Travis County Commissioners Court

May 2, 2006
Item 24

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Hour one - Elected Officials
Hour two - Public Testimony
Hour three - Public Testimony continued

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Hour one
Hour two
Hour three

Number 24 is to consider and take appropriate action on recommendations to address traffic issues on brodie lane. We indicate that we may take the item up in executive session under the that's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. And what impassing out -- what I am passing out is a one-page summary of thoughts that I had over the lunch hour, and hopefully these points will guide us through this afternoon. In my view, the rest of the meeting should proceed as follows: first we hear from Commissioner Daugherty on this item, then we hear from county staff. Joe and his people have put together a presentation. Then we hear from txdot representatives. Txdot representatives? All right. Then we hear from elected officials, if any. Then we hear from the Commissioners court. After txdot. Then elected officials and then judge powers is here. I saw him earlier. And representative patrick williams said he would come. Any other elected officials here already?

>> [inaudible - no mic].

>> thank you.

>> so we'll hear from all elected officials. Then we will hear from speakers who represent neighborhood associations, groups, organizations, etcetera. And we do have some of those, right? [ laughter ] then we will hear from persons, individuals who represent their own points of view, and I have here in quotes, new and different, meaning the court would be interested in hearing new and different comments and ideas at that point. Then we have a show of hands from those to indicate what your position is, for, against, neutral, etcetera. And then we have a what comes next item. Now, I should indicate now that we probably will not take action today. We have on the Commissioners court what we call a professional courtesy policy, and that is if any member of the court indicates unreadiness, then we don't take action the first time an agenda is set on the agenda. Also on very complicated matters that require a whole lot of thought, work, research, etcetera, we take more than a week also, and I think that this is an appropriate item for us to take at least some additional time. Anybody on the court thought we would take action today? Okay. So we will decide at the end of the meeting whether this item would be back on the court's agenda may ninth, may 16th or what? That sound all right?

>> sounds fine.

>> we do have the flexibility to alter this schedule as we proceed, but I think if we follow this, we will get as much done this afternoon as possible. So Commissioner Daugherty?

>> thank you, judge. I think it's real important for us to understand how this project has gotten to the court today. I’m going to let our executive manager of our transportation, natural resource department, lay out more specifics about this particular project, but I think it is important for everybody to figure out how we got here today because I can assure you that I’ve gotten your e-mails, I’ve gotten your phone calls, and I think that it's real important for y'all to know this, and that is, about eight months ago I had a couple of neighborhood people come to my office here and ask first, Commissioner, is it possible for the county to close brodie lane? Quite frajly, I didn't know the answer to that, so I called the county attorney's office and said is that something we can do? It is still ij the opinion of -- it is still the opinion of the county attorney that yes, in essence we can close the road. We are responsible for at least this part of brodie lane. So the answer to that question, which is -- the next question was, will you work with us to close brodie lane at 1626? And I can remember kind of pushing myself back, saying wow, that's going to be pretty controversial, but I am your elected official and I generally, you know, am in the position to try and help folks when they come to me with a specific request, and I said, but really we're asking for something that is going to be very controversial, at least controversial. I said, but here's what I’m willing to do. You all have come to me, you've asked me this. What you I would like to have is I would like to have a rather large majority, a larger than your typical majority of people that will tell me that, yes, you all do represent them and that is what you want to do. And here are the two things that I need for me to put it on the agenda and to bring it forward. Number one, I need to have 75% participation in a survey that will be distributed, and we had identified that there were six neighborhoods -- actually, I have found there to be one because I think that oak park is one of them that didn't participate in this. But if you will take slaughter and 1626 and down that route of brodie lane there are six neighborhoods, seven if you include oak park. I said what I need is I need 75% participation from those affected neighborhoods. And if you can get 75% of the people to participate -- and I did say, now, I don't want this to be some corny question that basically says, are you for world peace where everybody just says, yes. I mean, I need for you to lay it out. I need for it to be legitimate. And I said, and if you can get 75% participation in that, I also need 75% -- if you reach that 75% -- to say yes, we agree that we would like to close brodie. I said, if you get over those two bars, and quite frankly, y'all, being an elected official, I will tell you that I go to very few places where you have anywhere near those kind of numbers that people can bring to you. So they said fine. They went away. After about six months they called my office, the shady hollow homeowners association, for their yearly meeting. I think that was in about January. And they said, Commissioner, will you come to our annual meeting and we've got something that we want to present to you? So I went to the meeting. They had a compilation sheet of the six neighborhoods. I think it totaled to somewhere around 2500 homes if you don't include oak park. They had reached -- it had shown that they reached 75.78% participation, a little over 1900 people had participated, and of the 75.78% that had participated, 81.12% have said that, yes, they do want to close brodie lane. That is what got us here today, y'all. It is not my idea, but I do -- but I will tell you this, when a large group of a constituent group comes to me and says, we need your help, Commissioner, you are our elected official, will you bring this thing forward, I feel owe bliejed to do -- obliged to do what I said that I would do and that's how we got here today. Joe, if you wouldn't mind coming forth now and laying out all of the specifics with regards to educating the room here and everybody outside the room as to where we are at this stage.

>> good afternoon, members of the court, joe gieselman with the transportation and natural resources department. You have in your backup a copy of my memorandum to the court giving the staff recommendation on these issues. You also have a copy of the tally of the poll that was presented to the court from the shady hollow neighborhood. What I’d like to do is basically put that into the context, how did we get to the point where a neighborhood would come to us asking us to close an arterial in southwest Travis County? This is an arterial that Travis County extended, I might add over the objection of the neighborhood, in 1995, with bonds that were approved by the voters. We extended it in 1995 from frate barker road to fm 1656, and I’ll step off to the side here. This is a section of roadway, a, on your map, that was extended as a two-lane. It was a continuation of brodie lane from the north where we also had other capital improvements program going to widen the roadway, such as that segment that is now in Sunset Valley. That used to be a two-lane county roadway, we widened to a four-lane divided. Constituent was also doing sections of brodie lane with their bond election. We did another section further south from slaughter. But that was a major arterial in the then adopted transportation plan for the metropolitan area. And we are carrying out that plan by extending brodie lane. But it was extended in the context of that plan as well. We fully expected that other roadways in that transportation plan would be built. Unfortunately that did not happen in spite of quite frankly, Travis County's best efforts. Part of the plan was also to extend state highway 45 from loop 1 not only down to 1626, but also over to i-35. There was also a road called arterial 12 which was parallel to slaughter lane from loop 1 over to i-35. You had the widening of manchaca road all the way from inside the city down to fm 1626. You had the construction of frate barker road as an arterial from manchaca road over to and connecting with the future state highway 45, and then finally you had fm 1626 being upgraded as an arterial from the hays county lane over to i-35. Let me step you through a little bit of what happened in this period of time. First, the lacrosse boulevard was inside the city of Austin. The city of Austin basically took it out of their plan and approved several subdivisions that were in the route. So this is no longer a route that can be used for traffic. Travis County purchased the right-of-way for the widening of manchaca road all the way from the city limit line down to 1626, that right-of-way has been acquired. Txdot did widen the roadway within the unincorporated area down to about slaughter creek. We sought federal funding to design the extension of frate barker road from brodie lane over to state highway 45 south. We had a consultant selected for that. He was midway through the design of that. We were considering putting that in our 2001 bond election. The city of Austin at the same time was acquiring with bond money approved by the voters what they called proposition 2 water quality land. A purchase of a tract within a route of the future frate barker road. Deleted frate barker from the city's transportation plan and asked that the county stop the project on frate barker, which the Commissioners court did. So this connection now is no longer possible from brodie lane to 45. In 1997 the voters approved bond, county bond money to acquire the right-of-way for state highway 45 from loop 1 to 1626. In the following two years, Travis County did acquire all the right-of-way necessary for the state highway, and we also entered into an interlocal agreement with hays county to acquire at hays county's expense the right-of-way for 45 within hays county. So right now all the right-of-way for 45 has been purchased. It's in the title of the state of Texas. Unfortunately what did not happen is there has been no construction on 45 southwest since 1997. The widening of manchaca road has not taken place. Of course, we no longer have a project for frate barker road. The city further acquired additional proposition 2 land on either side of 45, so even connections from the shady hollow area out to 45 are no longer possible because of the -- because the land that has been set aside for water quality. The net results of all of those activities is what you now have is brodie lane truly being one of the few north-south routes available for what is now a growing demand for traffic, and not only southwest Travis County, but northern hays county. In this time period you have had at least 10 subdivisions approved by the local governments, both hays county, Travis County, city of Austin, that has created another 2,000 lots, residential lots, in this corridor of brodie lane. You further have the prospects of additional traffic coming, regional traffic coming down 1626. The state of Texas currently has a project that will connect 1626 over to i-35. Hays county has what they call a pass-through toll project that will widen 1626 within northern hays county to the Travis County line. Things actually could get worse. The traffic volumes on brodie lane have increased over 100%. We're now talking about 20,000 plus cars per day on brodie lane at slaughter creek, and slaughter creek is right here. So it's not even at the mouth of brodie lane up at slaughter. These are counts taken here at slaughter creek. And we've watched those increase from about 7,000 to now probably a little over 20,000 cars per day. By our estimate about 30% of that is now coming from northern hays county down 1626 going down brodie and typically going over slaughter lane to loop 1 to get into the central city. So what we're watching is slaughter lane becoming a defacto regional arterial because there's no other way to come in. Manchaca is available, but you also have manchaca as a two-lane roadway at this point right here, so you're really no better off going down manchaca than you would be going down brodie. It's not that brodie lane cannot carry 20,000 cars her day. It's obviously doing that. But it's also -- brodie lane was never designed to carry that type of traffic. And over time it's likely forget worse because of the lack of infrastructure in an area that's truly growing. What we have is a mismatch between the land use, the increased growth, and the capacity of the arterial roadway network to accommodate that growth. So what happens? I know up to this point most of the focus has been on the closure of brodie lane, just lop it off at 1626 with a jersey barrier or some similar device as prohibiting traffic, allowing local traffic on brodie lane, but basically cutting down on the regional traffic our through traffic coming through this area in this corridor right here. We tried to take a broader view in terms of looking at all sorts of different options that would be available to the court. Because we believe that the closure of brodie might be one temporary solution, but that's not going to solve the lack of capacity in the regional road network. That is the solution is getting more transportation system developed out there to accommodate the growth that's occurring. The flip side of that would be don't approve any more development. Something's got to give one way or the other. If this is not addressed over the next 10 years, we will have a problem even worse than what we have, and it won't be just brodie lane's problem, it will be manchaca, it will be 1626 as well. So it would really -- I think we ought to be focused on perhaps for the day what transpires on brodie lane itself. And I think one option would be to close it entirely. And you certainly have the authority to do that. Another option would be to restrict through traffic control devices turning movements that are currently occurring right now at 1626 and even do that temporarily. Instead of allowing all traffic at brodie lane, you might restrict left or northbound turning movements on 1626 between the hours of 7:00 to 9:00. That is probably where the peak hour in most of the through traffic is coming forward on a particular slice of the day. That could be done fairly simply with the approval of the state through a signage and an enforcement by the county sheriff. There's another -- another traffic control device you could look at to assist in restricting those movements and that would be some type of island within brodie lane that would restrict only the turning movements that are northbound on 1626, but otherwise allow southbound traffic both to turn east and west, and then westbound traffic on 1626 to go into brodie. So you're only taking a fraction of the trips going on brodie. That would also avoid the issue of emergency access at any time during the day. So there are several different options if the objective is merely to reduce traffic on brodie lane for a period of time. But I think the real solution to this is to construct state highway 21. I think that is the regional route where most of this traffic should be going. And I understand txdot will speak to that issue today. I’m proposing that if county financing of a two-lane roadway within the right-of-way of 45 would expedite things that we should offer that with some type of reimbursement to the county once the facility is set up and running as a toll road. I believe if it's a matter of money, perhaps the county has a role of stepping in and doing some type of bridge financing for the road construction. And again, I’m talking about a two-lane roadway that would serve the purpose of an alternate route for regional traffic and get some of that off of brodie lane.

