Oklahoma City plans to re-route an interstate highway away from downtown:
In Oklahoma City, the interstate will be moved five blocks from downtown to an old railroad line. The new 10-lane highway, expected to carry 120,000 vehicles daily, will be placed in a trench so deep that city streets can run atop it, as if the highway weren't there.
The old highway will be converted into a tree-lined boulevard city officials hope will become Oklahoma City's marquee street.
By tearing down the Crosstown Expressway, the city hopes to spur development of 80 city blocks stretching from downtown to the Oklahoma River — an area that contains vacant lots, car repair shops and a few small homes.
"We've always been a good place to live, but we've never had a city we could show off," Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett says. "Moving the expressway makes it possible for a day to come when hundreds or thousands of people will live downtown."
The project will cost $557 million, mostly federal and state funds. The city will pay to spruce up the boulevard, build parks and put a pedestrian bridge over the new below-ground interstate.
If Oklahoma City can do this, why not Austin?
There's no question something needs to be done about I-35. I-35 narrows to a six-lane bottleneck at the Lady Bird Lake bridge. Six lanes that double as a major interstate corridor and Austin's principal commuter highway. Six, even eight, lanes for central Austin is a joke -- I-35 has six lanes as it cuts through the cow pastures north of Waco. Just one fender bender can tie up traffic for miles.
Let's tally the costs of the current configuration:
1. Congestion.
People underestimate the magnitude of the costs of I-35's congestion, I think. I-35's daily traffic count hits 200,000 in some places. Just one 10-minute delay for 15,000 drivers -- which would be "good" traffic flow on I-35 -- wastes 2,500 man-hours. I imagine that on a typical day, I-35's aggregated waste equals several years of work time.
2. Pollution.
It's not just greenhouse gases. You can smell I-35 downtown. All those semis parked on the upper deck, belching diesel fumes. When the weather's just right, the gas and diesel fumes blanket downtown. And let's not forget noise pollution.
3. Disruption of central Austin's street grid and neighborhoods.
I-35 cleaves Austin in two, segregating central and east Austin. It disrupts the street grid and depresses property values along mile after mile of frontage road.
4. Aesthetics.
It's butt-ugly. Especially the upper deck.
There is a solution. I'd bet it's feasible financially, even if it may be a pipe dream politically.
Replace I-35 through Austin with a congestion-priced parkway.
More specifically, turn it into a six-lane parkway from Round Rock to Slaughter Lane. Bury the parkway in trenches from Lady Bird Lake north to, say, 51st Street. Rebuild the urban grid through downtown and reconnect central and east Austin. Use the freed-up right of way for parks or development. In other words, repair the scar I-35 has gouged through central Austin.
Use variable congestion pricing to ensure good traffic flow on the parkway. Reduce the tolls on SH 130 to encourage through traffic to detour around Austin -- turn SH 130 into the interstate, in other words. (SH 130 was designed so that its capacity easily can be expanded.) This would allow the parkway to function solely as a commuter road. It would also get all of the diesel-belching semis out of Austin, along with the noise pollution.
This would be expensive, of course. But it would cost less than new construction mainly because there would be no need to purchase land for the right of way; land acquisition is often new construction's biggest budget item.
The money from the congestion charges could service several billion dollars in bonds. Between that, money kicked in by the state and feds, and money raised selling right of way, I imagine there would be enough not only to pay for the construction, but to pay for a light rail/commuter line up to Round Rock or Georgetown.
The winners from this plan: (1) Everyone who lives in central or east Austin; (2) commuters from both north and south who value their time more than the congestion toll; (3) through travelers who wouldn't have to choose between steep tolls on SH 130 and time wasted on I-35; (4) commuters from Pflugerville or Round Rock who would like to have other transit options.
The losers would be commuters who actually prefer having their time wasted in traffic to paying a toll. Commuter rail would give them another option, however. And express buses would become a more attractive option once they weren't bogged down in traffic.
If you think this is wild-eyed nonsense, it's not: TxDot floated something similar a few years ago. And bear in mind that traffic counts on I-35 increase year after year. The congestion eventually will become intolerable for everyone. Something will be done. But what, if not this? Build a third deck on top of the upper deck? Demolish the bridges over Lady Bird Lake and replace them with bridges twice as wide? Carve new rights of way out of the neighborhoods lining I-35?
I can't think of any other viable solution, much less one with as many collateral benefits. Okies understand it. Nashville, Cleveland, Syracuse and other cities are considering something similar. This could work in Austin, too, if we can just grow out of our allergy to toll roads.
