Defending a 290 Toll

The Texas Transportation Commission's engineer over the US 290 West project through Oak Hill defended the future toll project at a TxDOT open house last week as the best way to deal with long-term projected growth – both in Oak Hill and through the Central Texas region. Supporters of an alternative to the project – a six-lane parkway through the area – took their plan to the open house. Moving from a toll project to a parkway, however, would require a revision to the CAMPO 2030 plan, which can only come from CAMPO's Transportation Policy Board.

Don Nyland, the south area engineer for The Transportation Commission's Austin region, questioned the parkway on three counts. First, the road must serve a region far larger than Oak Hill, one that accommodates the growth of communities out to Dripping Springs and beyond to Johnson City. Second, the whole purpose of the elevated tollway through Oak Hill is to separate the traffic that just needs to pass through – to and from Austin – from local neighborhood traffic the community wants to capture. "It's much easier to draw lines on a paper and say that it's going to work," said Nyland, recalling one conversation with the neighbors that included a discussion of elevating William Cannon over 290. "I asked, 'What are you going to do with the transmission line on the north side of the Creek?' They said, 'What transmission line?'"

Local community leaders have opposed the TxDOT plans as too intense and called on TxDOT to step back and consider community needs. "We're not trying to destroy the 'Y,'" Nyland said. "We're trying to take people off the road so that those who live in the area can get on the frontage road and get to the store and back without the traffic. The people who live in the area should not have to compete with those who are trying to get through the area on their way to somewhere else."

This is not just a roadway to accommodate Oak Hill, he said. This $90 million project accommodates both those who have moved out to the Hill Country – and work in Austin – and those who must use important Austin-based services, like trauma care. Nyland estimated that traffic on the roadway ranges from 60,000 to 80,000 vehicles a day, about a third of a major freeway but still more than most major arterials.

A third issue Nyland raised is that parkways have no frontage roads. The creation of a parkway through Oak Hill would require buying most of the businesses along the roadway and then shutting down those streets that would connect to the parkway. Parkways, like MoPac, do not have multiple exits and entrances. "They say that there would be no economic impact, but if we build a parkway we have to take out businesses," he said. "You look at something like the historic Pizza Gardens. How do you close off a road and close that business?"

TxDOT has made concessions to the community during its design process: moving an entrance to the Scenic Brook subdivision, extending the US 290 frontage road to Scenic Brook and Grenada Hills to allow for an additional turn lane, flattening the profile of the road at the bend, and addressing access issues on Candelaria. The work on the project, which the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority will eventually operate as a toll road, has not been done in isolation. "We've been working on this project for the past five years, going to neighborhood meetings, showing people what we intend to do and taking comments," Nyland said. "Not everyone has liked what we had to say, but we certainly haven't sat and done our design work in a box, without input from the community."