>> do we think that a two-lane road would enable us to get around some of the environmental issues?

>> I think you will still have some of the environmental issues no matter what type of construction you have. Certainly whatever two lanes would be built would have to be in the context of what txdot would do anyway for the larger facility. I think that you will have to build storm water control measures even for a two lane roadway. So there is some mitigation that may have to be done even with a two-lane roadway. I don't think you avoid those at all by doing this. That's why the caveat, I don't know whether this would expedite the process of clearance, and of course this is primarily the reason 45 has not been done to this date is getting environmental clearance from the appropriate authorities. If we do take some action to restrict action on brodie lane or close brodie lane, understand you will have an impact on 1626 and manchaca road. We estimate that these intersections right now are not operating at a very high level of service. During peak hour you're fairly well congested and by closing brodie you would aggravate it further. You would probably need to put in a dual left turn lanes on 1626 at manchaca road whereas the state would construct that with state funds, would probably ask the county to widen it as necessary at 1626 and manchaca. There may be some additional need for right waive at freight a -- right-of-way at frate barker and man manchaca. And of course, widening this section of manchaca, it would be directly impacted if we close brodie by putting all the traffic that otherwise came down brodie from hays county over to manchaca road. We believe -- there are several things that could happen. The traffic that's generated in northern hays county at some point changes from leaving home. It may be that i-35 becomes a preferred route if brodie closes. Some may continue to come down 1626. If brodie is not available they'll go to manchaca and from manchaca they may go to frate barker, slaughter, so that -- I can't predict at this point what that traffic may do when we did our analysis, we assumed that all the traffic that was coming down 1626 would continue to do so and they would go over to manchaca road and thus the need for improvements both at the intersection and also along -- on this roadway. But I have to say that even if brodie lane remains open, I think the court and txdot absolutely needs to be looking at upgrading manchaca road from where it currently is a five-lane section down to manchaca road. I think there's just too much growth occurring in this entire area to think this will continue fooch longer. I think that needs to be in your thinking for the capacity. Five years from now we won't be talking about brodie, but manchaca because of the amount of traffic we're getting on manchaca road. So I guess what I want to say is kind of step back from the issue of closing brodie and look at the bigger picture and that is getting your land use and your transportation in sync with each other. And right now they are not. And the situation is getting worse and I’m afraid that the improvements that would help solve some of these problems are still years away. We know that txdot does not have any funding authorization for widening manchaca road. We understand they have funding authorization for the construction of state highway 45, but they need to go through the clearance, and it may be 2008 or 10 before they actually have something done there. And there's no funding authorization either at the county, Travis County, or txdot for upgrading 1626 from the Travis County line back through manchaca and over to i-35. So we're lacking some transportation funding. In some cases we have the funding, but it needs to be sped up. That's kind of the picture here in the context within what you need to look at, the request to close brodie.

>> any questions for joe? How much relief will the expansion of manchaca provide?

>> that will just basically accommodate all the additional traffic that's coming -- that would have gone, currently goes down brodie lane. You would need do a dual left turn lane and you would need to widen that two lane section to a four lane section.

>> an idea how much that might cost?

>> I do. I don't have it off the top of my head. I believe we put the estimates in the backup memo. The intersection itself, if I’m recalling correctly, is probably in the quarter of a million to half a-million-dollar range. The improvements to manchaca is probably in the range of eight million or more.

>> questions for joe? Thank you, mr. Gieselman. Don't wander. Txdot is next. We appreciate you coming by.

>> my name is don -- I guess it's on. My name is don nyland. I’m the engineer for the south Travis County section for the Austin district for the Texas department of transportation. And basically here to answer any questions that the commission may have regarding our projects in the area as far as 45, we're working right now as we speak to the design of state highway 45. We were in litigation on 45, what we call 45 southeast, which goes from ih-35 over to 183 to tie into state highway 130, so with the lessons that we're learning on that we backed up and are reevaluating our environmental document for the 45, what we call southwest, which is this project that goes from mopac over to 1626. We're in the process of that. We're looking at 12 to 14 months to get final approval on that. That way we had a separate project in that section that's not tied to the original documents that were done from u.s. 290 all the way around to i-35 and we're trying to split this out as one project so that it can't be tied to the bigger picture. And like I say, that's going to take us 12 to 14 more months to get complete. We should be through with the plans for the project itself by the end of the summer. And that way that will allow us -- all the right-of-way has been acquired, that will allow us as the environmental documents are complete, if they get complete in 10 months, then we'll be ready to go to construction. Construction dollars have already been allocated from the commission to build the project, so we'll be ready to go. As far as 1626, we're working with hays county at the current time to develop an agreement to upgrade 1626 from 2770 up in hays county all the way down to state highway 45 and just a little bit north of that. It will be done in two phases. We'll do a five-lane section from basically bliss, which is in Travis County, up to fm 967, which goes into the city of buda. We're in the process right now also of doing the preliminary design, some bridge layouts and the advanced public hearings that we need for the environmental documents on that. That's currently underway. Because we have to purchase right-of-way, we'll work the right-of-way acquisition with hays county. We're looking at probably four to five years out on that. That may go faster depending on how the right-of-way process goes.

>> I have a question for you: can you tell me what the acquisition of proposition 2, the acquisition of that land to protect water quality through the city of Austin, can you tell me with this particular design where you're going through your environmental assessment and stuff like that, will any of this information be relayed to the city of Austin who have purchased significant property to protect the water quality in this particular general area? Would that be any correspondence at all that goes to the city of Austin?

>> yes, sir. Currently we're having ongoing meetings as we progress. We've hired a geologist and a hydro geologist from Texas a&m to assist us with the environmental documents so that -- flint ridge cave sits directly underneath the state highway 45 southwest. So we're trying to in our process to make sure that we do what we can to provide for clean water in that area. We also have ongoing discussions with u.s. Fish and wildlife and have satisfied them with the work that we've done so far. When we get through with our environmental document and it gets written up and we have a firm document that we can provide to the public we'll give a copy of that to the city of Austin. But ongoing in our design we are having meetings with the city of Austin and barton springs, edward's aquifer conservation district to look at what innovative ideas that we can use to help provide clean water running off of the roadway and on to the -- basically into little bear creek.

>> I just wanted to know at what point of the process was that -- would they be included and I think you've answered that.

>> yes, sir, it's been ongoing.

>> I understand. Thank you.

>> anyway, we're looking -- as mr. Gieselman says, we're looking at probably '08 to have clearance, worst case. Hopefully we'll get through before that, but the design will be complete, construction dollars are -- have been allocated and so if we finish early with the -- with the environmental documents, then we'll be able to go to construction with the project itself.

>> how long will construction take?

>> we're looking at 18 months to two years because of the bear creek. We want to do limited clearing as we can in that area. Because of the environmentally sensitive area that we have, we've got to put our features in place first. We've got a bridge to build with limited disturbance in the creek itself, so we're looking at probably 18 months to two years for full construction. And that will be -- once we're complete it will be a six-lane facility.

>> we've got estimates on that yearly and we've submitted them to campo. Prioritywise we haven't got it in the list to finish out the remaining section of manchaca road. We're hoping with growth in the area and other projects that were higher priority being completed that we'll give manchaca as far as other roadways in that -- in my area on to campo's list for funding.

>> so if campo were to give it priority at the next meeting, what should would that put it on?

>> best case we could probably get the design done in a year to 18 months. We would be going to a full urban section, which is curb and gutters, storm sewer, all underground utilities. I think most of the utilities are out to the right-of-way now. We'd be okay there. So we're looking, like I say, 18 months for design. We don't have to acquire any right-of-way. Probably two years for construction, so you're looking at three and a half years. We're in '06. Probably 9, maybe 2010 to be complete.

>> so any idea of what we should tell residents? [ laughter ] residents who say that the congestion on brodie has gotten too much to bear and ask for immediate relief? What ray of hope can we give?

>> as a transportation person, I would hate to remove any facilities from the transportation plan that we have. Our problem in the whole Austin area, I think, is that we've continually whittled away at the transportation plan as a whole that we've had the 2030 or the 2020, what once the 2020 plan. We've continually whittled away at alternative routes for people to take other than just having two roads into Austin from the south, which is brodie lane and manchaca road. And we've got first street, but that's almost to the interstate now. So it will whittle away even more, it's going to overburden the system, manchaca road we've got a day care down there, jackie's dance studio and school, and a lot of other businesses that front on to manchaca road. That will impact that -- all the cars you take off of brodie is going to go over there. I feel for the people that live on brodie lane. I live on brodie lane. I’d like to see 9,000 cars get taken off from in front of my house too. It would make it easier to get out of my neighborhood, but is that the solution in the ongoing -- the long range? I hope not. But we're going to work as the department, we'll work with the county for whatever decision they make and we're going to work as fast as we can to get highway 45 constructed. That way it will relieve the majority of that traffic on brodie lane itself.

>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]

>> if that lawsuit weren't likely, what does it -- does it change much for the schedule of getting 45 southwest on a faster track than it is?

>> I think we've had lawsuits in san antonio, state highway 281, and I think loop 410, they've been sued down there on a project. We've had state highway 45 southwest, and it's over the issues the way that we did our environmental documents 10, 15 years ago, and so we're just in the process now of updating basically our environmental documents to some of the state standards that we have now. That process is there. We want to make sure that we take care of all our -- dot all of our I’s and cross all the t's, but we're also being aware that this is the -- over the recharge zone and there's caves in the area that feed the edward's aquifer. We're trying to do what we can to make sure we take care of the water coming off the roadway. Whether that shortens up the process or made it any longer, that's hard to say. We're just making sure that we're environmentally sound in our work that we do.

>> but that's real important. I really want to make sure that we understand this. Everybody that's in this courtroom today. If you all did not have to worry about a likely lawsuit coming about by environmental reasons, would it expedite the building of 45 southwest between loop 1 and 1626?

>> I’d hate to say that it would expedite it. It may have reduced the detail that we go into in some of our environmental work. A lot of this we're doing at the request -- the city of Austin has requested that we look and make sure we do a lot of stuff, so it's been in conjunction with working with the city, u.s. Fish and wildlife has requested that we make sure that we do some things. So to say yeah, the lawsuit has extended it an x number -- the threat of a number has extended it -- the threat of a lawsuit has extended it x number of months or years, that's hard to say. Just about -- my roadways in my section are all in the recharge zone, so I have that to worry about all the time. So that's why we try to make sure that we're taking care of our environmental stuff as we go. This is just an update of the original document that was durn several years -- that was done several years ago to current standards.

