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Community members, officials want their voices heard on an alternative to I-35 expansion plan

Members of the community met at Cherrywood Coffeehouse to discuss the proposed I-35 project that would expand it. (Abe Asher/Austonia)
Community opposition to the Texas Department of Transportation's plan to drastically expand Interstate-35 continued this week, with local elected and appointed officials speaking out against the project in droves.
The Capital Express Central project, which would widen I-35 in an eight-mile stretch of central Austin from the Manor Expressway to Ben White Boulevard, is designed to improve the highly-trafficked highway as the population of Central Texas continues to grow.
The current proposed plan, which is undergoing an environmental review, would add two lanes in each direction on I-35, significantly widening the highway, as well as adding additional flyovers and improving access for cyclists and pedestrians. TxDOT says that the changes will "creat[e] a more dependable and consistent route for the traveling public."
Some Austinites—particularly those who live close to the highway—are not pleased. Individuals can give their feedback on the project online through Sept. 24.
Community opposition
A bevy of community leaders, including city council members, rallied last week against the proposal. The city's Urban Transportation Commission gave it an official seal of disapproval Tuesday night, voting in favor of a resolution asking TxDOT to abandon the expansion project or asking the city to do its best to stop its implementation.
That frustration with the plan, which opponents argue will increase noise and air pollution while doing nothing to decrease traffic on the already heavily congested stretch of highway, has been echoed at community meetings.
Brandy Savarese of the Cherrywood Neighborhood Association helped host a meeting about the I-35 project at Cherrywood Coffeehouse. (Abe Asher/Austonia)
At Cherrywood Coffeehouse in East Austin on Wednesday night at an event sponsored by the Cherrywood Neighborhood Association steering committee, State Senator Sarah Eckhardt (D-Austin) said that the highway project needs cooperation between city, state and federal officials on how to renovate in a climate-friendly way that combats economic displacement.
State Rep. Sheryl Cole (D-Austin) agreed—arguing that Austin is not getting the input it should have in the process.
"What can we say? The state has done it to us again," she said. "TxDOT has told us what they won't do, but we can't listen to that and stop from making our voices heard. And I really feel like our voices have not been heard and TxDOT has not taken enough of an opportunity to come out."
TxDOT representatives were present at Cherrywood Coffeehouse, answering questions about possible plans. Some of those present supported TxDOT alternatives to the proposed build, while others voiced support for different measures like obtaining new funding for cap-and-stitch measures and other proposals like one from transportation organization Reconnect Austin.
TxDOT provided alternatives to its I-35 plan to those at Cherrywood Coffeehouse. (Abe Asher/Austonia)
The interstate makes up the Cherrywood neighborhood's western edge, and many of the older homes in the neighborhood predate its initial construction.
"If you look anywhere around the United States and the world, you can see a lot of alternatives (to highway expansion)," Cherrywood resident Lamar Vieau said. "It's not like we need to do this again to see that it doesn't work."
The city of Austin does not have any direct ability to stop the project, and may, depending on how TxDOT precedes, be forced to follow an example set earlier this year when Harris County sued in district court to halt the Department of Transportation beginning planned expansion of I-45 and redoing the project's environmental review. The project has since been paused by the Federal Highway Administration, citing civil rights concerns associated with the project.
A note on the expansion plan stated the project would hurt minority owned businesses. (Abe Asher/Austonia)
Historical, climate concerns
The current plan appears to be at odds with Austin's stated transportation and livability goals, along with having cultural issues, on a number of levels.
I-35, which was called East Avenue before it was incorporated into the interstate system, seperated the city between the white westside and Black and Hispanic eastside in the first half of the 20th century and has long been seen as a race and class dividing line. Two years ago, State Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin) told KVUE that the highway is a "scar on the city."
That aspect was not lost on Vieau. "I think it would be great if we could bury it and stitch it over, or at least look at some other ways of moving some of that traffic," he said.
The proposed expansion would also necessitate that the state claim some 150 properties as eminent domain alongside the current I-35, including a number of houses as well as longstanding businesses like the venerable Stars Cafe and the office of The Austin Chronicle.
With the city's stated goal to reduce single-occupancy vehicle mode share from its current level of 74% to 50% within the next two decades, a major highway expansion designed for cars is not expected to help accomplish that.
"We can't just… do what has always been done," Annette Stachowitz, a 61-year resident of Austin originally from Germany, said. "Lots of traffic, add some more lanes. There will be lots of traffic, add some more lanes. And there will be lots of traffic again, and, you know—somebody has to say, hey, let's find a different way."
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Popular
(Pexels)
If you are a committed, grunge-wearing resident of the Pacific Northwest, it is easy–almost automatic–to look at Texas as an extraordinarily dry, hot and culturally oppressive place that is better to avoid, especially in the summer. Our two granddaughters live with their parents in Portland.
Recently we decided to take the older girl, who is 15, to Dallas. Setting aside the summer heat, a Portlander can adjust to the vibes of Austin without effort. So let’s take Texas with all of its excesses straight up. Dallas, here we come.
