"Don't expect any miracles."
Taming the beast that is I-35.
April 10, 2006
Ben Wear
Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2006
Interstate 35 is the elephant in the room of Central Texas transportation.
There it is out there in the middle, ponderous and slow-moving, clogging up everything. If you want to get from the hallway over to the bathroom on the other side, you just find a way to go around the elephant, even if you have to build another room (charging aunts and uncles a fee to walk through the add-on).
And while everyone talks about what a problem it is, no one has any firm ideas about how to get the beast moving.
That's about to change. The Austin district of the Texas Department of Transportation is about to start a $1 million study of the 8.5-mile stretch of I-35 between the new Texas 45 North toll road in Round Rock and U.S. 183 in North Austin. That suburban stretch, all of it with three express lanes in each direction and generally two frontage road lanes on each side, had anywhere from 160,000 to 225,000 vehicles a day on it in 2004, the latest count available.
It's unpleasant at rush hour, to say the least, and no bargain through the rest of the day. Some interchanges, such as the one at Parmer Lane, totally jam up during peak drive time. And there's no money sitting around right now to go out and add an express lane in each direction (the urban area south of U.S. 183 to Town Lake mostly has eight lanes).
But Terry McCoy, the state Transportation Department's North Austin area engineer, says there are some ways to shrink the elephant, as it were.
The frontage roads, interchanges at Parmer Lane, Grand Avenue Parkway and other intersecting roads, and the entrances and the exits were designed years ago based on the best assumptions engineers could make at the time.
But things change. Michael Dell builds some plants, Tech Ridge springs up, Pflugerville explodes, and suddenly the traffic is flowing in and out in patterns that don't necessarily work best with the old design.
That's what the study will look at, and the end product would involve moving frontage roads outward in anticipation of widening the expressway, tweaking bridge approaches and changing how people get on and off the highway. And it will meld I-35 with four flyover bridges planned on the south side of Texas 45 North and two on the north side of U.S. 183.
"How that's going to look in the end, I couldn't tell you for sure," McCoy said.
It could take one to two years for the study, which will produce a preliminary schematic of the changes, he said. Then there will be public meetings, an environmental report, final drawings and, he hopes, money to build it.
Starting sometime in 2007, there will also be a larger study of I-35 all the way through downtown Austin and south to the city limits.
"It's a hugely difficult place to work," McCoy said. "There's nothing you can do that's easy."
But engineers can devise some things that will help. Having too many entrance ramps, for example, significantly slows rush hour traffic.
Just don't expect any miracles. It's still an elephant.
Getting There appears Mondays. For questions, tips or story ideas, contact Getting There at 445-3698 or bwear@statesman.com.
© 2006 Austin American-Statesman: www.statesman.com
April 10, 2006
Ben Wear
Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2006
Interstate 35 is the elephant in the room of Central Texas transportation.
There it is out there in the middle, ponderous and slow-moving, clogging up everything. If you want to get from the hallway over to the bathroom on the other side, you just find a way to go around the elephant, even if you have to build another room (charging aunts and uncles a fee to walk through the add-on).
And while everyone talks about what a problem it is, no one has any firm ideas about how to get the beast moving.
That's about to change. The Austin district of the Texas Department of Transportation is about to start a $1 million study of the 8.5-mile stretch of I-35 between the new Texas 45 North toll road in Round Rock and U.S. 183 in North Austin. That suburban stretch, all of it with three express lanes in each direction and generally two frontage road lanes on each side, had anywhere from 160,000 to 225,000 vehicles a day on it in 2004, the latest count available.
It's unpleasant at rush hour, to say the least, and no bargain through the rest of the day. Some interchanges, such as the one at Parmer Lane, totally jam up during peak drive time. And there's no money sitting around right now to go out and add an express lane in each direction (the urban area south of U.S. 183 to Town Lake mostly has eight lanes).
But Terry McCoy, the state Transportation Department's North Austin area engineer, says there are some ways to shrink the elephant, as it were.
The frontage roads, interchanges at Parmer Lane, Grand Avenue Parkway and other intersecting roads, and the entrances and the exits were designed years ago based on the best assumptions engineers could make at the time.
But things change. Michael Dell builds some plants, Tech Ridge springs up, Pflugerville explodes, and suddenly the traffic is flowing in and out in patterns that don't necessarily work best with the old design.
That's what the study will look at, and the end product would involve moving frontage roads outward in anticipation of widening the expressway, tweaking bridge approaches and changing how people get on and off the highway. And it will meld I-35 with four flyover bridges planned on the south side of Texas 45 North and two on the north side of U.S. 183.
"How that's going to look in the end, I couldn't tell you for sure," McCoy said.
It could take one to two years for the study, which will produce a preliminary schematic of the changes, he said. Then there will be public meetings, an environmental report, final drawings and, he hopes, money to build it.
Starting sometime in 2007, there will also be a larger study of I-35 all the way through downtown Austin and south to the city limits.
"It's a hugely difficult place to work," McCoy said. "There's nothing you can do that's easy."
But engineers can devise some things that will help. Having too many entrance ramps, for example, significantly slows rush hour traffic.
Just don't expect any miracles. It's still an elephant.
Getting There appears Mondays. For questions, tips or story ideas, contact Getting There at 445-3698 or bwear@statesman.com.
© 2006 Austin American-Statesman:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Monday, April 10, 2006
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