>> were you forced to go to that extent? Or was it just federal law that says that's kind of outdated, so therefore you all need to look at here's the new stuff that you've got to comply with?

>> well, because -- because 45 southwest is just a state project, this time we didn't do a federal eis. But the tceq and state standards have been modified over the years to increase how we look at certain things. And so that's something that we're working on. I don't think it was just the threat of a lawsuit that said we're going to do that. Just our own stewardship of our documents.

>> a couple of questions. How is the use of federal funds impacting the construction time line on 45 southwest?

>> this is in a state context. We don't have any.

>> can you tell me how much this being a state project has extended how long this is taking?

>> well, being a state project has an extend -- hasn't extended anything because if the county were to do it, they would have the same environmental issues that we have to face as far as being over the edward's aquifer and in the contributing zone, there are certain tceq requirements which supersede county work also that you would have to do. You still have the cave spiders and the blind salamanders, the endangered species that are in the area. Those would be the things that the county would have to take care of also like the state does. So farce is a being a state and -- so as far as being a state or a county or a city project, that really doesn't change that much. I think what the county is looking at that they could build two-lane facility and there's -- the water quality that you have to do totals what we call tss, the runoff from it, you wouldn't have quite as big of mitigation features to have to do that we're going to be providing in our project, but if you're looking at what the full scale would be, you would certainly want to make sure that you built something that it wasn't going to be sitting in the middle of your lanes that you were going to build in the future and that you would be able to accommodate those so. A lot of that work is the same time line.

>> in terms of the cave, the cave is actually a thing that has been studied to death. Jackie goodman was still on the city council when there was a specific study done when todd baxter was still a county Commissioner here. So that has been study and the county has experience as a leader on the bcp, we have been in litigation for these circumstances. So my question is this, does the department have a position about Travis County even if it's just the two lanes, takes on those two lanes and gets it done?

>> I think the department would be willing to work with the county from whichever way to go with as far as providing transportation in Travis County or hays county or the state of Texas itself. Whatever we can do to provide better transportation to the citizens, then we'll be willing to work with that. We're just not for sure -- we can't tell you that if you took it on as a project that you would reduce the amount of time it takes to get traffic going on the roadway by x number of dates.

>> part two of that, would the state be willing to send the state dollars that have been attached to this project over to Travis County to help get this thing constructed?

>> that would be something that would have to go through the money people. It's out of my authority to say, yeah, we would be able to do that. I think we're working -- we've worked with agreements with counties where we pay them or they pay us for work that we do. I’m sure that there's some recipro indication that can be done with agreements where we would pay them back, through that would be a legal issue that would have to be undertaken downtown.

>> any comments from the court? You think if you do two lanes properly, it would take about as long as building four on 45 southwest?

>> the two lanes, you might be able to shave off about six months. The basic part is going through and clearing everything. The bridge that sits in the middle over little bear creek, that's a big part. You would have to build the bridge out to the full width. It would be hard to build a two lane bridge and then come back and add four lanes to it later on. So that part -- that's the part that will take the longest because we're not really doing any excavation for the project, it's going to be mostly filling up on top of existing ground so we're not cutting down into and getting closer to the recharj features in -- recharge features in the cave. The building, you could possibly shave six months off the construction project with building just two lanes. Our thought was if we were going to go out there and disturb right-of-way and do work, it's better to go and get it all done now so that we don't have to go back in the future and disturb ground again, get it all done at one time with the construction equipment and all, get it revegetated and return traffic to it.

>> okay. Any other questions for don? Thank you very much.

>> if you need me to come back sometime in the future, let me know and I’ll be happy to come back and give a more detailed presentation on where we stand on 45.

>> okay. Thank you. Elected officials are next. Judge powers still here? Commissioner carter? Anybody else from the --

>> mr. Connally is here.

>> representative rose is here too.

>> representative rose, Commissioner connally. I think the hays county Commissioners cowrtd was trying to out number us here in Travis County. [ laughter ]

>> we don't have any open meetings violations, do we?

>> that's for you to count to three, not us. [ laughter ]

>> if you give us your full name, we'll be happy to get your comments.

>> my name is judge powers from hays county. And basically a lot of things have been covered, and I just want to emphasize the fact that I personally and am strongly opposed to closing brodie lane; however, I feel like the solution once again we've talked about is moving forward with southwest 45, 45 southwest. And anything we can do as Commissioners court to move a resolution jointly as with both counties to try and push that forward, I would be very much in support of. But the main thing is I want you to know today is that I personally am very much opposed to closing brodie lane.

>> judge, I had one question for you. We talked about this over lunch. I appreciate the fact that you all sent a proclamation, a resolution from your court. My question to you is this, have you also sent a resolution or a proclamation to the Texas transportation commission?

>> no, we haven't.

>> of the regional district of txdot? And even s.o.s. In terms of send some love their way as well in terms of encouraging the expedited process on southwest 45. The project that was voted with overwhelmingly by a 67% margin in 1997.

>> no, we have not sent that either to s.o.s. Or to txdot or to the highway commission, but I would support doing that. And not only would I support doing that, but I would support doing it jointly with Travis County. So we together both can send that resolution to them.

>> appreciate that. Thanks, judge.

>> mr. Powers, have you all as a court tried to come up with ways that you could bring us that would perhaps mitigate the numbers of folks -- if I lived in northern hays county, it's certainly the route that I would use and I’m sure everybody in this room? Traffic as I’ve often said is like water. It will find the point of least resistance. That's why you don't want to go to i-35, that's why you don't want to go to manchaca road. As I told you before, we're crying out, y'all. It's easy to do a resolution. Our people don't want it. Let me tell you, there's people, the recipients on the other side that we are also looking, and that's where we've got to work with you all. County government as you all know, we don't have all of the zoning regulations, we don't have the regulations that you have as cities, so whenever we start talking about that you just arbitrarily say, we're not going to okay that subdivision, all of us have rules and regulations put in place, and quite frankly, when developers come to you and they comply with its written rules, it's pretty difficult to say, do you know what, we're just not going do that. We do need to work on those things and I know a that a number of us are working with the legislature to come up and perhaps enhance 873 that would give us the ability to do that. But obviously what we have got do, y'all, is work together and say we understand we need this road, but you certainly are still the people that are coming to me and saying, Commissioner, I need you to help me just like your constituents are coming to you saying you need to help us. Have y'all talked about beyond the resolution about let's just send the resolution that we're not for it. Anything come up from y'all's side as to how we might be able to help Travis County with their folks?

>> you and I have talked about this personally in your office before. And I think you know -- my name is will connally, I’m a Commissioner in headache. Thank you, judge and Commissioners for this opportunity. We spoke in your office, Commissioner, about these very issues, and my personal feeling is this is not a Travis County issue or a hays county issue, this is a regional issue. And I’ve told you and will tell this court here today that I will do everything in my power to work with Travis County and the state to make the necessary improvements. I wasn't planning on speaking about any of this, but I feel a sense from listening to other Commissioners speak in this short time that we've been here today, and I think it's important for the general public to hear this. There's a frustration that has been going on for a long time in this region, building up between -- first of all, let me start off with hays county I consider very environmentally sensitive area. Our court is very sensitive to those issues, as is your court. Y'all have long records of that. There's moderation in everything that we do. I sense a frustration, just like we're getting frustrated in hays with these libelous abuse of the endangered species act from organizations like s.o.s. That are holding back the good work that we need to do as Travis County, as hays county, and with our state of Texas. That has been the largest hump that I’ve seen for us to get over. We're all considered environmentalists. We all live here, but there's a sense of moderation. Ms. Sonleitner touched on that. How many times has that particular cave been studied? How many times do you need to go back? How many millions in tax dollars have been spent fighting these types of lawsuits? How much soft costs has been acquired by Travis County, by hays county dealing with these types of issues? And I think the general public needs to understand that it's difficult. It's extremely difficult. And we're trying our best to provide proper transportation for one of the fastest growing areas in the united states of america, and we are handcuffed. And we are handcuffed almost in every direction we turn. So maybe if we can have anything positive come out of this, we can have hays county and Travis County making a commitment to work together on these important transportation issues, and at the same time the general public can understand that we're trying to move forward, but some of their frustrations needed to be directed in other places. These same folks that have handcuffed both of our governments and the state of Texas in the past and will continue to do so in the future on these important projects.

>> commission.

>> could you tell me what is some of the projected growth in northern hays county? I know you alluded that you're under a lot of pressure as growth puts a lot of pressure on all of us, I guess, in certain degrees into the county. Do you have any suggestions as far as how much growth you will have in this area whereby ending up having to use 1626 and of course, I think if I’m understanding you correctly, you you like to keep brodie lane open to -- (indiscernible). But I think what I need to hear is -- from you is what is your projected growth populationwise and also the particular subdivision that you will have coming online that's in the preliminary or either final platting stage in this particular general area as far as northern hays county? I kind of want to hear that because this is a big deal. I kind of want to hear something because if the movement of what we're talking about in a certain period of time, the growth keeps coming, blah, blah, blah, that means we're in a lot of pressure to resolve the problem. I need to know what your problem is -- I need to know what the annual projection is on how -- how you're proposing to handle that growth in northern hays county. And because it impacts us also on the southern end of Travis County. Iks Commissioner, I would like to answer part of that question. My name is john trube, I’m the mayor of buda, Texas. Currently 5,000 citizens currently at the moment. That particular question, answering it in terms of the projected growth or the projected growth that may utilize brodie lane because my town frankly is pretty split in terms of how people get to Austin. Most of my citizens typically use i-35, but buda is growing to the north towards the 1626, 967 intersection. That's becoming a really popular area right now. We're platting -- we have one subdivision that's about 1900 lots and then there's -- a lot of people think they live in buda in ruby range ranch, but they really live in dripping springs. We huff them, but they don't live in buda. Some of our best friends out there. But the fact remains that I’m kind of surprised that dripping -- maybe they are here and we don't know it, except for patrick rose. But the fact of the matter is that that part of buda -- we're very proactive in buda in terms of transportation. We have a history of that. I think you can go to buda and see that we get in front of the transportation issues. I unfortunately have not had any luck or influence in terms of the 45 piece, and I think the other thing -- the other elephant in the living room if you will is the 45 that will go to i-35. And I would like the same amount of attention perhaps even focused -- because we're going to have the same problem on that stretch as well. And I realize that probably will be the alamo of environmental wars of all time. [ laughter ] that is something that I don't think we can ignore either. I think that is another piece to the answer of this problem. So buda will be -- we're 5,000 now. 10 years we'll probably be triple that. So say 15,000. But out of that how many people are taking brodie lane? I couldn't begin to tell you, but right now maybe 20%. That's just my piece of the world.

>> I understand.

>> do you want to respond --

>> Commissioner, in precinct 2, the precinct next to brodie lane's problem, and you know, a lot of people move to my area because they're moving out of Austin and we know that we are the fastest growing precinct in hays county because of three things. One is its proximity to Austin, the corridor of i-35 and the highway 21 corridor. So really our growth is your growth that's come our way, a lot of it. I’m one of those that came out of Austin because I wanted to live back in hays county where I had grown up. And so I think if you want to get the real answers on the numbers, the Texas a&m real estate office has the numbers for you. We are trying to rewrite our rules to manage our growth better, but a lot of what we need to do is work with don nigh land. I got a new and fresh picture from him today that he is doing the best he can. His office is moving forward and the road, sh 45, will be built. Our office has also sent him a request to move forward as best he can on that project, so we have sent you the same things that are sent to him, the same things that we've sent to you. We have had a little problem. I think y'all have turned off your fax machines in the last day or two, so we have a couple of things to add to what we've sent you, if my you staff will give them to you. Will that be all right?

