Kind of interesting. Checkout Lamar and Collier. Can we speed up getting a light or pedestrian crossing ?
Yikes! Interesting that Lamar & Collier is quite a bit busier than Lamar & Manchaca. Maybe a lot of people turn off onto Oltorf before hitting Manchaca?
Also, I’m unclear why you think a pedestrian crossing is needed there; unlike the others nearby (e.g. the one near the Black Sheep), there’s not much activity in that spot in terms of people crossing the street. Furthermore, either it or a light would only worsen traffic more, plus we already have a light a quarter-mile away at Mary.
There are a ton of people that cross there all the time. You can take evergreen over to Mary and Thai Fresh / Bouldin area. People dart back and forth between the Post restaurants and the restaurants in the star bucks strip center across the way. It is a constant game of frogger adding to it people making left turns into the suicide lane from both collier and evergreen. It is truly a tragedy waiting to happen.
Currently the South Lamar corridor plan calls for no left turns (or crossings I think) at Mary / Hether and to divert that traffic to Collier / Evergreen with a left hand turn enabled light. They also have plans for a ped crossing at the Post. I was merely suggesting an interim solution to avert disaster.
You can take evergreen over to Mary and Thai Fresh / Bouldin area.
I used the Evergreen shortcut from Mary to get onto northbound Lamar the entire time I lived in Bouldin, but if I needed to turn left onto Lamar, I just did so at the light at Mary. I don’t think that’s a valid rationale for a light at Evergreen/Collier.
People dart back and forth between the Post restaurants and the restaurants in the star bucks strip center across the way.
I honestly can’t recall seeing this occur even a single time, and I live two blocks north of there. (There’s also exactly one restaurant in each locale - Barlata in the Post building and Chi’Lantro in the Starbucks strip - so I’m not seeing why there’d be much, if any, “restaurant-hopping” in the first place.)
It is a constant game of frogger adding to it people making left turns into the suicide lane from both collier and evergreen. It is truly a tragedy waiting to happen.
Respectfully, JP, hyperbole is one of Community Not Commodity’s most noxious tendencies. I’d recommend following the advice of our former First Lady Michelle Obama: “When they go low, we go high.”
Currently the South Lamar corridor plan calls for no left turns (or crossings I think) at Mary / Hether and to divert that traffic to Collier / Evergreen with a left hand turn enabled light.
Is this the same corridor plan that reduces vehicular traffic on S. Lamar to a single lane in each direction? Regardless, it seems like a protected left turn going both directions along Mary is the most logical solution here.
Finally, I’ll just note that I understand your main point, but the plain fact of the matter is that S. Lamar is – and will continue to be – the primary southbound arterial road out of downtown. S. 1st isn’t a feasible alternative, if only because it has no center turn lane (nor can one be added), and the main S. Congress strip is now jam-packed with both tourists and businesses (and on-street, back-in parking) to such an extent that it’s no longer a realistic alternative either. As such, I think we need to be judicious in terms of where we add either traffic lights or pedestrian crossings that will inevitably worsen our already-terrible congestion problems. And while I very much look forward to the day when South Lamar (and Austin generally) has real BRT service and can feasibly have two lanes dedicated solely to BRT and, ideally, shared-ride vanpool service, we’re unfortunately not yet at that point.
I see people run across the street daily there.
Barlata. It’s Italian. Chilantro. Start bucks. One to one bar. Nada moo. Snooze. Picnik. Super doughnuts. Haley’s cakes and cookies. Not to mention the retail establishments.
I think you should go sit on the patio at snooze sometime and watch the street before talking about something you clearly haven’t witnessed.
I can second the foot traffic, FWIW. It’s only going to increase too as the new development next to Barlata/It’s Italian finishes up.
JP Maxwell wrote:
Also for the moment Hether is closed at South Lamar due to construction.
