Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas
The traffic problem is not downtown, it's on the highways and a few major arteries. Traffic heading east to west isn't so bad. What is bad is going north to south and vice versa. Most of the traffic complaints aren't about east/west routes. It's north to south. Austin is very narrow east to west, but north to south the city is long. Stretched thin and stretched out between two major north/south arteries. I-35, and Mopac. No one ever says, "Oh god, the traffic on Ben White today was terrible." It's almost always I-35. If it is bad on those other arteries, it's because of construction road closures/lane closures or else accidents tying up lanes.
As for all these new residential towers in downtown, they won't add much traffic. Most of these people won't even own a car. The ones that will won't need them very often, they'll be walking instead. That's the whole benefit of living downtown is not needing a car to get around. Someone thinking there will be traffic problems downtown due to residential highrises, is thinking like a suburbanite. Most of those people will be walking, not driving.
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Agreed on all points. That's why I predicted a slow overall growth trend for offices downtown - more downtown residents means more offices can be supported with the same commuting capacity, but this is a very small effect compared to the 43,000 per day that would have ridden 2000's light rail proposal - or even the 2000 per day (max) that can ride the commuter rail line since many downtown residents will work elsewhere (reverse commute).
None of the stuff talked about downthread, however, will help the N/S commuting capacity. People way overestimate how much traffic congestion through downtown is due to people wanting to go E/W - it's very little (I actually have had to argue with people who seriously thought that the 29th/30th/32nd corridor was being used by motorists to get from I-35 to Mopac, if you can believe it).
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