>> they came through. I got every single one of them.

>> did you? We didn't get a response except not answering, so we were worried about you. [ laughter ]

>> got them all.

>> thank you very much for letting us be with you here.

>> constable?

>> we currently have the inner local contract with shady hollow m.u.d. And a part time contract with shady hollow neighborhood association. And my deputies and also the neighborhood out there, and I’ll speak for the rez dwents, they're -- residents, they're being terrorized with the traffic right now. It is at an all time high. For officers making a traffic stop it's very hazardous. Those are project and proposals we have that appear. I’d like to make a propose is to with our constables office is that the Commissioners court and Travis County would also match -- shady holly m.u.d.'s association is in -- shady hollow neighborhood association put their money forth to reduce the speeding, at least the hazard of the high speed travel on that neighborhood. I’d like to see us match what they're putting up in there as in police power with the constable's office. We currently have just one and a half deputies working out there in the constables office doing the traffic control currently. I would like to see us go up to one or two more deputies to help with the traffic flow, whatever we end up doing for the road project, closing it or whatever we end up doing, it looks like it will take time, no matter what will be done. We like to reduce the hazard, keep our community from being -- any deaths occurring at least by suppressing the traffic, slowing the traffic down, letting the people know, no disrespect to hays county, but they're booking it to go to work. If we can stop them, slow them down to where the residents can feel safe enough to get out of their driveway. It is truly a terror to try to get out of any street, even with a stoplights out there, you're at your own risk if they decide to stop at the stoplights out there because everybody is flying through at some volume. Nobody wants to sit in congested traffic, so everybody is trying to beat the lights. So as a community safety issue, I think we can do more enforcement out there and my office would be more than willing to step up more with the help of Commissioners funding. From the hays county residents, I love you all to death, but truly shady hollow is the brunt of the terror, being terrorized by all this heavy, heavy traffic. [ laughter ]

>> thank you. Representative? Turn that microphone toward you thrvment.

>> thank you for having us, judge, Commissioners. Jarrod, I know we've spoke about this issue in-depth. I come here with great respect for the difficulty of your constituent situation. But I also come here to join my judge and my Commissioners, mayor trube, in arguing against your motion. I want to extend a hand from the state. I know I feel that way. I know senator wentworth feels that way. We want to do everything we can from a regional perspective to keep brodie lane oop. You have my commitment to do that and I look forward to continuing my work with terry keel these next few months and then whoever takes that position in the state house to work with you, your court, judge, our court and our local leaders to help this issue. I sure would hate for you to close that road down.

>> anything else from any of you?

>> just to kind of answer mr. Davis' question a little bit better. I don't have any numbers on that particular area of hays county. I know according to the state demographers web page we have exceeded the projections of growth that he gave our area in 2000 by 15%. Yes, sir. So we're growing and growing quickly. And in my opinion we have to -- we have to do a whole lot more in the area of transportation for our whole region to operate efficiently and in a safe manner.

>> thank you.

>> thank you very much. Appreciate it.

>> any other elected officials? Any other elected officials? Then let's get to the good part. [ laughter ]

>> Did you want to hear from us?

>> I’m ready to listen to the public.

>> anything from the court.

>> I’ll defer until after.

>> if you represent any group, organization, neighborhood association, etcetera, please come forward. Give us your full name, we'll be happy to get your comments. We've got six chairs there instead of our usual five. Feel free to start in if you would like to.

>> good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is jerry lozano. I’m the president of the elliott ranch homeowners association. We're in northern hays county. I bring with me a resolution. It's been passed unanimously by our hoa board. It strongly urges that you keep brodie lane open to all traffic. Our neighborhood, which consists of 213 homes and lots, is one of those that would be severely impacted if you closed brodie lane or otherwise restricted traffic on to it. As our designated representative, we're united from the neighborhood in asking you to consider several points. First of all, brodie lane represents our life line to the closest grocery store, which is randalls. Their pharmacy, which is cvs, numerous restaurants, cleaners, day care. All the essential retail stores that we simply take for granted. Number two, brodie represents a key part of the shortest path to our nearest hospital, which is seton southwest. So it is significantly more than an inconvenience to have to travel 10 minutes longer when you're trying to get a loved one to an emergency room. We would ask that you consider that. And number three, the manchaca fire department, volunteer fire department is designated as our backup for fear protection in our protection -- for fire protection in our area. And unfortunately their closest facility to serve us is on the other side of the proposed closing of brodie lane. And then finally, as a neighborhood official, as a neighborhood advocate, I and the rest of our board -- our board consists of greg and leon in addition to me, we always look for encompassing solutions to problems. We try to exclude those solutions that don't offer a win-win situation for everyone. [one moment, please, for change in captioners]

>> [ applause ]

>> tell me the neighborhood again.

>> elliott ranch subdivision. We are on the west side of 1626. Hays county.

>> hays county.

>> let me ask you this, are you all against some sort of restrictions, if it weren't just barricaded, I mean you do have the -- yeah, you do understand that there is a major issue because you all use it along with everybody else.

>> we use it, sit in the same traffic of every resident of shady hollow.

>> you don't hit in the middle of it.

>> how do you figure?

>> your neighborhood, you don't sit in the middle of -- your neighborhood doesn't sit in the middle of all of this traffic, does it?

>> our neighborhood does not sit in the middle of the traffic. We sit in the traffic.

>> then you all have -- [laughter] --

>> we all sit in the traffic.

>> absolutely.

>> so would you all consider something short of closing brodie lane? If -- if 85% of the time you could use it? And you certainly could use it in an emergency or I mean is that something that your group has even talked about?

>> we have discussed it. It would clearly be better, especially with regard to the emergency situation and shutting it -- than shutting it down altogether. However, if you took away the 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Left turn on to brodie lane northbound, where are you going to put us? On to a road that we could choose to go on right now, but choose not to because it's already too congested? You are taking away our shortest path to loop 1 to mopac. That's an arterial for us. Like it or not.

>> I understand.

>> but your neighborhood -- would your neighborhood association consider passing a resolution directed either at the transportation commission, campo, s.o.s., all of the above, urging the expedited construction of 45 southwest and funding any other improvements in the region to get things moving?

>> we would pass that in a day. However, let me comment that we have worked with is it mr. Nugent, from Texas dot, we asked him to come to each one of our meetings and explain the progress on s.h. 45. It has been as frustrating for us as anyone to watch that road not be built.

>> it would be helpful for as many resolutions to be passed as possible so we can take that to the appropriate folks. Having an oral history is not being helpful. We need to overload those in -- that are the powers that be with this information.

>> I will commit to having that resolution in your hands.

>> thank you very much.

>> thank you.

>> let's back up, pick up this gentleman. If you would after you finish if you would vacate your seat, if somebody else would come forward and take that chair, we will keep things moving.

>> good afternoon, my name is craig [indiscernible], I’m here as the spokesperson for the March bridge community. Marbridge has 222 residents, so I hope that fits your criteria for being up here. I’m also a homeowner within the villages of shady roll allow. I have given you a blown up map. I provided that because it was a little hard to see the other map. From a historical hand point, marbridge sold the county the property to build brodie lane in October of 1993. To give them and the surrounding community a convenient road to access south Austin, mar bridge owns the abutting property, both on the northern side of the intersection of 1626 and brodie and we also own the two south end properties at the intersection of brodie and freight barker. As the owner of this abutting property, marbridge is starting for the record that it is strongly opposed to the closure of brodie lane by any mains. The facility known as [indiscernible] village has only one entry and exit to any road and that's on brodie lane. And it's physically separated from the rest of the marbridge campus by bear creek. We currently shuttle residents back and forth from that location and our ranch back and forth throughout the day so residents can attend training classes and other activities. The proposal to close brodie lane could is on slate our community -- isolate our community, creating an even longer circuitous route if we had to go via manchaca road and having to transport residents on buses, putting them at risk, a safety and risk management standpoint that's unacceptable. That's one of the reasons that as you well know that -- that we are in the negotiations to actually move that community, that's not going to happen for at least two years. The ultimate solution for us to get off of brodie lane and move to our main campus on blue spiller. Along with that, brodie lane is used by our drivers to take residents to various medical services in south Austin, doctors, dentists, what have you, as well as recreational activities and to places where they are employed. Marbridge is also concerned about any degradation of response time for emergency services for our ranch and our nursing home, which is aged population at risk. That's just one of those safety factors that's real concerning to us with regard to emergency services. As an employer we are concern about the -- concerned about the ability of our employees to get to work to provide care to our residents. Also, while I’m not a lawyer, I have read the transportation code, I would ask that you take no action on brodie lane until the stipulations under subsection 251.051 are met. Obviously the first being that you have to have the unanimous vote, that you not discontinue a road until a new road designated by the court as a replacement is ready to replace it. I think from the testimony you heard earlier, manchaca road is not ready to replace brodie lane. And the third stipulation is not to -- not to discontinue, close or abandon a road until it has been vacated or unused for at least three years. That does not describe brodie lane.

>> are you sure that you are not a lawyer? [laughter]

>> yes, sir. I just read real well. Also I would like to add that the county engineer in his report to you did not address subsection 251.058 concerning the ability of abutting property owners to seek compensation to any loss -- for any loss of property value and any impairment of property owners' right of ingress or egress from the property. That's all that I have to say. As the mar bridge representative. As an individual, I’m concerned as you well know. I did present to the campo board in early April that this is a regional problem that needs a regional solution. And I guarantee you, Sonleitner, as the president of the villages of the shady hollow association that I will ensure that you have all of the resolutions that you need in writing no -- no later than, say, the end of the month. Or sooner if you need it.

>> make sure that they go to the transportation commission and campo and to s.o.s.

>> yes, ma'am.

>> thank you.

>> > one last point I would make, your engineer didn't talk about the fact that as manchaca road reaches slaughter lane, there's only one turn lane. Where slaughter at brodie has two turn lanes on to slaughter, so you are going to have to work with the city to improve that intersection as well. Because otherwise you are just going to back it all the way up. Thank you.

>> thank you.

>> appreciate it. [ applause ]

>> any questions?

>> we ought in this community realize, you know, what a wonderful organization marbridge is.

>> thank you. Has marbridge gotten the okay to open up how many -- is it 14 -- help me with it, is it 1400 lots? How many lots will be built on --

>> there's going to be a total of 300 on that 133 acres.

>> both sides?

>> yes, sir.

>> so an additional 300 times however many cars or whatever.

>> right.

>> because that is something that --

>> yes, sir.

>> that will add -- that will add traffic to brodie lane.

>> yes, sir, it will.

>> and was there any opposition from any of the neighborhood associations?

>> if there was --

>> that you all knew.

>> we were not made aware of any.

>> okay.

>> yes?

