Downtown Austin Connects

Downtown Austin is a special place that connects people and services. Downtown Austin Connects is a collaborative effort of the City of Austin, the Downtown Austin Alliance, the Texas Facilities Commission, the University of Texas and the Seton Healthcare Family.

[sonicjag]

I'd like to see more of a discussion and concrete plans for dramatically improved mass transit as well as new parking structures. Our downtown roads are already overburdened. With the insane number of condos built and being built along with the boutique-ification of Austin we are inviting tens of thousands of new residents and visitors into an existing bottleneck that will only get dramatically worse.

[migol]

You could never fix it entirely but giving people other options and promote less car usage is a safer bet. Here in San Francisco, there's tons of public transportation but it still struggles with traffic so its something that you're gonna have to deal with. All you can do is give people options and say that you don't have to use your car for just about anything. That's about all you can ever do. Building more highways will only bring more traffic.

[migol]

My problem with people from Austin is that they are against this "development' because somehow they think that its gonna turn more and more like Houston or Dallas. Yet these are the same people who promote building more highways to deal with this traffic issue... which that in fact makes it more like Houston and Dallas.

[adollarhooker]

I love the video shot starting at 3:06. Look at all that traffic piled up on I-35. Now that's something Austin needs to fix.

[Nicholas-f]

We still have no light rail like peer cities have.

[thecircularfile]

While I completely agree (also a student at UT, and I moved out of WC a few years ago), I don't see why the city would care. As far as they're concerned, if you can't afford the rent then you aren't making/spending enough money, and you need to "GTFO." The child of rich parents that moves into your apartment once you leave will surely spend more money on... well, everything... and that's just sweet tax revenue for the city.

[mistaspot]

Not sure that's fixable, to be honest. I say ignore it, focus on public transit.