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.
