Rethink35 Is Suing TxDOT Over I-35 Expansion With Broad Community Support

I-35, looking south from the 12th Street overpass (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Widespread opposition to the I-35 expansion has led to its logical conclusion: The Texas Department of Transportation is getting sued, and a whole lot of Austinites are on board.

Wednesday, at a press conference outside Stars Cafe (in the I-35 blast zone), organizers with Rethink35 announced their new lawsuit over the $4.5 billion expansion, following TxDOT's release of its final plans approving its own environmental impact statement (EIS) August 21. In a broad show of resistance to TxDOT, speakers included Council members and representatives from the Cherrywood Neighborhood Association, Austin Justice Coalition, the Parents Cli­mate Community, Save Our Springs Alli­ance, and Restart Lone Star Rail.

"This highway that stands right behind us was built to exclude Black and brown Austinites from opportunities, access, and resources – and here we are 60 years later, and the people with power want to expand the highway to a staggering 22 lanes," began Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison. She urged that the expansion "will not solve transportation or equity issues. It won't ease traffic, that is clear. More lanes means more cars. More cars means more traffic, and more traffic worsens climate change with increased carbon emissions."

CM Zo Qadri called the highway a "literal scar" and "one of the greatest mistakes in our city's history," stressing that the expansion "flies in the face of mobility, safety, climate and affordability goals that our community has embraced." He also noted that proposed caps and stitches would be one of the best ways to mitigate the expansion's social and environmental effects, but that TxDOT says it would require the city to pay for them. (Meanwhile, UT-Austin revealed its plans this week to pay $400 million for a cap from Dean Keeton to 15th Street, adding 17 acres to its campus.)

Mayor Pro Tem Paige Ellis' Chief of Staff Julia Montgomery pointed to the hypocrisy in Appendix V of TxDOT's EIS, which "lays out a shockingly straight line from highway expansion to climate change." TxDOT's own appendix names telework, rideshare, high-occupancy vehicle lanes, scooters, bicycles, and pedestrian facilities as top strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but then claims that the proposed project "has a potential to reduce transportation-related [greenhouse gas emissions] especially if there is a greater mode shift to transit."

Montgomery countered: "TxDOT, you know what you need to do. You put it in your report. This massive highway expansion project sandwich may have a thin shared-use transit crust, but it is not designed for mode shift or climate action. That has never been the goal."

Save Our Springs Alliance Executive Director Bill Bunch, who so far had been silent on the project, urged all 11 Council members to unite against it, as well as national leaders: "We have an administration in Washington that claims they're committed to addressing climate change. This is the project where they need to be held accountable in Texas." Austin Justice Coalition's João Paulo Connolly spoke to the fact that the displacement of Austinites of color into Austin suburbs, from which they now use the highway to commute, will only be exacerbated by the expansion: "What will we get? Nothing but the need for more highways. This is no solution for displacement."

The lack of public support for the project was underscored by housing and mobility advocate Felicity Maxwell, who flagged that at no point were elected officials – Council members, Congressmen Lloyd Doggett and Greg Casar, or even Pete Buttigieg of the Federal Highway Administration – allowed to weigh in on the expansion. The only entity that did was the regional Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization; three Austin City Council members represented on the CAMPO Board did not vote to increase funding for the project.

Finally, Rethink35's Adam Greenfield ended on a hopeful note, breaking the news of the lawsuit, with more details to follow later this year. "We have allies everywhere. Other groups across the country have started because of this movement here. The eyes of national leadership are upon us."

Rethink35 is hosting their monthly social at Progress Coffee from 10am to noon this Saturday, Sept. 2.