Agency to work with residents, commuters to develop solutions

By Amy Denney

Three years ago the Texas Department of Transportation ditched an unpopular innovative intersection plan aimed at improving mobility on Loop 360.

Area residents were concerned about the feasibility of adding U-turns as part of the Michigan left-turn proposal and a lack of public input early on in the process. TxDOT officials decided to drop the project and instead take in residents' suggestions from community outreach meetings.

Since then the agency has been making short-term fixes such as synchronizing traffic signals on Loop 360 for longer green lights during peak hours. This summer TxDOT extended four left-turn lanes to give drivers more space to safely make turns from the highway to side streets in Northwest Austin.

"These [fixes] are lessons learned and things we took away from those discussions," said Terry McCoy, TxDOT deputy district engineer for Austin. "When we did meet with [residents], certainly we were listening. The last thing was fixing the problem at Loop 1. That's where all the trouble starts."

That fix will involve adding a third left-turn lane from northbound MoPac to northbound Loop 360 as well as adding a third lane to Loop 360 near MoPac. TxDOT plans to bid the $5 million project in May. In February, TxDOT will seek bids on a project to resurface the roadway from US 183 to Walsh Tarlton Lane.

Next the agency is planning a 12- to 18-month mobility study to identify problems and solutions, Public Involvement Lead Bruce Byron said. TxDOT will first meet with stakeholders—employers, residents and commuters who use Loop 360—throughout the corridor and ask them to identify issues they see. Byron said meetings will begin in early 2015 and will include businesses and homeowners associations.

"Last time we just didn't have enough time to do what we needed to do," he said. "There was a funding deadline, so we were rushed and didn't have the time to do what we're doing now."

TxDOT will then come up with solutions to those issues and present them to stakeholders. Byron said the agency will be able to walk through realistic solutions with stakeholders to explain the pros and cons.

"One of the other takeaways of the last effort was that it became apparent that we really needed to start from scratch from the very beginning with grass-roots efforts to talk to people and bring them along in the process of what the options are on a corridor like [Loop] 360," Byron said.

The agency has not yet said what type of improvements could be proposed because it wants to involve residents and commuters in the planning process to see what issues they see before proposing any solutions.

"It will require significant citizen support to get the funding for this, whatever the improvements may be," Byron said.

On. Oct. 9 the agency signed a contract with Atkins Engineering, which has an Austin office located off Courtyard Drive at Loop 360, for consulting work to analyze Loop 360 data. The total cost of the study is $1.27 million, and it will be funded by TxDOT's Transportation Planning and Programming Division and Austin District study funds.

Funding any improvements is still an issue because projects statewide are competing for limited dollars, McCoy said. However, once a plan for Loop 360 is formed and public support is garnered, he said the roadway will have a better chance of competing for funding when it becomes available.

"We have to know what the plan is, how much it costs and prioritize the plan with everything else that's going on in the region and the amount of funding that we have access to," McCoy said. "It's a balancing act."

Leslie Craven, president of the Courtyard Homeowners Association, said the neighborhood opposed the Michigan left-turn proposal three years ago. Many Courtyard residents attended the presentations, and some residents even met with TxDOT. Craven said the plan would not have worked well for the neighborhood, which only has access from Loop 360.

Craven said she is pleased TxDOT is contacting residents first in the new study because their opinions will be heard.

She said many Courtyard residents know what to expect with congestion, and Craven said she avoids using Loop 360 during peak hours. She said she also understands the challenges TxDOT faces with trying to improve mobility.

"Part of problem is we're more confined by canyons, and we have no ability to put in the extra lanes or overheads than along [RM] 620," she said. "They need to take the pass-through traffic off [Loop] 360 and put it somewhere else. [Loop] 360 is scenic and is not meant to be a freeway road."