Our city’s highway safety can’t wait any longer...
Last Saturday, an 18-wheeler hit the concrete base of a light pole on I-35, and the driver was pronounced dead at the scene. A week earlier, two people were killed on the I-35 overpass above 6th street when a sedan got sandwiched between two garbage trucks. As a result, I-35 is one of the state’s deadliest five - mile stretches of road. As Austinites, we need to come together to make our community’s roads less fatal. “The media should really use the word ‘crash’ or ‘collision’ rather than ‘accident,’” said Heyden Walker, Director of Planning at Black + Vernooy Architecture & Urban Design. Most of the headlines for last week’s crash read something like “I-35 accident involving 18-wheeler causes road closure.” Not only is the focus of that wording on the inconvenience of road closure rather than the fatality insensitive, but as Walker mentions, the word “accident” is misleading. “The way that a lot of roads and highways are designed is a huge factor in the reason that these crashes occur, and when we as a society call them ‘accidents,’ it makes it sound like we did everything we could to resist this ‘freak of nature.’” Walker acknowledged that while freak accidents do happen, crashes on I-35 and other highways can usually be directly traced to the fact that since about the mid 1940s, our country has prioritized speed over safety. Speed is the number one determinant of whether a person lives or dies in a crash, but it seems like human lives have become an acceptable price to pay for moving at high speed. But speed is not the only problem with our roads. Walker pointed out that the autobahn in Germany is a good example of an effective highway. “Despite its high speeds, the autobahn is single purpose and limited access, like highways should be. When you start adding frontage roads and a whole bunch of entrances and exits, you create all this extra chaos in the system and it becomes a lot more deadly.” She explained that highways were originally supposed to work like railroads - you get on in one city, go high speed for a stretch of time, and then get off in another city. “But because we’ve created such complicated highway systems, we have much higher injury and fatality rates than most other developed countries,” she said. I-35 alone accounts for about 25% of all traffic fatalities that occur each year in the city of Austin. “But,” Walker adds, “if we look at all facilities owned by TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation), which include not only I-35 but 183, 290, Mopac, and then all the major arterials - North Lamar, South Lamar, North Burnet Road… pretty much all the large roads in the city - if you take all of that, 72 to 75% of our fatalities happen on those roads.” She critiques the agency, pointing out that while TxDOT claims to prioritize safety, they have consistently handled that goal very poorly, particularly on I-35, which they have plans to expand despite the consistent fatalities happening on the existing lanes. “The primary reason they give for the expansion is to solve congestion, even though they know the years of data that proves that when you widen a highway it gets more congested, from delays or from worse, like crashes. These trained engineers know that, but expansion is what they’re being told to do by the legislature, so they go out and do it anyway.” The two most prominent grassroots campaigns fighting this highway expansion are Rethink 35 and Reconnect Austin. Rethink 35 is a movement to remove I-35 completely, replace it with a boulevard and reroute local traffic. Walker says that the theory supporting this movement is that, because most of the traffic on the central section of the highway is local, a boulevard would do a better job connecting the grid and distributing that traffic to go around it. Reconnect Austin, however, pushes to bury (rather than remove) the highway and repurpose the space above it as a boulevard. Walker thinks that while Rethink 35 is the ideal option, it is also less likely to be implemented. “If you look at it in terms of what would be best for the city of Austin, best for climate change, and actually acknowledge the fact that we know we can't solve congestion? Rethink 35 is the perfect solution. The problem is that the current climate of our state leadership does not give it a very good chance of happening.” She is hopeful that the city will move toward making those kinds of decisions in the future as the Highways to Boulevards movement gains traction all over the country. “People will start to realize that taking out a highway does not cause Armageddon, that people figure out other ways to get around,” she said. Walker also acknowledges that while there are places in the country where portions of highways are already being replaced with boulevards, those examples are not usually major interstates with high traffic volumes. “With I-35, you're talking about a major interstate coming up through the center of the country, connecting all things that are being imported and exported. It's just a harder thing to remove,” she said. So for those of us not on city council, maybe even full time students, how can we help? “The most critical piece, in my opinion, will come during the public engagement period in either December or January, when TxDOT releases their draft environmental impact statement.” She explains that this is a federal process where TxDOT is required to consider all options for the highway and explain why they chose the one they plan to move forward with. The three options for I-35 are as follows: One: do nothing to the highway, leave it as it is. Two: depress the highway’s main lanes but leave the frontage roads in place. And three: add a boulevard on the west side of I-35 and add about a 13 acre “cap” (a large deck plaza over the highway) between downtown and UT’s campus. Once TxDOT releases their draft statement, there will be an opportunity for us to comment on the record, becoming part of what the Federal Highway Administration reviews. “This is the part where all public involvement and feedback will be really, really critical,” Walker said. “Because once TxDOT takes all that feedback and is able to finalize their environmental impact statement, then they're going to file what they call a record of decision. And then immediately they're gonna hold a groundbreaking ceremony and put on their hardhats and start building as fast as they can.” Walker added that she has been protesting the fact that TxDOT plans to hold their public engagement period in December, pointing out that only allowing public feedback during the major holidays when everyone is home or on vacation, is not the most ethical decision. It is also important to support initiatives like ReThink 35 and Reconnect Austin by following them on social media, reposting their events and sharing their advocacy messages. There are also ways to directly provide input on the outcome of I-35 by filling out the contact form available on TxDOT’s website, emailing capexcentral@txdot.gov, or leaving a voicemail by calling (512) 651-2948. “People are going to need to provide a lot of feedback on TxDOT’s plans if we hope to get anything better than what we have now,” Walker said.