About $120 million from the city’s 2016 Mobility Bond will go toward safety and mobility improvements on Burnet Road and North Lamar Boulevard in North Austin.
Voters approved the $720 million transportation bond in November 2016, and city staffers have been working with a consultant since then to craft a plan on how to divvy up $482 million of those bond funds earmarked for projects on nine corridors throughout Austin and chip away at the $1.4 billion Corridor Construction Program that Austin City Council approved April 26.
“We will be seeking additional funding and leveraging opportunities for all the projects in the program—the full $1.4 billion program—regardless of whether they are getting 2016 bond funding or not,” said Mike Trimble, director of the Corridor Program Office, at the April 10 council work session.
Approval of the program gives staff the green light to start preliminary engineering on the nine corridors. This process differs from work the city completed as part of the corridor studies in years prior.
“[The corridor study process] really was like a visioning process and really set the foundation for the overall vision for the next 20 years of what the corridor should become,” said Sara Behunek, communications manager for the city’s Corridor Program Office. “Preliminary engineering is more of a technical analysis.”
Preliminary engineering work has begun and will continue through the end of 2018. This work will include surveying land, mapping the right of way, testing soil and holding public meetings, Behunek said.
Investing in the future
The corridor plan details 34 packages of projects on the nine corridors. The bond will fund design and construction on what the city is calling corridorwide mobility improvements that are the spine of improvements and include rehabbing pavement, improving intersections, replacing traffic signals and adding bike lanes, sidewalks or pedestrian crossing signals, Behunek said.
New traffic signals will provide enhanced technology to better detect vehicles, Behunek said, and intersections will also have bicycle facilities.
“A lot of the things a bicyclist wants is the same thing that a driver wants in many cases,” she said. “A lot of them want improved intersections, and that’s where a lot of the delay is happening.”
Full design could take 12-36 months depending on the complexity of projects on each corridor, Behunek said, but the city anticipates doing most construction from 2021 to 2024.
The bond will also provide about $5 million for creating corridor mobility reports on five new roadways and preliminary engineering and design work on three new roads, including Rundberg Lane from Burnet Road to Metric Boulevard. About $33.5 million will go toward the design and possible construction of enhanced multimodal improvements, such as rebuilding roads. However, the city would need additional funds for full construction.
“Those build on top of the corridorwide [improvements],” Behunek said. “With those that’s when we kind of reach that full vision the community had in the corridor mobility plan.”
During the April 26 meeting council shifted some bond funding. On North Lamar Boulevard, District 4 Council Member Greg Casar’s proposal was approved to move design funding of reconstructing North Lamar between Parmer and Howard lanes in District 7 down between Thurmond Street and Rundberg Lane in his district.
“Really the Rundberg, Thurmond area is where you have tons of pedestrian traffic and needs for this [type of] multimodal improvement,” Casar said. “… It just moves the design money from one area to another.”
District 7 Council Member Leslie Pool said she does not see it as losing money.
“I see it as we are putting the money and the work and the design efforts where they should be appropriately at this time,” she said at the meeting.
Editor's note: This post was updated to correct and clarify information regarding new corridor mobility reports and future preliminary engineering work.