>> thank you, judge Biscoe, Commissioners. My name is debbie peterson. I’m a remember of the shady hollow homeowners association board of directors and we have a short powerpoint presentation to present some information to you related to the shady hollow homeowners association association involvement in traffic issues, specifically s.h. 45 over the years. First we wanted to start with a visual of traffic on brodie lane during the time when school children are going to bernoff elementary, you can see the traffic that's backed up if you have driven that road. I am sure that you have been in the traffic. A little history of brodie lane, shady hollow has been a neighborhood since 1968. The final buildout of shady hollow was completed in 1991 and as mr. Gieselman said brodie lane was opened to f.m. 1626 in 1995. Shady hollow did publicly oppose the opening to 1626. Here's some of our residents enjoying fourth of July last summer. Our involvement in traffic issues has spanned many years. In 1990 the county announced plans to extend brodie to f.m. 1626. Shady hollow opposed that extension in a letter to then Commissioner pam reed, brodie lane was not in the roadway plan at the time to connect to f.m. 1626 nor has its extension been funded. In 1993 planned developments raised concerns about potential traffic impact and shady hollow attended public hearings, meetings with the city and county staff, city and county Commissioners and boards and local, regional and state officials. In 1994, shady hollow joint city county task force area transportation study. In 1995, the brodie extension was opened to f.m. 1626. [reading graphic] here's another picture of the traffic. I want to give you a few facts about the traffic in shady hollow. [reading graphic]

>> this is a picture that you may have seen before about those traffic counts. On brodie lane. And here's some traffic trying to make a turn. Off of brodie lane into our neighborhood. I wanted to remind everybody about the road classifications. [reading graphic]

>> this is a picture of the four lane portion of manchaca road. Sorry. Let me go back. I’m sorry. My finger went too fast. Shady hollow has worked with these various boards and commissions over the years that we have been working on traffic issues. [reading graphic] here's one of our residents who is going to cross brodie on his bike to go to school. We have also throughout the years that we have worked on traffic have done community outreach with these associations. [reading graphic] there's another picture of traffic. The time line for s.h. 45, [reading graphic]

>> time flies sometimes when you are not having so much fun. Current status. [reading graphic] now the information that we received earlier today may update that, but that was the information that we had at the time. Our concerns are safety. [reading graphic] here's a few more of our residents. This picture depict the schools that are in our community around our community. You have bailey middle school, and there are 686 homes east of brodie that do not have a bus route to bailey middle school. Those children all need to either get transported by their parents or walk to school. You have baranoff elementary, homes west of brodie that do not have a bus route there. Why we are here now. [reading graphic]. And why -- and bill aleshire, former county judge is here and we asked him if we could use this quote. [reading graphic] where we are now. [reading graphic] here's some additional pictures. Here are our survey results, we will have a copy of this to distribute to you. And as Commissioner Daugherty said in the beginning, there were overwhelmingly in favor of brodie closure. [reading graphic] just want to leave you with a few other pictures of traffic. I will go through these quickly. You can see the school crossing sign there. And I want to thank you for your time and attention today.

>> thank you. [ applause ] any questions for ms. Peterson? Thank you very much, ms. Peterson. Yes?

>> tom bryan, president of wyldwood/kelly-wood neighborhood association. To indicate that I am speaking the opinion of my association, you will note that the response for wyldwood kellywood was almost 90% of the residents of wyldwoodkellywood responded. 95% of those voted in favor of the proposition foreclosure. I believe that I’m stating the opinion of everybody that lives in our association. On brodie lane and the streets that feed into it, just prior to shady hollow. As a point of order, following speakers perhaps might be a good idea to ascertain that they really are speaking the opinion of their association, if they associate themselves with an organization. Correct a mistake. That's what mr. Aleshire said. That's the way we felt when brodie lane was going to be opened up. And as joe gieselman said over the objections of the residents and all of our issues we basically appended ourselves to shady hollow over the years because we are a fairly small outfit. It's not often that we have an opportunity to correct our mistakes. At that time, we were told it was going to happen by our county Commissioner, who seemed to turn a deaf ear to us. I think we have without deaf ears right now. And her -- in her favor, she was pointing out that -- that at that time what was call the outer loop was planned. To connect also with i-35 and mopac. And we all know that didn't happen. Colin told me at -- whatever his name is at s.o.s., told me at campo one evening, if they have anything to say about it, state highway 45 will never happen because as minuscule as it is, they said once -- one thing gets in there, and it's -- it snow balls after that. So I don't know the state highway 45, 45 will ever be built. I’m asking you to correct a mistake. Put things back the way they were. Things didn't happen the way we were told they were going to happen. With the major connectors and the outer loop happening first. We think we should go back and start over and get the big guns going on the real solution upon which everybody agrees here. The real solution that's being held up by a cadre of inme center people counter to what -- inner city people counter to everybody out here believes is the proper solution and we are powerless to do it. And one other closing point of order, I know there are a lot of hays county folks here and the commission was here. Keep in mind that as far as I know, the hays county commission met, I don't recall hearing anybody from Travis County being given the opportunity to comment on their resolution. Thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ] yes, sir.

>> > hays county, is just like Travis County, if they would have shown up they could have spoke. I represent the subdivision of about 500 residents -- registered voters close to the hays high school. Like water the path of least resistance, it doesn't evaporate. We are always going to be stuck with this water, it's become pretty obvious s.h. 45 issue is what the big problem, not the brodie lane issue. All of us pay the state department license plate, have the same rights to use the roads. This was tried on pack saddle pass in south Austin a few years back and it was -- it was big bust, it didn't work. I’m not familiar with all of the details of it, some of you may remember that. If you know south Austin. I don't want to keep you any longer, I just want to state that our residents oppose it strongly. For all of the obvious reasons that I have already been delineated here, there's no point in me repeating them. Just reoppose it. We feel like we have a right to use roads that are constructed. If it was a mistake, then there are other mistakes, we would like to -- if this is actually passed we would like to talk to somebody about closing 2770 so we can get out of our neighborhoods, too.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> yes, sir.

>> I would like to say thank you for hearing us today. My name is bryan mastervich I’m the president of hillcrest hoa off of manchaca road, we have 470 homes in our addition, which is not as big as shady hollow, however, our main issue that we are against this closure of brodie. So far no one has really addressed manchaca, it's all about about brodie and s.h. 45. If you look on your txdot map, down in box 6, where manchaca and ravens cross interject, that is where our community starts. What some people don't realize is that there are two cut through points. One that was just recently pave and opened within the last week that does cut through shady hollow -- through shady hollow. Our concern is because we have concern, the closure of brodie, people will find their way through shady hollow to our community to turn right and head further south into hays county. Also, where it goes from four lanes to two lanes, while I -- while I feel for the people on brodie, we have a speed issue where you can go 55, a lot of times people go faster than that. Where it comes up to the light, it a right turn only lane. Any time there's a backup, going southbound on manchaca, people are turning right into your community, shooting up past the median, to catch the light to turn right to cut this in front of everybody else much hundreds of cars will do it. My car was almost hit putting christmas lights up at the 7 front of our neighborhood. Song so far -- I don't think so far we have addressed what's going to happen to manchaca, there are other communities, canteberry trails, I don't know if they are here, we are all talking via e-mail, we are all opposed of it.

>> what intersection are you referring to that's coming out of the -- out of the shady hollow subdivision.

>> it's --

>> tying into manchaca interjecting the -- intersecting that particular portion of your neighborhood.

>> there's no road names on here. This road is so new, I don't know what the name of is is going to be. It starts with an s.

>> [inaudible - no mic]

>> so what you are suggesting is that the traffic that's coming in off of slaughter lane and then coming down brodie, of course, that brodie is closed, that would make that left turn there and then intersect into manchaca, head down to 1626.

>> it doesn't work that easy. It goes council the road we are speaking of. Brand new road by d.r. Horton. Take them down to mesa, which will take them to raven's, to manchaca. We already have a lot of cut through from olympic heights, we do have one only of the only lights other than frate barker to control traffic. We get a lot of site traffic. 3,000 cars a day in a residential neighborhood. We feel this will add to it.

>> okay. Thank you.

>> any questions? Thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> now we will get some answers -- now we will get some answers to some of those pre1998 issues.

>> judge Biscoe, honorable members of the Commissioners court, my name is bill aleshire, I’m here today as a were the of shady hollow -- as aren't of shady hollow. I was -- a resident of shady hollow. I was asked to come and give you a historical perspective as well as a recommendation to support our neighborhood association's request. But as you can tell today, what we -- what we should be doing is showing respect to everybody's concern. I don't ask that Travis County Commissioners court to show disrespect for people in hays county. And I don't think you will. I do think that you have a bit more of an obligation to the people of Travis County. And to take responsibility for the fact that this really is a crisis, this really is a problem and it's a problem for the people in Travis County that needs to be addressed with as much balance and respect as you can for the fine people that are here not from our county, but from hays county that use these roads. After all, we use roads in hays county, too, and we would expect to be treated fairly but reasonably and the situation is not reasonable. I would ask that even with the divisions that are here between folks that are coming across brodie or people who live in the shady hollow -- by your applause, everyone applaud who supports the extension of mopac to be completed as soon as possible. [ applause ]

>> what we have here is not what I would call a colossal failure of planning, but a colossal failure to implement the plan. This wasn't supposed to happen. When I sat on that dais in 1995, and it was proposed to extend brodie lane I was uncomfortable because I live on brodie lane, I have property on brodie lane, and I guess I regret having not participated in the debate in order to help make even clearer what my neighbors were trying to tell Commissioner bristol and members of the Commissioners court. You've got to show respect for the way of subdivision was designed in the first place. You look, we have got swimming pools and clubs on one side, activity centers on the other. Brodie lane was never intended when this -- when this community was planned to be a through way. It was to support the ingress and egress of traffic in and out of shady hollow. That's what it was designed to do and it was only designed to handle that kind of traffic and that kind of traffic pattern. Well, then even before I was on the court somebody inched their way over and used to go by bob coles house, down that subdivision, you could kind of figure your way around frate barker and if you get down, still didn't have it connected to 1626. And that was the decision that was done in '95, but in all fairness to the Commissioners court at that time, I thought it was a mistake. But I abstained and I did. In all fairness, it was a decision just as joe gieselman said earlier, it was made in the context of the plan. Anybody that doesn't think when you put a road through like that it's not going to spur development, take a look at what happened. It spurred development not only in -- right immediately south of shady hollow, as you would expect and through more traffic on to brodie right there, but because the rest of the plan was not implemented, frate barker extension was not done, the extension of mopac was not done, the other major ways of handling arterial type of traffic was not done. Now, I’ve heard for years when I sat up there with you all that -- that txdot complaining about how we could never get our politics together in Travis County. They were just tired of trying to fund Texas state projects of any size in Travis County because we always have this environmental sensitivity or whatever. When we proposed the 1997 bond election, we had the -- probably one of the most controversial road projects out there. And the Commissioners court faced a choice as to whether just to put that southern extension of mopac in with all of the other bond funds -- whether to set it out on its own proposition and let the people of Travis County vote on it. We got over 60% of the vote for that extension. But that was also a decision in context. In the context of a lawsuit that had been settled that would have the environmental features on that more narrow limited lane of -- of extension of mopac but it would serve the transportation -- we achieved balance. We get the transportation relief we need and protect the environment at the same time. I do not begrudge anyone, s.o.s. Or anyone else to try to protect our water resources, we should not pollute our water, I don't know why we have to get all fussy about that, we shouldn't. That road project should already have been done. I have asked questions since I left this court. Where is it? Why isn't it getting done? I’m suspicious of txdot about it. I’m suspicious about why it hasn't gotten done. I am wondering if they delayed it thinking that they could get tolls on it instead of spending their state dollars on it. I don't think it takes 10 years to get an environment study. In 1996, 1997 working on the bond package for Travis County, we had a rule that we said if becan't get the project -- if we can't get the project completed in five years, we are not putting it on the package because we didn't want to have bond funds sitting around unused. I asked for and got assurance from txdot that if Travis County did its part and bought that right-of-way, starting as soon as we could get the bond funds in 1997 -- I see it took a while, but it was at least completed by 2001-2002, that they would be ready to build the southern extension of mopac. Where did it go? And why are we -- why has it gotten pushed to the back burner and stayed on the back burner is this that's just the describe of the problem. You know, one thing that isn't mentioned on this map, it's going to get worse on brodie real quick. Just north of shady hollow. On brodie on the east side, is a subdivision that's been approved, it's under construction, the cut is already on to brodie, for light, nothing. So the north end of brodie is about to get plugged up with a bunch of additional traffic from that new subdivision that's coming in right there as well. I ask you to come up with -- with a -- with a temporary solution to a problem that was created by government not following through on what it planned to do. It's not the shady hollow residents' fault, it's not the fault of the folks from hays county. They have like water gone where the area of least resistance. In my personal opinion, I vote for doing something on brodie like closing that, or restricting that traffic in some way, and I think in my opinion I would drive that area all the time that manchaca is better capable in safer conditions and is more properly classified that brodie ever will be to handle the traffic at least in the interim until everybody now gets energized and completes the project. We have got 60% of the voters in this environmental community to do and to fund we couldn't get the state then to do their part. So -- so I think doing nothing about this crisis would likely be a decision that you will deeply regret. Considering the increasing danger that this improper road traffic is causing on brodie lane. I will admit to you, gur to go surprise me. You are going to surprise me big time if you can get a unanimous vote on this Commissioners court. But feel free to surprise me. Thank you. [laughter]

