Mobility Committee airs financial, environmental concerns over I-35 expansion

City Council members expressed a variety of concerns about the Interstate 35 expansion through downtown Austin, including a desire that the state and Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization delay funding approvals on the $4.5 billion project until concerns over construction-related greenhouse gas emissions can be addressed.

Last week, Council’s Mobility Committee approved a recommendation that the whole Council ask the Texas Department of Transportation and CAMPO’s Transportation Policy Board to not go forward with I-35 funding so a pair of environmental policies – the CAMPO Regional Mobile Emission Reduction Plan and the Austin MSA Climate Plan – can make clear what climate considerations should be built in to the project plan.

Council Member Vanessa Fuentes asked the TxDOT presenters how the project could continue with a number of related environmental issues still being decided.

“If we are waiting for the data and information to come back from the study that the MPO is funding here locally … we’re gonna wait for, for that information to come back,” Fuentes said. “Does it make sense for us to move forward with this expansion project knowing that we don’t know yet all the mitigation strategies and solutions that we should be considering?”

Heather Ashley-Nguyen, TxDOT’s director of transportation planning and development, said the state would be able to adjust the project plan according to those environmental documents before major construction begins in 2026.

The committee’s vote followed a presentation from TxDOT on progress for the expansion and its “cap and stitch” components that will cost the city $730 million. The city will need to identify the funding source for that money by December 2024.

Fuentes said it may be a challenge for the city to find the money to pay for the downtown caps over the expressway that the community has said is needed to reunite the east and west portions of the city.

Ashley-Nguyen said the state informed city leaders of the $730 million commitment in 2021 when the caps became a centerpiece of the project, and caused the state to rework significant portions of the downtown section. With the state covering expenses such as construction to keep the Red Line light rail running, a variety of pedestrian bridges, new property for the Esperanza community homelessness service area, and $100 million in additional aesthetic needs, she said the state can’t spend more highway money on local enhancements.

“Our project has been a long time coming. … We’re implementing what the stakeholder working group wanted us to do in 2014,” she said. “We can take congressional grants. We can take private donations. And we can take bond money. That $4.5 billion is what we’ve allocated to the construction, and our administration has been very clear that a lot of places around Texas are gonna be wanting these local enhancements, but they really are local enhancements.”

Mobility Committee Chair Paige Ellis said the community has increasing concerns about how the city will handle the financial and logistical commitments of local road work, the forthcoming light rail system through downtown, and the I-35 expansion and improvements.

“Number one, there’s the question of ‘Can both of these projects be built at the same time, knowing there’s only so many folks in town that are experts at constructing these major infrastructure projects?’” she said. “And at the same time, we’ve got one project that’s really trying to get people out of their cars to be able to ride more transit. Another (question) people have said today, they’re fearing that it’s just gonna create more car traffic, invite more cars onto the roads, and the other environmental, air quality and water quality issues that come with that.”

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