SH 45 SW - why are we building this road? (Austin: 2013, neighborhoods)

[hillcountryheart]

In the best case, Hays County commuters and some Brodie Lane-area residents will get to Mopac about three minutes faster, only to become log-jammed there. Worst case, Austin-through traffic will divert from I-35 over to Mopac and rejoin I-35 via Parmer (free) or toll road - which increases traffic on Mopac.

What am I missing? Why are TxDOT, CTRA and Travis County so eager to build this road?

[scm53]

Originally Posted by hillcountryheart

In the best case, Hays County commuters and some Brodie Lane-area residents will get to Mopac about three minutes faster, only to become log-jammed there. Worst case, Austin-through traffic will divert from I-35 over to Mopac and rejoin I-35 via Parmer (free) or toll road - which increases traffic on Mopac.

What am I missing? Why are TxDOT, CTRA and Travis County so eager to build this road?

Because it had an approved EIS completed in 1989, was approved by Travis County voters in a 1997 bond election, and has been stalled since. In the mean time, population in the area has grown by 209%, with all of that traffic dumped on roads that were never planned or designed for such loads. The result has negatively impacted neighborhoods and has called into question the ability of emergency vehicles to get into these areas during the busiest times of the day.

It will not connect to 35, so your concerns about through traffic are unfounded. Traffic on Mopac will not increase, as the traffic over a new SH 45 is traffic that is already on Mopac.

The extension is overwhelmingly supported by the residents - and was a primary factor in the election of Gerald Daughtery as county commissioner.

[hillcountryheart]

Yes, it will connect to I-35 via 1626. http://www.sh45sw.com/environmental/...3-Handouts.pdf

Only some Shady Hollow residents of Travis County want this - this is a hugely Republican precinct anyway. Residents in every other nearby Travis County neighborhood DON'T want this. It is not going to fix anything, and once Mopac becomes even MORE clogged, traffic will migrate to other roads that weren't built for this kind of traffic, either - Escarpment, Beckett, Davis, 1826 - do you really think everyone will dutifully turn north up into the traffic jam that's Mopac?

[scm53]

Originally Posted by hillcountryheart

Only some Shady Hollow residents of Travis County want this - this is a hugely Republican precinct anyway.

Oh, silly me. If I had only realized that it was solely apostates that want this. I mean, ewwww. They are REPUBLICANS!

You do realize the President of the Shady Hollow HOA, and vocal supporter of this, is Democrat former Travis County judge Bill Aleshire?

[hillcountryheart]

Let me refine my reply. Commissioners do have a party affiliation and it's actually pretty amazing that Daughterty won with such a slender margin given his voting base. The district boundaries look wildly
gerrymandered to me (no pun intended) to either 1) make sure there's at least one Republican on the commission or 2) make sure there is only one. Your choice - I'm not making this a partisan issue.

Bill Aleshire is an idiot for pushing to connect Brodie to Manchaca in the first place. At the time, it was possible to exit Brodie onto Manchaca and then over to I-35 to go north. Unfortunately, both Brodie residents and Hays County residents have preferred to use every back road there is to avoid I-35. They will do the same thing once Mopac is congested down to SH 45 - and it will be, because no one seems intent on fixing 1) I-35; 2) Mopac south of the river or 3) the Y in Oak Hill - all of which would be better solutions than building this road.

[scm53]

Originally Posted by hillcountryheart

Bill Aleshire is an idiot for pushing to connect Brodie to Manchaca in the first place. At the time, it was possible to exit Brodie onto Manchaca and then over to I-35 to go north.

Uhhh, you do realize that Brodie and Manchaca are N-S roads that don't connect? Right?

[hillcountryheart]

Originally Posted by scm53

Uhhh, you do realize that Brodie and Manchaca are N-S roads that don't connect? Right?

They very nearly do - they intersect FM 1626 very close to each other. And FM 1626 intersects I-35 a few miles east of its intersections with Brodie and Manchaca.

In the future I'll use "intersect" and "connected to via" so that there are no more red herrings.

SH 45 SW will take traffic from that general area, whether from local residents or Hays County residents, and connect it to the southmost point of Mopac via SH 45 SW. TxDOT's own studies and engineers say that this group of commuters will shave 2-3 minutes off a typical commute from the Manchaca area to downtown Austin because there's no relief on Mopac.

So we are going to build a road costing $100 million dollars of Travis County taxpayer dollars to shift 6% of Brodie traffic off Brodie and shave 2-3 minutes off Hays County commutes? As Mopac backs up, people will get right back on Brodie.

[austin-steve]

why are we building this road?

Uh, maybe because we want to stop being the stupidest idiots in the state? Have you seen traffic?

Instead of anticipating and planning for transportation needs, Austin dysfunctionally resists and protests new road infrastructure, for decades, until we have the mess we have today.

Steve

[verybadgnome]

I can't find the specific study but there has been toll revenue projections done on all of the built and proposed toll facilities. IIRC SH 45 SW was going to be in the red and have one of the worst ROI, so much that it will need to be subsidized by other parts of the system. That is why some of the rules were changed such as:

Change or delete Toll Road Policy #4 (October
8, 2007) to eliminate the provision that
excess revenue generated in one toll road corridor be kept and used within that same
corridor. This would allow the creation of a system of toll roads which in turn would allow
more favorable financing conditions of SH 45 SW were developed as a tolled facility

So you have a bit of a contradiction in that there is a lot of public demand for such a road to be built, yet not enough to make it viable. That many people who live along Brodie Lane want it built, but in reality most of them will rarely use and pay for it. Of course SH 130 is behind its projections, which means SH 45 SW could fare even worse that its already low projected level.

Having said that things could change dramatically if the second part, the eastern extension to IH-35, is ever built. Then it could be and east-west cut across to either crowded MoPac or crowded IH-35 or the long slog to SH 130 which probably isn't worth the trouble. The only bright spot there is the new managed lanes on MoPac but that will buy them another X years before its congested again.

Here's a suggestion: How about business and elected officials in Hays County start creating jobs there instead of exporting most of their workforce to Travis County everyday. The more businesses in Hays County the more taxes its collects, a double win. Plus there are less regulations anywhere in Hays County
compared to Austin and there is certainly lots of comparatively cheaper land. If all else fails do it the old-fashioned, small town American way - bribe them with tax abatements.

[Westerner92]

I'm curious as to what the point of this connection is as well. What OP is describing is an example of a "prisoner's dilemma" for traffic of sorts (a.k.a. Braess Paradox), where connectivity can actually be detrimental to overall travel times. I think this is a very distinct possibility with the SH 45 extension.