One of my other favorite interests are roads and traffic. I find it very interesting to follow how/when/where new roads are being built. I was reading an article by Ben Wear, my favorite Statesman writer as opposed to the overrated annoying John Kelso but I digress, and it detailed about how 45 is a East/West road but named a North/South Road. One old tidbit that pertains to Steiner Ranch is below.
That’s when the Austin Transportation Study, the previous name for the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, released a long-range transportation plan for the area. The plan included an “outer loop” called SH 45 that went all the way around the area. (SH is for “state highway.” At the Statesman, we use “Texas” in lieu of “SH,” just to add to the confusion.)
This giant raggedy polygon included the two pieces already in place, the two more on the way and, basically, what has become the Texas 130 tollway route east of Austin.
The plan also included cutting through the Hill Country from Southwest Austin to the Village of Bee Cave area, throwing up a new bridge over Lake Austin, slicing across what is now the extensively and expensively developed Steiner Ranch neighborhood and then displacing RM 620 from there to U.S. 183.
Environmentalists hated this western part, given its likely effect of encouraging development over the Barton Springs aquifer, and it fell out of the next and subsequent long-range plans. It isn’t completely dead, however; it’s kept lukewarm over the mental campfires of certain road enthusiasts across town.
That would be pretty bad for Steiner I think, We would be a cut through neighborhood for people trying to get around 360 and 2222 to get downtown or South Austin. Good thing it did not happen… although sometimes I wish they you just let one car (mine) cut over behind Lake Austin to get into Lake Pointe.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Sal Costello // Sep 4, 2007 at 3:19 pm
URGENT: The LAST public hearing on shifting freeways to tollways is on:
Monday, Sept. 10th, 6pm
Capitol Building
Sen. Kirk Watson and others are pushing a plan to shift Austin freeways to tollways!
Yet, smarter options do exist.
In the short term, the $700 million tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on toll roads as Sen. Watson plans, but instead, our tax dollars intended for freeways should be spent on cost efficient non-toll solutions such as: Variable speed limits, ramp metering, HOV lanes without tolls, reversible/barriered lanes for peak periods, parkways (like fix290.org), pass through financing, more arterial lane miles, better incident management and advance computerized control of traffic signals.
In the long term we must index the gas tax. The Texas Transportation Institute report states that more tolls are simply NOT needed - that indexing the gas tax and using the revenue to pay off bonds allows freeways to be built right now.
Once placed, the tolls will NEVER be removed from our public highways. In contrast, the Ledge has the opportunity to index the gas tax every two years.
Sal Costello
Founder of People for Efficient Transportation
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/
2 Jennifer // Sep 11, 2007 at 8:39 pm
1) This plan IS pretty much a dead dog. Crossing Lake Austin at the end of QP Rd would be awesome in some ways, but they’ll NEVER turn QP into a major thoroughfare like that with SR Elementary right on the roadside — it’s too close to the road for that to be done safely.
3 Jennifer // Sep 11, 2007 at 8:42 pm
2) I am HUGELY in favor of seeing a road put through from somewhere near Four Points diagonally through to Spicewood Springs near 183. I’m good with going off Rock Harbour, Concordia University Blvd, Riverplace Blvd off 2222, or McNeil Dr off 2222. It would offload a huge backlog of cars from overcongested 2222 and be an efficient alternative route to parts northeast of here for all of us. And I don’t need a straight route — they can safeguard the birds all they need to… Want to help me get this road put in?
4 Jennifer // Sep 11, 2007 at 8:44 pm
3) Toll roads are a good thing. The people who drive on them pay for them to be built and maintained, instead of all of society (including the poor, middle, and wealthy) paying for roads they don’t use. As long as core roads exist for getting places for free, let those who are willing to pay extra be the ones to help uncongest the free roads by paying to drive on the toll roads. And those “free” roads aren’t free either — governments don’t have any money that isn’t the taxpayers’ money, so we pay for it one way or another.
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