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ROMA presents recommendations for downtown transportation
Monday, October 19, 2009 by Kimberly Reeves
ROMA Design Group’s Jana McCann presented transportation recommendations at a town hall meeting on the downtown master plan recently, providing some idea of where urban rail stops might go as well as how streets could be reconfigured to accommodate rail, bicycles, and pedestrians.
The recommendations are the result of 18 months of work that started with a charette and continued with stakeholder input from city staff, Capital Metro, the Texas Department of Transportation, and CAMPO. Some aspects of the plan have been put in place in recent months, including the citywide bike plan update.
The concept of an urban rail line into downtown, first presented in July 2008, was back on the table at the town hall meeting. The line, which would connect with the commuter rail system and the potential Austin-San Antonio rail line, would have 15 proposed stops along its route: a line down North Lamar to downtown; a spine through the University of Texas, Capitol complex, and Central Business District area; spurs for the Long Center and Mueller; and a preferred route along East Riverside Drive out to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
Rail is only one component of a larger downtown transportation framework, McCann said. During the planning process, ROMA looked at each street downtown and determined what configuration worked best. Not every mode of transportation can be on every street, she noted.
Various streets are given a priority under the transportation master plan. Pedestrian-priority streets include South Congress up to the Capitol, the full length of
North-south bus-priority streets would be
Bicycle-priority streets would be
As for urban rail, that would connect upon South Congress and move across
McCann presented three different options for
A second configuration would shift the rail lines to the curb in order to provide two lanes in each direction and a continuous left-turn lane down the middle.
And in a third scenario, in which rail, bicycles, and cars would use the street, an 18-foot sidewalk with street trees would exist in either direction. There would be no parking. Alongside the sidewalk would be two 11-foot lanes, with one offering a shared option for cars and bikes. A 12-foot lane would be dedicated exclusively to rail in each direction, with an 18-foot wide platform in the middle.
The Red Line would come into town on
Trinity and Red River Streets, between 7th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, would also be two-way with side bike lanes, but the east side of the streets also would maintain parking.
One option for
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