A city plan to demolish the Barton Springs Road Bridge, which connects Austinites to Zilker Park, is in the late stages of design, according to city officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bridge, which turned 100 years old on June 21, was recommended for replacement by the city council in December 2023. The decision was made after a city-contracted engineering report highlighted structural concerns with the bridge, and a review of the sidewalks, bike lanes and roads determined the bridge was \u201cfunctionally obsolete.\u201d The city council\u2019s favored design aims to create a new, expanded bridge, featuring four vehicle lanes along with widened bike and pedestrian lanes on both sides.<\/p>\n
The project is being funded using money from a 2020 transportation bond, along with a $32 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration selected for use on the bridge. Because of the federal grant, the project must be assessed under the National Environmental Policy Act process. Studies are currently being conducted to meet this requirement, with the process expected to conclude in late 2026 to early 2027.<\/p>\n
Local activists have objected to the bridge replacement, citing concerns about legality, practicality and the environment. The Save Our Springs Alliance, a local preservationist group, has led efforts to push for a rehabilitation of the current bridge. Some activists and officials have suggested the construction of a separate bridge for pedestrians, but so far city engineers have dismissed this option.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of the cost of the project, rehabilitating the existing bridge and then building a separate structure was not a cost-effective use of the funds that we have available to build this project,\u201d said Eric Bailey, deputy director of capital delivery services for the city of Austin, during an Historic Landmarks Commission meeting in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bill Bunch, executive director for Save Our Springs, argues that after seeing the conclusions of the engineers\u2019 study, he still thinks the current bridge is worth repairing. Bunch is concerned that the city council\u2019s preference for demolition will affect the fairness of the NEPA process, which is meant to weigh the selected options equally, including a path to rehabilitate the current bridge. Save Our Springs has been invited to collaborate with the Texas Department of Transportation and the engineers on the NEPA process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bunch has said he is prepared to take legal action if the city goes through with the demolition plan. The city was not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole point of the NEPA process is you study it; it\u2019s a good faith investigation of the alternatives,\u201d Bunch said. \u201cThat whole good faith process is grossly undermined when basically, they already decided the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A city plan to demolish the Barton Springs Road Bridge, which connects Austinites to Zilker Park, is in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-363638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}