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For the first time since 2019, South by Southwest is returning to Austin in person. The official program kicks off Friday, March 11 and go through Sunday, March 20, but downtown will be busy with activity this week as visitors begin arriving.
If you run a business or work downtown, consider teleworking options for you and your staff, or see if flex work hours could work for your business. Traffic is back to approximately 85-90% of pre-pandemic levels in Austin, and one of the best ways to avoid contributing to traffic is working from home or flexing your trips to avoid peak travel times, especially in the afternoon and evening.
If you are attending the festival, our interactive map can help you navigate your way through downtown. Map features include:
- Pedestrian zones marked along Sixth, Red River and Rainey streets where vehicles are not allowed. You will have to walk your scooters and bicycles through these zones.
- Major CapMetro stops. You can also use CapMetro’s Trip Planner to plan your public transportation ride.
- Dockless parking boxes, or areas where you are encouraged to park your scooter or dockless bicycle to reduce congestion and improve safety.
- MetroBike stations, pedicab staging areas and rideshare pick-up and drop-off zones.
Finally, if you are planning to have a drink while attending the festivals, please make a plan for a safe ride home. You can leave your vehicle parked at an on-street paid space, and if you show proof of your safe ride home, you will not have to pay a parking ticket. You can find more information on spring festivals at AustinTexas.Gov/SpringFestivalATX.
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Project Connect leaders lay out major decisions ahead in critical year
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Dean Keeton Street currently ends at The Drag, but under Project Connect designs it would extend one block further west to San Antonio Street.
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Will the new Blue Line light rail line pass underneath the intersection of Pleasant Valley Road and Riverside Drive or come up to street level to a station with a new rail and bus plaza?
Will The Drag, the strip of Guadalupe Street next to the University of Texas campus, be reserved exclusively for rail and bus transit, or will it include a traffic lane for buses and cars?
These are some of the critical decisions in front of the Austin Transit Partnership board of directors, Austin City Council and the CapMetro board of directors over the next nine months. All three entities met March 2 to lay out the choices ahead for 2022, a year staff called critical in delivering the multibillion-dollar remake of the Austin area’s public transportation system. You can find the presentation from the meeting here, and video of the meeting is available here.
Leaders from the three agencies in charge of Project Connect said 2022 is such a critical year for the transit overhaul because they are seeking consensus and alignment in December. That is when City Council, CapMetro board and the ATP board are scheduled to approve Project Connect designs at the 30% benchmark as well as the “Segment Phasing Plan” – or the schedule for future steps in the process.
That consensus among city leadership will help staff then go forward into 2023, when they are scheduled to seek approval for funding from the Federal Transit Administration.
There are already some elements of Project Connect that staff are aligned behind, including removing vehicle left-turns along light rail lines that fall between intersections with traffic signals and extending Dean Keeton Street one block further west to extend from The Drag to San Antonio Street.
Staff emphasized that all these important decisions will come after hearing extensively from the community. A dozen community workshops and conversations are scheduled between March and June, including:
- Rail Maintenance Facility location: March 2022
- Blue Line Bridge at Lady Bird Lake: April 2022
- Crestview Station Orange Line and Red Line: April 2022
- Riverside/Pleasant Valley Blue Line station design: May 2022
- The Drag street design and Orange Line integration: May 2022
- Vehicle and systems design: June 2022
You can find more information on upcoming community meetings here.
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Safety upgrades coming to Barton Springs Road and South First Street
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Austin Transportation is developing a project to improve safety and mobility at the intersection of Barton Springs Road and South First Street.
Proposed improvements at this intersection include:
- A new raised concrete median on the west side of Barton Springs Road for improved access management.
- Upgraded pedestrian infrastructure, including restriping of high-visibility crosswalks and new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-accessible curb ramps.
- Relocated on-street bicycle lanes to new protected bicycle lanes on both sides of Barton Springs Road at the southeast and northwest corners of the intersection with enhanced visibility treatments.
- New bicycle facilities on the north and south side approaches of South First Street to connect to new eastbound and westbound bicycle facilities.
- Driveway modifications to improve safety for drivers turning in and out of driveways.
- Signal infrastructure upgrades and signal timing upgrades to improve operations.
- An improved Capital Metro bus stop at the northwest corner for safer and improved access to transit.
This project is hosting a Virtual Open House and public comment period, open through Friday, March 25, 2022. If you live or work near the intersection of Barton Springs Road and South First Street, Austin Transportation urges you to share your thoughts on the proposed safety improvements.
Take the survey in English | Take the survey in Spanish
The Barton Springs Road and South First Street project is funded by the City of Austin Mobility Bond funds and Bikeway Programs. For more information or questions about the project, email MobilityBonds@AustinTexas.gov or call (512) 974-2300.
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Confederate Avenue to be renamed in honor of Maggie Mayes
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A street in the Clarksville neighborhood will change its name from Confederate Avenue to honor Maggie Mayes, a Black educator who lived in the neighborhood in the late 19th century.
The name change comes as part of an ongoing City of Austin process to remove or rename City-owned monuments and memorials to the Confederacy. Austin City Council approved the change Feb. 17, directing City Manager Spencer Cronk to come back with a recommendation on whether the renamed street type honoring Mayes will be a street, avenue or other category.
According to the Clarksville Community Development Corporation, the area was one of the first freedman’s towns established west of the Mississippi when Charles Clark, a former slave, purchased two acres of land in 1871, built his home and sold the rest to other freedmen.
Maggie Mayes, the wife of state legislator Elias Mayes of Bryan, founded the first school in Clarksville in the home the couple shared. The street that will be renamed for Mayes is a short, dead-end road that sits between two schools, Open Door Preschool to the west and Mathews Elementary School to the east.
Elias Mayes, who was born as a slave in Alabama, served in the Texas Legislature in 1879 and 1889. According to a 1996 article in the Austin American-Statesman, he was one of 51 Black legislators to serve between 1868 and 1900, when Texas instituted an all-white Democratic primary and a poll tax that disenfranchised Black voters. The Legislature had no Black members between 1898 and 1967.
In 2018, two streets that previously honored members of the Confederacy were renamed to Azie Morton Street and William Holland Avenue. Other streets the City of Austin Equity Office have identified for potential renaming are Dixie Drive and Plantation Road.
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Calendar Corner: March 8 – 14, 2022
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The Mobility Committee reviews land use as it concerns mobility, all transportation modes including roads, aviation, public transit, pedestrian programs, bicycle programs, ground transportation, taxicab regulation, core transit corridors and related matters.
The City of Austin, Capital Metro and the Austin Transit Partnership have created an advisory committee to advise all three partners on topics related to equity and Project Connect, including efforts to curb displacement along the Project Connect system.
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