Is Austin planning a light rail or new tollways to keep up with all those new buildings they are proppnig up?

I went to Austin last weekend for the first time in a year and noticed a lot of new construction downtown (the Austonian, 360, W Hotel, Amli 2, Four Seasons residences, etc.).





Everyone knows traffic is absolutely intolerable in Austin, so what is the city doing to plan for all those new people that are going to be living in the city? Dallas and Houston already have light rail. New toll roads are always on the table in those cities. Is Austin planning on adding light rail and/or toll roads to ease the upcoming clusterf*ck?|||Austin is fond of adding toll roads, but not light rail.|||I am an ex-pat from Austin now living in LA where light rail is becoming more popular to aid congestion. The cooked spaghetti highways of Austin don't even have a true outer belt, just the 360 on the west side running through the hills.

Report Abuse

|||Personally, I don't think toll roads are the answer to alleviating traffic generated by the condos/etc being built downtown.


But yes, there are (and have been since 2004) several toll projects in the works. The Texas 130 toll road (part of Phase I of the toll plan) is still in progress - it will eventually circumnavigate around the city so through-traffic will no longer have to drive through the center of downtown (thank god). Phase II of the toll plan (the part where they convert existing roads into toll roads) has been heavily modified from it's original plan (as it was highly controversial), but it is still in the works and is going to be voted on in early October.


Also in 2004 voters passed the Capital Metro All Systems Go plan, which includes light commuter rail, rapid transit buses, etc. I believe the rail is supposed to be operational in 2008, but it is very limited so far.


Austin traffic is relatively bad for a city its size and, yeah, it's only going to get worse, but at least there's a couple things in the works that should help some. I think it is one of those things where we will have to wait until it gets really bad before anything actually gets done about it (like viable public transport infrastructure).|||google the toll road names and you'll get the pdf versions of the rest of the project.





light rail was defeated the first time around, and I'm not sure of the details of what was eventually decided on, but I don't believe it is a very extensive project anymore compared to the orig. plan. I think there is going to be something in Cedar Park...it's a mess up there right now.