Downtown Austin Blog

downtown Austin's real estate and neighborhood blog

5 MAJOR ISSUES OF CONCERN ABOUT THE “BOARDWALK” PROJECT

| |

Part 2 of 2 Parts (click here to read Part 1 – The Overview of the project and its design)

1. It is not a “boardwalk”. Look closely. It is an elevated concrete human highway. 14-feet wide, 6-feet above the water, up to 70 feet out from shore. Built of concrete and steel. Out over the open waters of our beautiful and naturally pristine lake/river.

Existing LBL Trail in front of Hyatt Hotel

2. Cheaper alternatives exist. Either fully on land, closer to land, or a combination of both. With specifications that start with the minimum specs of the existing Trail: the Hyatt Regency segment, 5 to 6 feet wide, between the First Street and Congress Avenue bridges. This CAN be built across nearly the entire 1.2 mile stretch. For far less cost. However the necessary analysis and conceptual design work has never been done. The necessary conversations have never been had.

3. The “full project cost” could actually be over $20 million. Nearly $4.3 million has already been allocated toward consultants and design over the past two years out of existing city budgets of which $2.4 million has been spent or obligated to date. Plus the $16 million more now sought for construction. All for 1.2 miles of roadway. This road should be paved with gold.

Existing LBL Trail pedestrian crossing over Longhorn Dam

4. This project does not “complete” the trail gap. It will lead users east along the shoreline to the Longhorn Dam. That dam has a narrow and dangerous sidewalk crossing – where two strollers can barely pass each other over the Dam – alongside heavy traffic flow on Pleasant Valley Road. Clearly a “Pfluger-style” pedestrian bridge needs to be built parallel to the west side of the dam. A very expensive bridge. Then there is another “gap” on the North Shore around the former Holly Power Plant. Those segments? Not addressed.

5. The cleverly packaged and named “Boardwalk” is itself a hazardous solution for the need it is trying to fill and the improved safety it is attempting to yield. True, the existing sidewalk-based trail routing along Riverside Drive has a challenging crossing at IH-35 and some close proximity to road traffic. Interestingly, though, no ped-bike-vehicle accidents statistics have ever been produced. Folks know they must be very careful getting through there. But the 14-foot wide Boardwalk over-design intentionally promotes high-speed, two-abreast, bicycle traffic…in two directions…out over the open river waters…in direct conflict with pedestrians, strollers, wheelchairs, dog-walkers, and others who would also be on the same pathway. There is nowhere to jump out of the way of danger. There is no easy way to reach injured parties. There is no shade out in the open water.

Some folks have been asking how this project came to be?  Good question.  Please read on…

[Read more…] about 5 MAJOR ISSUES OF CONCERN ABOUT THE “BOARDWALK” PROJECT

Friday June 25th: I-35 Makeover Groundbreaking Ceremony

| |

PROJECT BACKGROUND & FACT SHEET

In 2004, a diverse group of citizens, businesses, and neighborhood leaders formed the I-35 Makeover Coalition to help transform this area into a public asset. They began working for a safe, clean and attractive gateway reconnecting downtown to East Austin. This area was a broad boulevard called Eastside Drive until postwar era, when IH-35 was built over it in a series of elevated and buried sections.

The Makeover Coalition provided the support necessary to improve this connection between downtown and the east side of Austin. The coalition obtained a grant of $250,000 from Keep Austin Beautiful (KAB) to help fund the landscape portion.

City Council approved two funding sources for this project. They first approved a resolution in March, 2005 explicitly supporting the use of parking revenue from the City-managed IH-35 parking lots for the IH-35 Makeover Project. In March of 2007, City Council passed a resolution setting aside $1.5 million to be provided by the future issuance of non-tax supported certificates of obligation.

These funding sources have allowed the City to move forward with the IH-35 Makeover Project, which will include reconstructing the parking lot areas, with curb and gutters to improve drainage in the area. The concrete will be cleaned, signs removed and replaced, and specialty lighting fixtures will enhance the safety, comfort, and aesthetics of the area.

The lighting project will be done through the City’s Art in Public Places Program and will be programmed LED lights in arches over the parking lots. A computer-generated illumination will create a show as well as create safe lighting.

The project is expected to start in June and take approximately seven months, at which time TXDot will begin the landscape improvements funded through the KAB grant.

More of DAB’s coverage of the I-35 Makeover

PARD vs. Pease Park

| |

I’m REALLY late to the discussion on this.  A neighbor was chatting about Pease Park losing disc golf. So I pulled up the Statesman article from June 3rd.  WOW!  I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

I don’t even play disc golf, but I was left speechless for a minute.  Disc golf is one of the reasons Pease Park is a destination.  Activity is what draws people into parks.  Think about Waterloo Park – little activity, little use, taken over by vagrancy.  As best as I could tell, PARD made an executive decision [with little to no public input] to remove the disc golf course.

