Loop 360 is commonly being used as a major throughway, residents say.[/caption]A conversation about mobility in Northwest Austin quickly became a discussion about how to solve traffic congestion on Loop 360.
At a June 17 event hosted by Conversation Corps—a program designed to gather ideas from community members and deliver those ideas to the city of Austin, Capital Metro and Austin ISD—a small group discussed the need for changes on Loop 360. Conversation facilitator Julie Range asked the group what residents could do to help solve traffic congestion on Loop 360.
David Dimston, a resident of Bunny Run neighborhood located west of Loop 360 and south of Lake Austin, said residents who live near the road have already taken steps to ease their effect on traffic.
“People are working from home. People are changing their traffic patterns,” he said.
Range said a major east to west throughway could solve congestion issues on the highways that run north to south by giving residents an alternative route. She also suggested elevating Loop 360 to get drivers through more efficiently.
Dimston said he is opposed to elevating Loop 360 or adding more lanes to the road because both would encourage more traffic and lower nearby property values. He suggested the city work with companies in the private sector to stagger workday hours to alleviate rush-hour traffic. Dimston is also a cyclist and said if the shoulders on Loop 360 were safer, possibly by adding rumble strips, more people would use bikes to commute.
Range noted the lack of public transportation in Northwest Austin. A resident of the Great Hills neighborhood said parking is sparse at MetroRail stations, and its hours of operation are limited.
Texas Department of Transportation is conducting an improvement study for Loop 360, which it cited as the 98th most congested road in Texas in 2014. The road experiences more than 155,000 annual hours of delay per mile, according to TxDOT.
Residents can participate in a survey to request improvements to the road at www.surveymonkey.com/r/loop360.
A report of survey responses May 18 showed about 60 percent of the 1,700 respondents use Loop 360 to run daily errands and about 50 percent use the road to get to and from work in the Loop 360 corridor.
About 30 percent of respondents said they use the road to travel to and from work outside the Loop 360 corridor, according to the report. To view the report visit https://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/aus/sl_360/survey-response.pdf.
A report from each Conversation Corps meeting is developed by nonprofit Leadership Austin, which is facilitating the program, and delivered to the Conversation Corps Steering Committee whose members are also key decision makers in the city of Austin, Capital Metro and Austin ISD.
For more information about the program visit www.atxtalks.org.