>> any questions for the judge?

>> [ applause ]

>> bill it's even worse than that. You and I worked together, we were specific tale told by txdot if we passed those bonds we had to expedite that, we moved heaven and earth, remember that poor lady with the horses we had to tell her no you can't keep your horses there, we can't extend it we have got to get you off that property. A couple of years later on txdot they were telling people openly on tv, oh, that's way on the back burner? Excuse me, I have served on campo nearly 12 years, I am tired of rolling over s.h. 45 into the next tip because we just can't get it together. It is frustrating beyond belief. You are right, we got everybody pulled together on this. Had a separate proposition, so that no one could say we were burying it within another popular road proposition or s.h. 130.

>> [indiscernible]

>> fair shot. It passed in the same way that s.o.s. Passed and it need to be respected in the same way.

>> I agree with you. [ applause ]

>> just a story to kind of illustrate the situation that I have seen this in, I hope you all will stop letting this go on is that one time there was a guy that worked for a railroad company and they took him up, going to promote him up to the switch station. His name was tom, took tom up there. Tom, just as a test, if you have got a train coming from track 1 at 80 miles an hour from the east and you have got another train coming on track 1 from 80 miles an hour from the west, what are you going to do? Tom said well I’m going to call my brother jim. He said why are you going to call your brother jim? He said jim ain't never seen a real train wreck before. [laughter]

>> yes, sir.

>> good afternoon, judge and Commissioners, my name is wagon haddinger, I’m Commissioner and acting president of Travis County [feedback] emergency district number 5. We contract with Travis County I’m sorry manchaca fire rescue, the primary fire protection and e.m.s. First response in this area specifically shady hollow. Also I might add my wife and I are 28 year residents of shady hollow, my kids grew up there, I have a grandchild that comes and stays with us there, I have a vested interest for multiple facets. I was also here in 1995 and I addressed the Commissioners court when we addressed the issue of extending brodie lane, there was a lot of opposition to it. Manchaca fire department actually endorsed it for -- for some different reasons. We were looking at trying to enhance our fire protection, e.m.s. First response, cut our response times, of course things have changed a lot since then. Today we have a very different set of circumstances. Brodie lane is overcapacity by 30% at the very least. The overuse creates additional risks for the school children as you have already heard. As they close brodie lane I use brodie lane from 1626, coming home in the evening and frankly, twice in the last three weeks I have actually stopped to help the band kids cross brodie lane going one way or another because the school guards have gone home. So -- so we -- we indeed do have an issue out there. Frankly that speed limit is 40 miles per hour, it's way too fast for the kids to be crossing on their own.

>> [indiscernible]

>> [indiscernible] it's 40.

>> [indiscernible] [inaudible - no mic]

>> the other issue is the fire station, our second busiest fire station in esd 5 is in the 11,000 block of brl during peak traffic periods. It -- that traffic does -- does impede the flow of the emergency vehicles. We are one of the few esd's that rely mostly on volunteers. So we have got volunteers coming to the station, looking for apparatus and having to leave again as well as very few paid folks. As a practical matter esd 5 would endorse anything that would either temporarily close or restrict some of the traffic from brodie lane on to a more appropriate roadway. Thank you for your time.

>> any questions?

>> thank you.

>> [ applause ]

>> my name is jim mann, I live in shady hollow, it's nice to see you all again. I used to have hair when I started this thing. Western here in a difficult -- we are here in a difficult situation. We have neighbor opposing neighborhood, it's not pleasant, it's not something that we desire. We have come really as a last resort. As many of you know we have been working on this for every a decade, trying to find a solution. We have worked and done everything that we know to find the solution and we really come to this as the only alternative that we can figure what to do. If there is another solution, let's hear it and let's do it. I don't want to take up a lot of time repeating facts that folks have gone over and over and probably will continue to do. We do not want to inconvenience our neighbors. But we have a safety problem on brodie. That is really a crisis at this moment. People are being hurt. Anecdotally my car was totaled three blocks from my house on brodie. I’m still undergoing medical care for that. That happens frequently on brodie. The traffic is simply unsafe. If we have a better solution, let's do it. In the mean time before s.h. 45 is built, I hope it is tomorrow, we have got to do something about the situation on brodie lane. Thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> thank you.

>> yes?

>> hi.

>> we knew that you would get bored listening to just one person speak, so we tried to break it up. Cindy nettles from shady hollow. I have been here before, too. My hair was a lot darker back then, but -- but we were sitting at a meeting at the manchaca fire hall a couple of weeks ago. We had all of the usual suspects rounded up and we were listening to speakers talking about brodie traffic and about -- about the potential for closing brodie. And we got nostalgic. Jim brought up, gee, how long have we been doing this? Janet marsh remembered when we started doing this my son was a toddler. My son barring unforeseen circumstances is due to graduate from bowie high school in a couple of weeks. This issue has encompassed his entire life. We have been at this a long time, you know. I know that a lot of -- of the people speaking in opposition feel we haven't worked hard enough, that we haven't worked friendly enough, that we haven't spread the love. You know, we have paid our dues. We have been to every elected official, we have talked to their aids, we have talked to their staffs, we have talked to boards, economics. Departments, divisions, commissions. We have gone to workshops on transportation, we taken part in city of Austin design charettes, don't ask me what a charette is, but we have taken part. We have gone door to door with petition, made telephone calls, talked with individuals, gone to neighborhood groups, we have gone to environmental groups. I mean, we took our show on the road. And this morning the -- the statesman had an editorial. They said that -- I don't want to misquote them, so let me put my glasses on. They said we were understandably frustrated and sometimes alarmed by the level of traffic on brodie. Well, you bet we are. We are exceedingly alarmed and we are exceedingly frustrated. We have done our part. We have worked with the system, we have played the game, we don't run with scissors, you know. The system keeps letting us down. You have got the opportunity to help us out. You have got the authority, so we are just asking you to do it. Close brodie, even if it's only temporarily, but address this issue now. Thanks.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> hello, my name is [indiscernible], I’m a resident and parent at shady hollow. My main issue and concern is safety for our children. According to the aisd memo that you all were sent on April 24th, students are transported to manchaca elementary. These kids are provided buses. Safe buses to get them to school. As mentioned before, we have 686 homes east of brodie that have to figure out how to cross brodie to get to barnoff and [indiscernible] that have to again cross broad dough to get to bailey middle school. We do not have access to the butt routes, they consider us too close to the schools. My son has a.d.d. And dyslexia, one of 188 students part of the special education program at bailey middle school. These students are highly encouraged and recommended to take additional tutoring classes after school hours. Many of these activities end at 4:30 to 5:00 in the evening. By that time, those single crossing guards that we do have is gone. Our children are having to cross brodie at peak hours, 5:00. It takes my son three to four lights, light changes in order to cross brodie safely. And even at times he says he worries when cars rush by. We also have a bike lane that children can utilize, but we don't recommend it. It has become a new passing lane for traffic that goes through because they don't want to wait while a car is turning within the neighborhood. We have over 1800 students attending both these schools. And there's only 719 that will be attending the manchaca elementary. Aisd concern -- was concerned about the time delay. To me that's irrelevant. The time that the kids will be on a -- in traffic would be -- they would be in traffic either on brodie lane or these children would be in traffic on manchaca. But they will be on a bus. They would be safe and on a bus. Where our children would have to be walking on the side of the road. Fighting the traffic, rushing by. So to me the safety is most important, our children need to be watched out for, I would hope that you choose to close brodie to help them. Thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> my name is david williams, I’m the president of the shady hollow homeowners association, judge Biscoe, Commissioners, thank you all for giving us the opportunity to bring this issue forward. Commissioner Daugherty in his initial charge to us told us to be as inclusive as possible when we did our survey. What we took that to mean is -- to poll directly those residents who are impacted immediately impacted by this issue. Translated further, we took that to mean safety. Safety not convenience. We -- we have a lady in -- in our neighborhood who actually lives on brodie lane and she asked me to -- to read this little letter that she put together. There have been four major crashes in her yard and property by drivers all heading to 1626. My house was spared because of the trees on my property. But three trees on my property have been uprooted, plus damaged to five other trees. These trees stopped the vehicles from crashing into my house. Of the four accidents that ended on my property, three of the cars were totaled and one lady had to be removed by the jaws of life. She and another lady from the third accident were in icu for an extended period. Weather was not a factor in these accidents, only speed and alcohol. At home one block from me -- a home one block from me had a pickup fence through the fence and through the bedroom wall while the lady was in bed. It pushed her and the bed into another wall. I consider myself lucky to have had no damage to my hope. There was no accidents here until brodie lane joined 1626. With morning traffic I sit in my driveway with my blinker going trying to enter north. Sometimes I have to turn around and wait until the morning traffic is over. I’m afraid one day that a car will crash through my yard and into my home and kill me in my sleep. Please consider my plight and those of other shady hollow residents. This lady is at the meeting, she asked me to speak for her. I would like to ask her to raise her hand. Thank you. We have with us that should be delivered to you copies of the survey that we did and the 1500 plus in favor that were returned to us. The residents in shady hollow, about 82% of, actually responded to the survey. Now that's pretty high. We -- we are faced with this issue each and every day and no disrespect to -- to the communities around us, no disrespect to hays county. We we do consider this to be a safety versus convenience issue. Putting this into a personal perspective, my wife and I take our daughter to manchaca methodist to daily -- to daycare Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I work for someone in san antonio. I frequently go to san antonio and to san marcos. That takes 1626, go right out on brodie to 1626 over to 35 and on my way, return the same way. So I’m going to be inconvenienced by this. However, I would prefer the inconvenience for a little bit -- a little bit more safety. And that is why we are here today. This morning as I was trying to exit at capestrano and brodie, I was sitting at the red light and the light turns green and I go to -- to turn left to -- to head to work. And a black tahoe comes barreling through the red light. And -- and I got behind her and she actually was from hays county, I wasn't going to rerelay that, my intent is not to put a negative light to folks from hays, because I have actually seen one of my good friends in shady hollow do the same thing. But that is -- that's what occurs every day. And it's because we have these long lines that sit -- have to sit there and wait to go through that one light and they don't want to get stuck having to wait even longer. It one time took me 18 minutes to go a quarter of a mile from slaughter to capistrano I’m sure I guys are aware, but brodie sits on the aquifer on a recharge zone. No one has considered the environmental impact of that. We just feel that manchaca is -- is better prepared to handle the load, they have -- they have exceeded capacity for many years now. With that I conclude.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> yes, sir.

