creek watershed. But that is the low hanging fruit in your blind rush to respond, the facts be damned. Which leads to: #2 - you said only dense urban development is subject to IC limits, pressure from activist groups, etc. - obviously patently false.
The issue isn't whether or not the COA allows the low density development you so abhor. The issue is, is it more difficult to develop urban density or suburban low density? NOTHING could be more difficult than developing ANYTHING - low, medium, high, you name it - in southwest Austin. Which belies your original assertion.
SW Austin= toughest place to build in town?? I could maybe see your point initially from an environmental standpoint. The argument being made is that a core development process will endure many continuous setbacks and delays throughout a given project vs having more design freedoms up front after initial greenlight.
You really think a developer will endure more hell down there, than in town?
SW Austin= toughest place to build in town?? I could maybe see your point initially from an environmental standpoint. The argument being made is that a core development process will endure many continuous setbacks and delays throughout a given project vs having more design freedoms up front after initial greenlight.
You really think a developer will endure more hell down there, than in town?
The environmental process forces development to be more suburban. His point is ridiculous because it goes EXACTLY to what I've been arguing that the city makes suburban development easy and urban development hard.
IF and when the city reverses this policy and makes urban development in the central city easy and suburban development hard then the form of the city will begin to transform and over time time prices will come down relative to the suburbs and supply will come up allowing people who want to a reasonable option to come back to the city, live close to where they work and place and reduce the total number of car trips and relieve the pressure for new roads.
Again, an honest conversation about traffic doesn't even begin with traffic. It's an honest discussion about how to build a great city that draws people in so that traffic becomes less and less of a problem as people have more and more alternatives to car trips for everything.
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