I’m normally sympathetic to PARD’s challenges and the hard decisions they need to make to keep Austin’s parks clean and accessible for the citizens of Austin.  But, this decision truly baffles me.  It’s frustrating to see reasons cited like “compacted soil” as sufficient cause to eliminate one of the best nontraditional uses of public space, something that is core to the spirit [and brand] of Austin, IMO.

I love this quote from Matt Odam’s post...

“The city should consider shutting down the Arboretum and tearing up the parking lots so there is much less runoff into Shoal Creek…”

A Concrete Human Highway IN Our River? No. YES! And Why You Oughtta Care

| |

Part 1 of 2 Parts – The Overview

If you browsed the Austin American-Statesman or Austin Business Journal yesterday, no doubt you saw the headlines:

“$16 million boardwalk leads Austin bond proposal. City releases draft list of $84.8 million in transportation projects for possible November election.” (AAS)

“City unveils $85M bond package” (ABJ)

At first glance, it might sound like an appealing proposition, this Boardwalk project.  What’s not to like?

A sample "Boardwalk" you may envision.
Or maybe something like this.

The term “boardwalk” itself conjures up images of a pretty little wooden footbridge traversing burbling creeks and meandering through soggy sections of beautiful dense forest.  It’s a project of the Parks Department, and we all do love our parks, yes?

Finding a way to “extend” Downtown Austin’s wonderful riverfront hike-bike path through one of the sections where it currently follows a narrow sidewalk along a busy road, Riverside Drive — well, that sounds like a no-brainer, too, right?  At least to those of us who frequent the Town Lake Trail multiple times a week.

(Sidenote for those of you paying attention: City Council changed the name of the urban portion of the river from Town Lake to Lady Bird Lake after the former First Lady and Trail Founder passed away in 2007.  The name of “the simple walking path along the shore” that she envisioned back in 1971 is still called the Town Lake Trail in Parks Department materials.  Hard to tell what to properly call it.)

And $85 million, though it’s a big number for a still-sluggish economic recovery, nevertheless is a comparatively small chunk of change when you apply that spend against a truckload of “transportation projects”.  Concrete and asphalt don’t come cheap.

To find the serious problems in this equation I’m afraid there’s no substitute for having to dive into the details.  As with so many of life’s problems and issues, that’s where the devil is hiding.  Let’s take a look.

First off there’s the topline math.  $16 million for a single project — one that is a luxury add and carries no financial ROI with it — out of a total $85 million bonding capacity.  That’s almost one-fifth of the total ask!  For just one project.  According to the ABJ story, the Transportation Department and the Bond Review Task Force were charged with evaluating 500 projects that had to be divided into “A,” “B” and “C” categories.

The “A” list of “highest priority” projects added up to about 45 and still carried an estimated total cost between $2 billion and $3 billion, three to four times the total bonding capacity.  Somehow the Boardwalk, in its totality, made it to the further shortened list of  “A” projects left standing.  What about the other 480 or so projects?  What about all the other regions of the city and their transportation, sidewalk, pothole and trail needs?

Then there is the matter of the Boardwalk project itself.  While it hasn’t been an entirely secretive endeavor, its details have been less than well publicized or understood by the broad Austin citizenry, that’s for sure.  For the past three years, this project has been marching its determined way through the city conceptual and design process, rubber-stamped by two unanimous city councils every step of the way, and fueled by almost $4.3 million in dedicated allocations out of the past couple city budgets.  For the past year, that’s been a reported spend rate of about $40,000 per week for consultants, plans and documentation.

Next let’s check out this purported Boardwalk and find out what it’s really made of using the City’s own slides from its presentation decks.  The following pictures are quite self-explanatory.

Shock.

Gasp.

Horror.

What?

How can this be?

There are no boards in this boardwalk!

The entire battleship structure is made of concrete and steel!

And it’s out IN the friggin’ river!

And that, friends, is how we end up with something like THIS rather than the “simple walking path along the shore” that Lady Bird Johnson had sought.

Can’t help but wonder: what would she think of all this?

Though about a year out of date now, what information the city has provided on this project can be found here.  There is some bare bones stuff there about the proposed routing, construction materials and answers to about 20 FAQs. Check it out.

In Part 2 of this story I’ll tell you about:  The Top 5 Issues of Concern about the Boardwalk project.
Finally, in Part 3 we’ll contemplate some other realities about our crown jewel community asset, the Town Lake Trail, that may finally be time to come to grips with: bicycles vs. pedestrians.

Big River Cleanup This Sunday AM

| |

Hey Downtown pals — How about using a couple hours of your time this Sunday morning to help clean up the shores of Lady Bird Lake after the recent rains?

One option is to walk the edge of the waterline and pickup trash from the land. If you’d like to work it from the water itself, canoes and kayaks are also available (loaned by our local schools/clubs).

Trash bags and grabbers are provided at several staging areas along the river. The whole event is organized by Keep Austin Beautiful with help from the Sierra Club and many others.

Full details and registration can be found here.

It’s a great way to meet like-minded new folks and know that you are doing some true good for our water-loving lifestyle in Austin. There’s much more to the overall event that you can read about on the KAB link. See you there!