Last week, residents of the East Cesar Chavez Neighborhood Plan area held a workshop on improving pedestrian safety around Sanchez Elementary School featuring Trans Texas Alliance consultant, nationally recognized expert, and bicycle enthusiast Charlie Gandy. Residents learned practical and inexpensive ways to reduce cut-through traffic from the northbound I-35 frontage road in their neighborhood, as well as innovative traffic-calming devices (for example, painting large, artsy crosswalks and lettering on pavement to make drivers more aware they are in a high pedestrian area.) “The Sanchez area is a neighborhood under invasion from I-35 cut-through traffic and homeless people,” said Lori C-Renteria, who also represents her area on the TxDOT I-35 Re-Build project and is “very concerned” that a planned HOV lane will dump thousands of commuters into her neighborhood. TxDOT will hold a special meeting with East Cesar Chavez and Rainey St. neighbors at Sanchez Elementary on April 11 at 6pm to discuss the possibility of the northbound HOV lane exiting onto Holly Street. For more info, call ECC I-35 committee chair Dora Hernandez at 699-4435 or visit www.i35austin.com.
This article appears in March 15 • 2002.