Proposal selected among several options for access route
On Sept. 4, 2011, Leslie and Ron Roberge grabbed what they could—including a family portrait and Beatles albums—before fleeing their Steiner Ranch home as a wildfire spread through the area. She said it took the family more than an hour to get out of the subdivision due to traffic.
"It was very frustrating to see smoke and ashes blowing while we were crawling along in traffic," Leslie Roberge said.
Only two roads provide access to Steiner Ranch—Steiner Ranch Boulevard and Quinlan Park Road—with both options leading to RR 620.
At the May 28 Steiner Ranch Neighborhood Association meeting Steven Manilla, county executive for the Travis County Transportation and Natural Resources Department, proposed an additional emergency route out of Steiner Ranch, which is located in the city of Austin's extraterritorial jurisdiction.
The third exit would involve the county purchasing right of way and private property to build a road connecting Flat Top Ranch Road to either Montview Drive or Fritz Hughes Park Road, Manilla said. Residents would the be able to take Low Water Crossing Road to RR 620 and head west at Mansfield Dam, he said.
The proposal, estimated to cost about $2.1 million, is favored among other options being considered because it uses mostly existing roadway and does not cross over preserve land, Manilla said.
A more expensive option involves constructing a bridge across Lake Austin to connect Quinlan Park Road with Murfin Road in Lakeway, he said. The department priced out two alternatives for this option, including a pedestrian bridge at $9.5 million and a vehicle-bearing bridge at $10.5 million he said.
The cheaper option—a pedestrian bridge—does not provide a place for evacuees to park their cars once they arrive at the bridge and limits what they can take with them, Manilla said. With this option, the county would buy more property and build over a wider stretch of lake, he said.
Five variations on another alternative involve building a road southeast from Steiner Ranch through preserve land to connect with River Place or the Cuernevaca area across Lake Austin, Manilla said. These scenarios—priced from $4.3 million to $9.4 million—pose environmental concerns, he said.
Lake Travis Fire Rescue Chief Robert Abbott said he is confident a solution or improvement to the current Steiner Ranch egress issue is possible.
"To service the area efficiently I feel the proposed options should accommodate the volume needed, not just today, but obviously in the future," he said.
The main cost for any of the proposals involves real estate purchases, Manilla said.
"It is feasible to build an additional accessway out of Steiner Ranch," Manilla said. "A bond referendum is necessary."
Manilla said that expensive projects generally do not compete well in a bond referendum.
In 2011, 28 projects were on the bond referendum with only two road projects priced at more than $10 million, he said.
"It's a project we will put into our 2017 bond referendum and let the voters decide," Manilla said. "It would be very important for folks in Steiner Ranch to make their case for funding this project."
He said that safety projects have a greater likelihood of passage compared with other projects. If financing is approved in 2017, the new route could be completed by 2019, he said.
The road would remain barricaded and only used in an emergency, Manilla said.
Community Wildfire Protection Plan on its way
Willdfire risk in Steiner Ranch is determined by weather and topography, said Austin Fire Department's Jim Linardos, who leads its Wildfire Mitigation Division.
He said a community protection plan will be announced this summer to guide local officials on managing wildfires. He is unable to predict when and if the area will be struck again after the 2011 wildfires, he said.
"Historically [Steiner Ranch] has had a significant fire," Linardos said. "Those facts speak for themselves."