Our 15-year-old granddaughter and her sister, 12, have spent summer weeks with us, usually separately so that we could better get to know each individually. In visits focused on Austin and Port Aransas, the girls seemed to be developing an affection for Texas.
Houston and Dallas are two great American cities, the 4th and 9th largest, each loaded with cultural treasures, each standing in glittering and starchy contrast to Austin’s more louche, T-shirts and shorts ways.
Three hours up I-35, Dallas loomed before us as a set of gray skyscrapers in a filmy haze, accessed only through a concrete mixmaster of freeways, ramps and exits. I drove with false confidence. Be calm, I said to myself, it will all end in 10 minutes under the hotel entrance canopy. And it did.
The pool at the Crescent Court Hotel in Dallas. (Crescent Court Hotel)
We stayed three nights at the Crescent Court Hotel ($622 a night for two queens), a high-end hotel in Uptown, patronized by women in white blazers, business people in suits, and tall, lean professional athletes, their shiny Escalades and Corvettes darting in and out, and other celebrities like Bill Barr, the former attorney general who shoe-horned his ample self into a Toyota.
Each morning as I walked to Whole Foods for a cappuccino, a fellow identified by a bellman as Billy the Oilman arrived in his Rolls Royce Phantom. Where does he park? “Wherever he wants to. He likes the Starbucks here.”
We garaged our more modest set of wheels for the visit. We were chauffeured for tips by Matt Cooney and Alfonza “The Rev” Scott in the hotel’s black Audi sedan. They drove us to museums, restaurants and past the enclaves of the rich and famous. In Highland Park, The Rev pointed out the homes of the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones and Troy Aikman along with the family compound of the Hunts, oil and gas tycoons.
The Dallas Museum of Art’s “Cartier and Islam” exhibit (until Sept. 18) attracted an older crowd; the nearby Perot Museum of Nature and Science was a powerful whirlpool of kids’ groups ricocheting from the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the oil fracking exhibit. Watch your shins.
A Geogia O'Keeffe oil painting called "Ranchos Church, New Mexico" at the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art. (Rich Oppel)
For us, the best museum was the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, a 50-minute, madcap drive away via a 75 mph toll lane along I-30. Don’t try it during rush hour. The Carter has an exquisite collection of Remington paintings and sculptures and an excellent array of 19th and 20th-century paintings as well. Pick one museum? The Amon Carter. Peaceful, beautiful, uncrowded, free admission and small enough to manage in two hours.
The Fort Worth Stockyards, a place of history (with a dab of schmaltz), fun and good shopping, filled one of our mornings. The 98 acres brand the city as Cowboy Town, with a rodeo and a twice-daily (11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.) cattle drive. We shopped for boots, drank coffee and watched the “herd” of 18 longhorns. So languid was their progress that if this were a real market drive the beef would have been very tough and leathery before it hit the steakhouse dinner plate.
The cattle drive at the Fort Worth Stockyards. (Rich Oppel)
But we could identify: the temperature was 97. “I saw a dog chasing a cat today,” said the emcee, deploying a very old joke. “It was so hot that both were walking.”
With limited time, we chose three very different restaurants:
- Nobu, in the Crescent Court Hotel; Jia, a modern Chinese restaurant in Highland Park; and Joe T. Garcia’s in Fort Worth. Nobu’s exotic Japanese menu set us back $480, with tip, for four (we had a guest), but it was worth it.
- Jia was an ordinary suburban strip mall restaurant, but with good food and a reasonable tab of $110 for four.
- Joe T.’s is an 85-year-old Fort Worth institution (think Matt’s El Rancho but larger), a fine Mexican restaurant where a meal with two drinks was $115.
Sushi at high-end restaurant Nobu. (Crescent Hotel)
It was all a splurge for a grandchild’s visit. Now we will get back to our ordinary road trips of Hampton Inns, where a room rate is closer to the Crescent Court’s overnight parking rate of $52. And to corner cafes in small towns.
Did Dallas change our 15-year-old’s view of Texas? “Yes. I think it’s a lot cooler than I did. The fashion, the food.” So, not only Austin is cool. Take Texas as a whole. It’s a big, complex, diverse and wonderful state.
(Tesla)
Giga Texas, the massive Tesla factory in southeast Travis County is getting even bigger.
The company filed with the city of Austin this week to expand its headquarters with a new 500,000-square-foot building. The permit application notes “GA 2 and 3 expansion,” which indicates the company will make two general assembly lines in the building.
More details about the plans for the building are unclear. The gigafactory has been focused on Model Y production since it opened in April, but the company is also aiming for Cybertruck production to kick off in mid-2023.
While there is room for expansion on the 3.3 square miles of land Tesla has, this move comes after CEO Elon Musk’s recent comments about the state of the economy and its impact on Tesla.
In a May interview with Tesla Owners Silicon Valley, Musk said the gigafactories in Berlin and Austin are “gigantic money furnaces” and said Giga Texas had manufactured only a small number of cars.
And in June, Musk sent a company wide email saying Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10%, then later tweeted salaried headcount should be fairly flat.
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