Austin in the Age of Traffic
New York. Mumbai. Shanghai. Austin. These cities all have one thing in common, and that is the increasing amount of traffic. During the past hundred years, urban living has increased dramatically, and has caused the amount of transportation to rise as well. This has become a huge problem, especially here in Austin, one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States.1
As a society, we have expanded to travel and commute through the use of vehicles, and it’s no surprise that we have built our cities around transportation for the past century. As Austin begins to expand with new jobs, the working population only seems to increase. With an open job market in Austin, people have no option but to commute to their jobs in the city. This causes a strain on Austin’s roads because commuters can come as far from Johnson City and Georgetown to their jobs in Austin. With so many workers coming into the city, there is only a way into Austin: Interstate 35.
Interstate-35, or the most hated highway in all of Texas, is a major highway that runs from Duluth, Minnesota to Laredo, Texas. I-35 is the main highway for Austin that it is backed up with traffic daily. It is the main highway for most residents in Austin to get from the north portion to the south portion of the city. Interstate-35 also splits Austin right in half, and because of it, it has divided the city into different social and economic sectors. It has become integral on how the city was planned. The Texan portion of Interstate 35 began construction in the early 1960’s with the Interstate Act of 1956 that then President Eisenhower instituted. His plan was to connect all major cities to each other to improve trading and traveling in the nation. This new act to improve transportation across the nation was coming straight after World War II and the new automobile boom that followed right afterwards. It was a part of the New American dream; a car, house, and a job. Highways were woven into that piece of the American dream. It would be beneficial for highways to pass through cities because it would increase their overall value. Austin would then benefit from this new highway at the time because it was in the heart of Texas, and be connected it to its other sister cities, Dallas and San Antonio, and improve the overall quality of the city.
With such a high volume of cars, comes traffic and its congestion. According to a Inrix, a data company, the average American spends 42 hours a year in traffic. This means that an average American spends almost two days out of the year in traffic. Traffic is definitely a mood changer, as it immediately stops you from getting to your destination. While I was in one of my other classes, I managed to interview one of my classmates. Brieann Karim, a second-year student at The University of Texas at Austin, commutes twice a week from Riverside, (located in South Austin) to The University of Texas, commented on Austin traffic. “It is fairly heavy, but I think that the main cause of this traffic is the construction”. She also stated, “If traffic was lighter, she would use her car more”. She also commented that this construction is one of the “worst things to happen in Austin”. This main construction that continues in Austin begins with the new expansion of lanes in order to sustain the number of cars that come in and out of Austin daily. Karim does not think that this lane expansion will not help Austin.
Instead of new lanes opening, Mopac Expressway opened in Austin in the late 1980s. This highway became very busy, but relieved a lot of stress from Interstate 35. Mopac runs from the northern section of Toll State Highway 45 to the southern portion of State Highway 45. Mopac is on the west side of Austin, also providing north to south traffic in Austin. As soon as Mopac opened, many commuters used the highway to their advantage. As of 2000, there were at least 156,000 daily trips2. Austin seemed to be flourishing, but it only lasted a while. In short ten years, Austin already began making preparations to renovate Mopac. The Mopac Improvement Project started with the complaint of noise from the surrounding neighborhoods of the Mopac Expressway. Residents were annoyed with the noise that Mopac created, and the city of Austin responded by building soundproof walls on the outer part of the highway. Following this complaint, Austin decided to keep expanding the Mopac Expressway. They built an express lane that would allow cars with a specific pass to make it to their destination faster. Even with this venture of another highway in Austin, there is still so much work to do about traffic.
As a student of The University of Texas at Austin, I have unlimited rides with the CapMetro bus system that Austin offers. There are over 100 bus routes that travel to other parts of Austin that become beneficial for the civilian population here in Austin. The bus system allows those who don’t have cars to get around the city without the hassle of traffic. But even the bus system has it flaws. There are specific routes that don’t receive the same amount of time. For example, routes that go around downtown run more frequent than routes that are farther away from the city. With different frequencies for different bus routes, it becomes unreliable. Personally, I take the 671 bus route when I commute to school. This route has two bus stops, and runs from North Riverside to UT. The bus comes to my bus stop every 20 minutes, and at night, every 40 minutes. This frequency is not effective in my opinion because I have time commitments. On top of transportation, there are peak times of traffic on Interstate 35 towards Riverside. Usually around 2 PM, the traffic becomes so congested that the traffic does not move at all. Austin has tried to improve the bus routes with new buses, but to no avail.
In order to solve the traffic problem in Austin is to invest into fast-moving trains. As Austin begins to expand its city limits, this can be a viable option for Austin to consider. Tokyo, Japan’s capital, is a perfect example of how a city uses a railway city to move people around the city. At a population of 9 million, traffic is not as bad as other cities. They used an underground system for commuters that live outside of the city. These commuters effectively make it to the outer parts of Tokyo with no problem. This type of transit was first introduced in the early 1960s in preparation for the 1964 Summer Olympics. Tokyo continued to improve this transit over time, eventually reducing the use of cars in the city. Residents do not see the worth of owning a car in Tokyo as it more expensive than just having a pass for the railway train3. Since Austin has many commuters, a railway system could benefit Austin in ways that help relief Interstate 35 and Mopac Expressway.
In conclusion, the traffic in Austin has not only reached a point of harming the city, but also harming its socioenvironmental status. An influx in population will lead to a higher traffic flow. In retrospect, if we are to accommodate the influx of people coming into the metropolitan area, there will be a need for more construction which will essentially lead to denser traffic in all areas.
References
INRIX. (n.d.). INRIX 2016 Traffic Scorecard — U.S. Retrieved from http://inrix.com/resources/inrix-2016-traffic-scorecard-us/
About the MoPac Improvement Project. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mopacexpress.com/about/project-history.php
Hewett, J. (2017, January 29). Traffic jams a thing of the past in Tokyo. Retrieved from https://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/how-the-worlds-biggest-city-avoids-congestion-20170128-gu0hxj