>> judge Biscoe, county Commissioners, my name is jim camp and I’m a resident of hays county. I appreciate the hospitality and the ability to speak before you today. I have lived in hays county for over 25 years, for over 25 years I have worked on regional issues as a citizen and four years as an elected official. As a board member for the barton springs edward's aquifer conservation district. I’m very sympathetic with the frustrations that a lot of people in shady hollow and estates of shady hollow and some of the other neighborhoods have. I can say that I do drive on brodie lane, I drive it 35 to 40 miles per hour, I try to avoid it at certain times of the day. But I think that closing billion...

>>A lot of people that use brodie lane as well. So I think -- basically you know there are some -- some issues that need to be dealt with. I can tell you that -- that about 17 years ago, as a citizens, I spoke initially in opposition to state highway 45, mainly because the -- the txdot at that time did a poorly -- poorly studied eis. Instead of doing a federal study, they did a regional study and didn't even have information about the impacts of the roadway and how they impact people's ground water. As you know, almost all of the people that live in southern Travis County in this area and in northern hays county rely on the edward's aquifer for their water supply. But over the years, I think that -- that I and other txdot officials have seen the light and come to the understanding that -- that putting a roadway, a major roadway in an area like this needs to be thought out carefully and I think that -- that they have taken many of those steps. When I was on the board, I can tell you that I met with -- with Travis County officials, u.s. Fish and wildlife officials, our staff met with staff members of the Travis County and txdot, although our charge is protecting the aquifer, we felt if the road was going to be built, needed to be built was a parkway with limited access, catchment basements in case there were any spills and things like that. And I think that judge -- former judge aleshire mid a good point. Some of the discussions that I have on the board people before I left in 2004 with state officials, it wasn't a matter of threatened lawsuits that was delaying state highway 45. It was state lawmakers saying that there wasn't enough money to build it. They were proposing to build only two lanes. I thought that was a terrible idea because if you remember in san antonio they built 1604, north san antonio was built as two lanes. Bad idea. It soon became known at the death loop because people weren't patient must have to drive on a two lane road, they were passing each other and having head-on collisions. So the idea of two-lane roadway doesn't make sense for the disturbance of the land, having to do it twice or three times, and also because of the safety issues. I just want to close by saying I share the frustration, but I think closing the roadway would not be a -- a good regional solution to a problem. Thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> Commissioners and judge, I just --

>> just a minutes.

>> any questions for me?

>> jim, let me ask you -- he skipped his turn for some reason.

>> are you in favor of building 4 to 6 lanes of 45 southwest.

>> as long as it is -- it is -- it is engineered, designed and built and -- and mitigated for the possible [indiscernible] into caves and creeks and into the aquifer. If it can be done with the state-of-the-art, I said this since 1998, we have a -- we have something for a model of the nation. As long as done I will be in support, frontage lanes and a freeway kind of roadway, I’m not in favor of that. If it can be built in an environmentally sensitive way, yes, I am.

>> in the middle.

>> my name is math new wayne, I live on barker ranch. I’m opposed to closing brodie lane. I drive brodie to slaughter five days a week. As far as the backup of traffic problems, living in dallas or living in san antonio as I did, that is a traffic problem. The backup, the work done at brodie and slaughter to take away the backup at that point has been cured. Here's a right turn lane, two straight, two left. That backup has been cured, so that -- that took away one of the obstacles. The other thing that -- that -- that I wanted to bring up and it hasn't been brought up I guess in so many words today, is that -- what other alternatives on brodie lane do we have right now? Is it possible that we could put in some turn lanes which would greatly ease the traffic. Is it possible that we could add a traffic light or two on that road. I don't know those answers, but I think it is. Is it possible to add sidewalks that would add some safety? There's quite a bit of brodie lane that does not have sidewalks. The other thing that -- that we talked about safety and this should be brought up in my opinion, the one mile stretch from brodie to manchaca on frate barker is absolutely the most dangerous highway in this entire county. It is two lane, no shoulder, and heavy duty construction is going to happen on the south side of frate barker. It's just starting. And there's going to be a lot of trucks there and that is -- it's a dangerous road now and it's going to get a lot worse. When you get to manchaca on frate barker and you have to make a turn, that is really an exciting experience. So we are -- we are adding, if -- if we -- if we close brodie lane, we are going to force a substantial amount of traffic on to frate barker. 50% of the time I go that direction and 50% of the time I go north. So -- so but I drive brodie lane every morning, five days a week, I don't see that as a big problem. I see putting any traffic on frate barker as a very, very dangerous problem. Thank you very much.

>> thank you. Questions?

>> my name is caymanis, I -- kay manis, I represent the parents from manchaca. I have heard a lot about the safety issues for shady hollow children, I have yet to hear about the safety concerns about manchaca elementary. Just in their current traffic level, not to mention the 3, 4, 5,000 cars they want to put on to our intersection. Just to share with you some comparisons, the crossroads for manchaca are state highway and a major arterial. Barenoff on the other hand sits three blocks off of brodie in a nice quiet subdivision with residential streets. Cord to campo, the crossroads for manchaca at f.m. 1626 and manchaca is the 12th most congested artery right there. We have a major school, a school directly on those roads. The current conditions at manchaca and f.m. 1626 are also a real concern. The state highway has no shoulder. Parents are forced to -- to go into the ditches of 1626 when they have off road from the dropoff lane. The dropoff lane is only 130 feet of -- of -- of compared to barenoff has over 400 feet of drop off lanes for their children. Asking effect the parents are having to park in ditches. They are -- their cars stay somewhat into the lane of f.m. 1626 when causes cars trying to go around them to go into the left-hand turn lanes and -- and face possible head-on collisions there as well. I gave you a sheet similar to this on the back of it. It's a map that I would like to go over with you here in a moment. Two of the major concerns are people have spoken about manchaca having -- being bused in, the reason for that is because their roadways are unsafe. There are no sidewalks, gutters, shoulders, curbs, on any of those thoroughfares to that school, that is why the children have to be bused in. Some of them do live within the two miles. So we have no crossing guards because of that. However, barenhoff has not one, but three crossing guards available to them. Two at their school directly opposed to their dropoff line, the one that sets on brodie lane itself. As most people attest to, we very rarely see that crossing guard out of her car she sits and reads a book. I talked to her about the cross -- lack of crossing guards per children, she says she helps two to three children a day cross brodie. So -- so as another additional fact, our our principal of manchaca, had to enter the traffic on f.m. 1626 to stop traffic to ease the congestion from our parent drapoff lane. I don't think any other school probably in the district has to have a prescription pal go out into a state highway to stop traffic to ease congestion. That is just at current levels. I contacted aisd, I contacted the county, I contacted txdot, none of them were willing to offer us any relief just in that congress guess alone from mr. Rocha having to direct traffic. I lot of people aren't aware of manchaca as they go down brodie, they are the last school in the southern portion. You can see the parent drapoff, only 130 feet therefore the overflow dropoff for the traffic goes directly on to the shoulder of 1626, it's a steep shoulder, about 45-degree angel, which is also unsafe, trying to open your door, getting your child in and out of the car. More opposed to the safety of that, the carts actually are still on the roadway in 1626. The picture that you have there before you is a picture I took in my automobile because I was stopped. Of that exact situation, you can see to the far left the cars are waiting in line for the pickup for children that afternoon. The car there is trying to pass him, doesn't have enough room and so he scoots over into the left-hand turn lane and that is where myself and my daughter were sitting. Had we been there it could have been the potential for the woman. Again I want to reiterate, these situations are at current levels. Pumping even more people into that situation is just going to make it worse and it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when there's a problem. I think that the stars there represent potential hazards for -- for wrecks or pedestrian children. What you can see there on manchaca methodist church, they not only have a child development center for their young children, they have an after school program for manchaca. My daughter used to attend that school. One of the reasons that we took her out of that is because those children are forced to cross a state highway with no crossing guard. They have to cross that road with -- with the staff from -- from the church alone and that is it. I served on the cdc board, it is a major problem and concern from them. Their hands are obviously tied. Because of their organization. I hope when you read that you will take into consideration all of the people, not just the safety of some in shady hollow. Had shady hollow come to us and expressed the need and concern of the safety of their children, would we have worked with them? Of course we would. No one wants to have their child endangered. However they didn't contact us and think about the implications that would cause on our children. Not just at manchaca, but at kocurek. I would like to extend the invitation to any of you, any person living in shady hollow to come with me this week to see this school and see that its traffic levels at current levels is very dangerous. I would like to offer up that we work together as a community in schools to find safer alternatives for our children and consider everyone's needs. Thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> my name is sandy mcminimum, I would like to continue the point that she just made. I’m a resident of shady hollow, I urge you not to consider the closing of brodie lane, there is going to be a tremendous amount of traffic through the manchaca elementary school. Traffic has to go somewhere. All that hays county traffic is going to do is go on frate barker. It's going to make a right on to buckingham gate and all of that traffic is going to be funneled right to the barenhoff elementary school. It will go right back the elementary school, right by the gatling gun playground. My neighbors who voted for the closing of brodie lane have now considered well maybe that's not such a good idea because gatinggun is going to have a tremendous amount of traffic as it passes by the elementary school and the playground trying to get to brodie. I also represent the saint john's presbyterian church, our church is located at the intersection of 1626 and brodie, we have approximately 200 member ebbs and it is -- the direct path, 1626 where our congregation travels. You are cutting off our way of getting to church. You are also cutting off our missions with marbridge because we won't be able to access them, they won't be able to get to church. Outside of that, I think it's just fundamentally wrong to create a resource for the general public, which is used by the general public, and paid for by all of Travis County and then to put up a barricade so that only a few selectivists can use it. I think so do so is simply unethical. I don't think I have anything more to say. [ applause ]

>> oh, I do have something more to say. The southern part of Travis County is going to be cut off from their sensible route of how they get to their designated schools. The sensible route right now is to go on the existing road. It's to take that 1626 brodie lane intersection and get to three schools. Baranoff, bailey and bowie. You are now making it very cumbersome to -- for these Travis County residents to get to their schools. I think that's all that I have to say.

