I was told back in the 70's/80's Austin was a really perfect size and culture. So everyone running for Council and Mayor ran on a "no roads" platform because they felt if they didn't build any major roads and rejected State/Federal money, Austin could not grow.
Then of course Austin grew without the major roads and now there is really no alternative, no space even.
I hate I35. I cannot get to Georgetown without coming to a complete stop at some point. No matter time of day or day.
Well that would have worked if we weren't the capitol. Being the seat of power though, how do you keep people out? Stupid hippies.
You're right, how do you keep the capitol small? That doesn't make any sense.
Technically Austin has been kept fairly small. Downtown Austin is so much smaller than say Dallas or Houston. Thanks in part to the miserable traffic and lack of expansion.
I work nights so I rarely end up in traffic. When I do have to hit downtown or head up north, I take Mopac or cut through on many of the larger city street like Lamar. My wife works at UT and we hit Manchaca to Lamar and can get her to work in about 35min in the morning hours. Afternoon that same route is roughly 50min to an hour.
If you like the quaintness of downtown Austin, thank the hippies. If you hate the traffic, thank the hippies. As much as I hate hippies, they are part of what makes Austin....Austin.
But that's what traffic jams are, drivers that do not obey the law. If everyone drove the same speed and left room in between each other it would go so much smother. But no, they can't let you get infront of them because they'd be 2 seconds later.
Technically Austin has been kept fairly small. Downtown Austin is so much smaller than say Dallas or Houston. Thanks in part to the miserable traffic and lack of expansion.
I work nights so I rarely end up in traffic. When I do have to hit downtown or head up north, I take Mopac or cut through on many of the larger city street like Lamar. My wife works at UT and we hit Manchaca to Lamar and can get her to work in about 35min in the morning hours. Afternoon that same route is roughly 50min to an hour.
If you like the quaintness of downtown Austin, thank the hippies. If you hate the traffic, thank the hippies. As much as I hate hippies, they are part of what makes Austin....Austin.
Agreed. I like the don't mess with me vibe in Austin.
As for the traffic, we are much smaller than the larger metro areas around us, but they don't have half the issues in way of traffic we have. I've driven Houston and SA in rush hour, and was not banging my head against the steering wheel.
I've been here since '84. Out of one side of their mouths, the city refused to build roads. Out of the other side, they actively recruited high tech businesses. Motorola, IBM, 3M, Tracor, Sematec, Dell, Intel, the list goes on and on as did the lines in traffic.
I use the toll road in my company vehicle, as the tolls are covered. Once the toll road authority jacked up the tolls, I quit using them in my personal vehicle.
I'm pretty sure the monorail crashes at the end of that episode.
Oh, and toll roads suck! Many of them are owned by foreign companies, which is so absurd and scary.
They are a scam and a dangerous one at that.
When they came in they were supposed to bring jobs. In less than a year they cut down on the amount of employees they had. After that they took out the majority of the attendants, and automated the system, so now you have no choice but to pay through the mail. They really are terrible.
Austin's idea of toll roads is only a tad worse of an idea then their public transit systems... What they really need is some sort of city-wide upper deck which starts south of Ben White, goes past Parmer, and has no exits accept emergency use only... That would fix a TON of I35 problems. Call it I35 Express.. It wouldn't even need to be more than 2 lanes per side. With no on/off ramps to deal with, traffic would flow nicely.
The problem is they built the town intentionally to keep traffic out which is the DUMBEST thing I've ever heard of... Obviously it didn't work and now many years later, we're paying the price. A 15 minute commute quickly turns into hour+.
I won't even get into how bad the drivers are here... OMG... I know it's bad in many large cities but... I've been in New York, Chicago, and the list goes on. Honestly my worst drivers ever, as a whole considering attitude, courtesy and agressiveness, Austin is the worst.
Safe-clear distance is not a term taught in driving school around here. If the car fits, they think they can just pull right on in... And I think most cars here come with disabled blinkers too... What's even worse, I can't count the times they've just come on over when there WASN'T room... I've let 5 vehicles hit me to date (side-swipe my armor-plated wrangler.... hehe...). Always their fault... Most of the time couldn't be avoided (once I probably could have gone to the emergency lane, if I had seen them coming...) They don't care. They think they're better than everyone else and you'll move to save your precious car... Armor plated... Bite me... One !@#$% even screamed at me... 'Why didn't you get out of my way... I was coming over!' over and over... The officers took her off to jail at the scene. I won't even get into the stupid rubber-necking to watch some guy change a tire or heaven forbid bad weather...
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