AUSTIN, TEXAS
Fix 290 Proposes
Oak Hill Parkway

By Thom White

OAK HILL, Tex.  December 7, 2006 -- Longtime Oak Hill residents and concerned citizens met on Thursday evening at the ACC Pinnacle Campus to watch civil engineer Bruce Melton's exposition on the organization Fix 290's plan for an eight-lane parkway that would ease increasing traffic projected for the Oak Hill area over the next decades. Mr. Melton explained why the Fix 290 plan is a much better solution than TXDOT's toll way / frontage road plan.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) has proposed a project to expand US-290 to a total of twelve lanes. TXDOT's current plan calls for a 50-foot high elevated toll road, and access roads to some local businesses. TXDOT's proposed transit corridor will span 400-500 feet across and consequently over 43 acres of historic oaks will be cleared, including many live oaks that have stood and grown in the area for more than 150 years. TXDOT's plan also calls for paving over a mile of Williamson Creek, creating a hundred-foot-wide concrete ditch beneath the privately-run toll road that the State of Texas and federal monies will be financing.

Oak Hill residents who started the Fix 290 organization know that TXDOT's current plan for expansion of US 290 at the "Y" intersection with Highway 71 will divide the town, and strip away many aspects of the natural setting that has defined the area for so long. Exponents of the Fix 290 plan say their eight-lane parkway alternative will alleviate the traffic congestion projected for the next twenty-five years, while still preserving the natural beauty and natural resources of Oak Hill. More than 20 local businesses and 2,000 people have already voiced their support for the Fix 290 solution.

In 2006, an average of 60,000 cars drive through the "Y" in Oak Hill each day; experts project that by 2030, about 160,000 cars will pass through the interchange between US-290 and Hwy. 71 every day. The Fix 290 Plan calls for eight lanes of grade-level parkway (a throughway with no stop lights and limited access) that Mr. Melton described as "similar to MoPac between 45th Street and Lake Austin Blvd." in Austin. Fix 290's eight-lane "Oak Hill Parkway" will have no stoplights and about four to five exits with ramps and overpasses for important cross streets.

While TXDOT's plan includes twelve lanes and is 400-500 feet across, Fix 290's eight-lane "Oak Hill Parkway" would be only 150 feet wide (double the road's current width), and so would preserve more land in Oak Hill, and leave space in the transit corridor for alternative transportation (public buses or trains, or bicycles). The Fix 290 plan also allows space for the redevelopment of the "Y" as a new "town center" for Oak Hill. This would provide for "nodal growth" (town development branching out from a center) rather than the "strip development" that is encouraged by TXDOT's frontage road plans.

There are no access road in the Fix 290 plan, but Mr. Melton described how, because TXDOT's present plan calls for the elevated highway cutting through Oak Hill to be a toll way, traffic on the new access roads will be even worse than it is today. While access roads along freeways absorb about 6% of the total traffic along the route, access roads along toll ways generally bear 34% of the total traffic. This means there will be heavy traffic on the access roads being proposed, and by 2030, studies show they may not be able to handle the projected number of vehicles.

Nina Butts, Fix 290's experienced pro-bono political lobbyist, described planners at TXDOT as a "formidable enemy" for Oak Hill residents who oppose the giant elevated toll road project. According to Ms. Butts, "TX DOT is willfully, deliberately intending to destroy the oaks that are the community's namesake and a symbol of the natural beauty of Central Texas." The live oaks to be cut down are between 150 and 300 years old. The oaks served as a meeting place for 19th century settlers because of the shade they provide against the oppressive Texas heat of summer. Ms. Butts, an English teacher at ACC, described the threatened Williamson Creek as, "a clear-running urban gem," and a "significant watershed."

The governing board of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Association (CAMPO) makes decisions regarding the implementation of TXDOT's proposed plans, and controls access to federal highway money allotted for Central Texas. Residents and community activists organized Fix 290 in May 2006, after TXDOT proposed the US-290 Tollway to CAMPO earlier in the year. In October, after hearing the petitions of Oak Hill residents, CAMPO directed TXDOT to do a study of the Fix 290 parkway alternative, and has not yet approved funding for TXDOT's plan to divide Oak Hill.

In January 2007, some new members will join the board of CAMPO, and the new chairman will be State Senator-elect Kirk Watson, mayor of Austin from 1997 to 2001.

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