Quote:
Originally Posted by dphogan
I understand that a 10 lane freeway is not possible with the current landscape, but it is what is needed so whether we bury it, double deck, whatever the option, I'm just saying we need 5 lanes or more in each direction from Georgetown to Buda to handle what we have.
And yes, we can become less vehicle dependent, but we need the roads to accommodate what we have and what's coming. The car isn't going away or this town isn't getting any smaller so lets address all fronts.
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How do you know that adding a couple lanes to I35 in each direction will handle what we have? Let alone what we will have in 10-15 years when there are another 800,000-1,000,000 people in the area? How do you know they wouldn't fill up immediately, encouraging more people to live farther out?
Nevermind that we just built a superhighway (with the highest speed limit in the country) connecting Buda to Georgetown that's only an extra 10 miles out of the way and takes the same amt of travel time during rush hour...
I'd rather spend the boatload of $$$ it would cost to do this on more efficient modes of transportation that move more people. I'm okay with improving I-35 as much as we can (there's a lot of ways it could work better without adding lanes, like fewer exits). I think the idea to bury it downtown, add a lane with variable pricing (central Austin only), and sell the vacated land to pay for it is a great idea. But somehow doing two new (free?) lanes from GTown to Buda? It would be a waste of a LOT of $, in my opinion.
And by the way, I'm a city guy and I've been out to the Austin Rodeo twice and had a great time! However, it sure feels more appropriate to me to have the rodeo out there than in an city arena parking lot like San Antonio does it. Feels more authentic to have it outside the city.