Final Bike Boulevard Open House Wednesday

The final city-sponsored open house on the proposed Nueces Bicycle Boulevard will be held Wednesday, 6pm, at Pease Elementary. The highlight: the results of the traffic impact analysis. The other highlight: The new opposition group, Austinites for Downtown Mobility, will surely show up in force. Press release from the city follows:

Wednesday open house for Bicycle boulevard traffic impact study

Stakeholders for the proposed bicycle boulevard will get a chance to see results of the traffic consultant’s study at an Open House hosted by the City of Austin’s Bicycle Program on Wednesday evening.

Open House – Traffic Impact Analysis Report

6 p.m. Wednesday Feb. 24, 2010

Pease Elementary Gymnasium

1106 Rio Grande Street, Austin

The Public Works Department recently hired HDR Engineering to perform a traffic impact analysis for the proposed facility.

The Open House will give people an opportunity to study and explore the data discovered by the traffic consultant’s study. There will be informational posters placed around the gymnasium, with comment cards available at each display. Staff and consultants will also be on hand to answer questions about the technical concerns of the report.

This open house will create an interactive and personalized experience for interested stakeholders.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The next two paragraphs, within these brackets, was in the original press release sent out by the city. The city has since said that the information in these paragraphs is incorrect, and sent out a revised release that substituted the paragraph immediately following the brackets.

Preliminary information from the study indicates that the proposed bicycle boulevard project will have a minimal impact to existing and future downtown traffic conditions.

Forecasted 2012 and 2020 downtown traffic conditions indicate that without the construction of a bicycle boulevard to decease automobile use in this corridor, many intersections could cease to operate at an acceptable level of operation.]

Initial study findings show that forecasted traffic conditions in downtown for 2012 and 2020 indicate natural traffic growth, combined with traffic generated by new development and/or redevelopment will cause deterioration of traffic conditions.

The Public Works Bicycle Program Web site (http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/publicworks/bicycle-public-input.htm) will host the project’s Transportation Impact Analysis. Stakeholders who want to provide input but can’t attend the meeting will be able to submit feedback on the Web site after the Open House.