The overview
Miles of I-35 will be widened and lowered through the Texas Department of Transportation's multibillion dollar Capital Express Central project. The expansion has faced local opposition during its development, leading some to support plans for a series of caps, or amenity decks built on top of the sunken roadway to reconnect areas the interstate has long separated.
City Council has been considering whether to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on decks while Austin faces financial constraints—and the possible loss of a federal grant for the largest proposed cap spanning Cesar Chavez-Fourth streets.
A TxDOT deadline means council members must at least decide how much to spend on roadway infrastructure for any future caps before June, and they remained split on a preferred approach ahead of that vote.
More than 26 acres of new public space are included in Austin's Our Future 35 plan to create interstate caps with park and plaza space, trails and buildings. Combined with decks at The University of Texas at Austin campus—a separate cap project from the city's to be funded by UT—much of I-35 between Lady Bird Lake and the Red Line rail at Airport Boulevard would be covered by new urban areas open to the community. The full Our Future 35 vision plan is available here.
City staff have recommended only spending $55 million on roadway elements for future decks covering Cesar Chavez-Fourth streets and 11th-12th streets this spring, with financing for full cap development to be worked out in the future.
One group of council members led by council member Ryan Alter supports an unconventional mix of funding sources that'd go toward the foundational roadway infrastructure for all proposed caps, plus the Cesar Chavez-Fourth and 11th-12th decks. Endorsed by council members Chito Vela, Zo Qadri, José Velásquez and Natasha Harper-Madison, who all represent areas adjacent to I-35 that would receive caps, the plan calls to use:
- $221 million tied to the Austin Convention Center expansion and Austin Convention Enterprise funds
- $100 million in revenue from the city's Special Motor Vehicle Rental Tax
- $41 million from a TxDOT State Infrastructure Bank loan
- $37 million in mobility bond funds meant to be used on the Redbud Trail Bridge replacement
- $24.5 million in right-of-way permit fee collections from street and sidewalk closures near new development
- $10 million in the city's future Street Impact Fee collections used for roadway infrastructure
"More than half of that area [between Cesar Chavez and the Red Line] can be green space, public space, area that people want to use, that brings people together," Alter said in an interview. "That is a generational opportunity that, in my opinion, should not be squandered and why our group is pushing forward so aggressively. You don't have opportunities like this but once in a lifetime. And I think we should really do everything we can to make it happen.”
Vela has said he wants to see Austin advance a major infrastructure project to avoid underinvestment as the city grows, and to make the downtown area more vibrant. He highlighted planned green space connections between downtown caps and the Waterloo Greenway as well as the potential for a Sixth Street cap to become "one of the best party venues in the world.” Harper-Madison said she favors a broader cap plan given the highway's symbolic status as a racial barrier in line with historic land-use practices that have cost Austin's Black communities at least hundreds of millions of dollars.
Despite the council support, city staff report that some funding proposals may not be possible due to factors like legal constraints and future revenue uncertainty.
“If we spend money for roadway elements that don’t come to fruition, it’s a waste of money that could be put to very much more significant use in a city that has a lot of needs that have gone unmet for a long time," Laine said.
In line with staff recommendation, they've called to fund only the roadway foundations for Cesar Chavez-Fourth streets and 11th-12th streets without reserving any money for amenity decks. The roadway elements would total $55 million, and officials suggested having voters approve the spending through a bond election.
Ellis said the larger nine-figure strategy would be a bad use of limited city dollars, especially with significant climate-related investments planned for next year's likely bond package.
“We need more parks, we need more libraries, we need more mobility projects, we need more affordable housing. But we have to be realistic that the decisions we make about the dollars that the city has to spend are going to affect our voters," she said. "I’m uncomfortable with spending dollars that the voters are telling us they don’t want us to spend and then saying, ‘Too bad, we’re going to do it anyway.’"
Duchen said he hopes to find a compromise between both sides given the project's disparate impacts on council districts that'd benefit most from the investment.
"I’ve appreciated the thorough consideration and discussion this council has had on the numerous issues related to this decision, including how we might best prioritize the needs of our city. From time to time, we will disagree on how to assess priorities and how best to pay for things," he said in a statement. "After looking at the choices we face, including how best to balance our comprehensive city needs and our financial resources, I've decided to support the staff recommendation.”
Also of note
Leaders with the downtown advocacy nonprofit Downtown Austin Alliance provided council with an economic analysis suggesting that I-35 caps bring significant financial and social benefits to the city center.
Findings from consultant HR&A Advisors suggest the caps would add several billion dollars in potential value to underdeveloped and developed land near the highway. Those totals would mean tens of millions of dollars in new city tax revenue every year.
“We must strengthen the tax base in the city. That's what this project is about, again, priming the pump, attracting additional investment to our core," Downtown Alliance CEO Davon Barbour said.
Some officials pushed back on the report, stating that financial benefits may be overblown and the outlook for local philanthropic support—a key piece of other cities' cap financing plans that Austin would likely need to build all caps—remains uncertain.
“In scale and scope, it’s many times more than the total committed by Dallas philanthropy. And Dallas philanthropy is much further ahead ... in terms of generosity than here in Austin," Siegel said.