>> questions?

>> okay. Thank you. [ applause ]

>> hi, laurie bush from as far south as I believe represented here, plumb creek that is in hays county. Also the parent of a child attending bannockburn elementary. I don't want to duplicate what's been said here. I think when you say that hays county, we are there, I don't want to go away, we will take the path of water if you will, like the lady just spoke of, people will find a way to get back to brodie that in fact goes back by your elementary schools or back through roads that are unsafe, that produces a larger problem for everybody. I think it's really not going to be the right solution to close brodie lane. In fact I think it needs to be widened. And I mean until we can build this other roadway, of course that's necessary. But it's not happening and until it does happen I think it's going to be unsafe for the people that do live on manchaca on jack company's little daycare center there, my son attended there for for you years, trying to turn left there three years ago was very difficult to pick him up from school and now we are attending bannockburn, we live in hays county, car pool with seven other students, we sometimes go 35. Then there's an accident on 35 we need to come on 16236 and consequently right on brodie and on into school. Everyone has made the points here, but I urge you to listen to those of us down in hays county with the understanding that we come into Travis County, we do contribute to the economy, we use your businesses and attend your schools and we are not going away and the development down in hays county is only growing, to eliminate major roadways at this point is not a safe for any of us. Until we can come to a regional decision, that can build this other interstate, we cannot close roadways and...

[One moment please for change in captioners]

(first three minutes of hour three were not captioned)

>> I really ask you to look at the bigger picture, the more long-term solution, not short-term solution. Traffic is not the problem, brodie lane is the problem. Thank you. [ applause ]

>> we were going around this way on the end. And then we'll come this way.

>> I wasn't sure whether this was open from -- to anyone, so I took my seat.

>> hopefully it's not different.

>> I think we in the the safety issue.

>> I’ve got a different perspective. I am land locked on the west side of brodie lane at apache forest.

>> and your name is.

>> osler mccarthy. My time to get to work at the Texas supreme court is probably increased since we moved to shady hollow in 1997, probably has increased 10 minutes just to get on to brodie. And it actually is 10 minutes at night when the traffic is moving in both directions with even flow. So while closing brodie might be a good idea, I don't think it's going to happen. So I want to speak to the possibilities, but I think this court in conjunction with the city might be able to do it. We alluded to arrest heard one speaker a-- or heard one speaker allude to traffic signals. And we need some kind of traffic signal to, one, slow down traffic. If it were timed at slaughter, we have a new subdivision, judge aleshire mentioned coming in north now. It's going to generate more traffic that's going to be coming from right -- I’m land locked coming from the west. If we timed traffic signals, put in another traffic signal perhaps at oak park, and I know that's the city. Helped time those, cap stran know -- capistrano, somewhere there, some way to time traffic to slow it down for one thing, to space it out, more important for my considerations, but slowing it down addresses some safety problems here. It's a short-term solution, but nothing we've talked about here. I don't expect that you're going to balance the considerations of people who live in and out of the county, in and out of the neighborhood that are for or against closing brodie lane, whether it be a mistake or whether it wasn't, it's an investment, and I think there are others that are less expensive means to address traffic flow, traffic volume. If water finds its course, then you put a few lights on brodie lane and slow down the traffic, and if I’m coming from hays county I may decide that may be manchaca is a better way or i-35 might be a better route into the city. And traffic is only going to get worse and that's untenable, untenable. We can do something with the restrictions of widening brodie lane. From an environmental viewpoint, we can do some things now, but you're going to have to work with the homeowners associations and you're going to have to work with the city of Austin for some pretty -- I’m not a traffic man, a traffic engineer, I’m a lawyer, but we can slow down traffic on brodie and at least manage the crisis that I think all of us, whether we're coming from hays county or coming from shady hollow or south of shady hollow have to endure. Not that big a deal. And it's becoming ever more an untenable situation.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> yes, sir?

>> judge Biscoe and Commissioners, thanks for the opportunity to speak. I may be able to offer some new stuff today.

>> tell us your name, ken.

>> my name is ken bresnen. I don't represent anybody but my wife, who sent me down here to see if I could help. [ laughter ] I’m just some guy that lives in hays county and owns a business in Travis County. And I’d like to put a little bit of additional information into the system for consideration, if I may. About four weeks ago I was just going about my own business, not bothering anybody, and my wife comes in and says -- she by the way is a hospital social worker that works at georgetown hospital in Williamson county. So for us this is a three-county regional transportation issue on a microscale here. She said, look what they're talking about doing, they're going to shut down brodie. It takes me -- I have to leave for work at 6:45 in the morning. It takes me an hour, hour and 15 minutes to get to work now. We're going to add 30 or 40 minutes a day to my commute. Can you get involved in this and see if you can help? Well, other than following it casually in the papers from time to time, we moved out there about five years ago, we moved to Austin seven years ago. I’ve not been in involved in this in 15 or 20 years, and I come to it fresh, so there's a lot of things I don't know. The only thing I’ve got is maybe fresh eyes or at least one guy's naivete. My first reaction to this was, well, gee, I haven't seen the problem, but there must be a huge problem for these people to go to all this trouble and to propose something so drastic as to shutting down brodie lane. And I immediately went into the mode of, well, gee, we better think about the ramifications of that, and I spent all of my time over the next, you know, few days when I wasn't doing other things, trying to figure out, well, where's that traffic going to go, what's all the litany of things that are bad that are going to happen if they shut down brodie? And I subsequently sent a letter to you folks dated April 10th, and somebody got ahold of it and said, hey, there's going to be a meeting at the manchaca fire department, would you come out and speak to us? So I put together a presentation of the stuff that was a basically in that letter and I went and spoke. The best thing about that meeting is that Davis williams, president of the homeowners association in shady hollow, was invited to come present to the group, which he did. And in that presentation he enumerated the various things that you've heard today and on other occasions. In addition to that, he added some color commentary about various and sundry things and various anecdotes and just like some of the stuff we've heard and seen today, it pulls at your heart. It pulls at your heart. If it is true to the degree they say it's true, any caring person would have to be sympathetic to that. But at the same meeting, other people came up to me and they said, this is completely at variance with what we experience everyday. We drive that road. And they're seeing things that we don't see. It's like there's two different visions of the world here. And I got to wondering at that point if this whole process wasn't backwards, like backwards in two ways. One is, it kind of started as a homeowner association-generated political process that's jumped right to the head of the line in terms of do we close brodie or not, which to me was amazing for something that should be a regional transportation infrastructure analysis, planning and execution type thing. But hey, you know, that's fine. The second backwards part of it to me was we were working from a given statement that there is a problem that is drastic, and we've heard words today like critical and terrorist, some really over the top kind of discussion. The second part of that is we're assuming the solution, or someone is, that the only solution is to close brodie. And I began to wonder basically four things. One is, since I hadn't seen it and other people hadn't seen it, I have a little slice of the world. There's lots of things I don't see. I assume that I was wrong and there was a big problem and maybe there is. But the four questions that occurred to me were the order of events ought to be, one, is there a problem? If there is, how bad is the problem? If the problem is bad, will closing brodie make it better? And if you think about closing brodie, what's all the badness that happens to the poor suckers that are left on the other side of the barricade? So this process has gone kind of backwards in my opinion. So I kind of went back to the front of the process, and over the last week or so I’ve been doing my own little piece of work on this, which I’d like to share with you now. Sorry for the long preliminary, but it's important that you know how we got to going to all this trouble. What we wound up with here was two campdz wampz, one of which is going to be unhappy when the smoke clears if the whole thing gets down to a 0-1 type deal, win or lose, close brodie, don't close brodie. Those two camps have very different statements that they have made here and then other places. On the close brodie side of this, the issues that were in the petition that was circulated or really survey, I should probably call it, was the volume of traffic on brodie lane is at dangerous levels, and that this traffic directly impacts the health, safety and welfare of the people in the shady hollow area. That they are tired of waiting in long lines, which priewmz there are indeed long lines. Presumes that there are indeed long lines. That they want their children to be safer crossing brodie lane to go to baranoff elementary school and bailey school. If somebody asked me a survey and asked me if it I would like my children to be safer and would I not like to wait in long lines, you bet you, I’d be all for that. In addition, in the public and private conversations that I’ve had with various people, the other two issues or other main issue is -- seems to be hard to get on and off of brodie. And the reason for this is all that bad traffic coming down fm 1686 -- 1626, excuse me,, let's face it, by and large the hays county traffic, otherwise proposals that would have allowed the southern Travis County people to come in, but would block off the hays county traffic, would probably not be one of the things that's being considered. The other thing that I’m hearing with my other ear is people saying what traffic problem? We don't see it. They're saying their health, safety and welfare are just fine, better than most. It's a lot worse elsewhere. They're saying what wait? We don't have to wait at any time, rush hours or otherwise. Most times. There's always a flukey day, but most times we don't have to wait. They say that our children are safer than most, and this is people that live in the area and have children in school in the area. That children don't cross brodie, baranoff and bailey are set back way in the neighborhood unlike other schools and by and large the children ride to school. Now, there may be a little bit of a chicken and egg thing here and we'll talk about that. They say there's no problem with accessing brodie, particularly at the rush hours, particularly the morning rush hour when people were trying to come in rather than go into the neighborhoods. And basically they're saying most of the traffic is caused by intra shady hollow factors. So their position on this is works great, ain't broke, don't fix it. Because it's going to cause all kinds of problems. Why do it? So we have two very different perceptions of reality. So how to figure this out? What's the best way to figure out something, to actually know and to understand the facts? And I would suggest two things. In my experience it's been, when you have this kind of an issue, whether it's a business situation or it's a situation with kids or other kind of disputes like this, one of the best things to do is just go look and look thoroughly and thoughtfully. And secondly, you really can't understand somebody else's pain unless you walk a mile in their shoes. I think it's true and I think it's appropriate for this situation. So based on this, I put together my own little study. I am an engineer, but anybody could do this. This is a dumb, dumb study that just basically says, if you drive in brodie -- on brodie lane in the area of shady hollow where all the dispute is, what is your experience? So I basically set up a path that runs from gatling run on one end, which is sort of the southern terminus of the shady hollow area, and there's a light there, and slaughter lane, not on the inside of the intersection, but on the far side of the intersection, because one of the issues is, well, yeah, but I get stuck at slaughter lane and I have to wait and all this. I’ve been trying to set up a worst case condition so that anyone that cares to either try to replicate this or to challenge different parts of it could basically come to the same conclusions. They could run this test any time, and if it's a good test, they ought to get something that's pretty similar. Having set that up -- by the way, I’m not going to take the time now to go through and describe that stretch of brodie, but it is a sweet little stretch of road that is well designed for what it's doing, and this will come out when you see the results basically of this little test here. So I started on Friday and I took the weekend off, and then four days of the next week, so we covered Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I started out at 6:30 each morning and continued back and forth across that stretch until 8:30 in the morning. I also did that same thing between 4:30 and 6:30 in the afternoon. -- in the evening. This covered both the rush hours. I also did a one-day test of the lunch hour because at the manchaca fire hall one of the statements that was made that left me a little perplexed was david williams indicated that the situation was so bad on brodie lane that you couldn't even get into the neighborhood at the noon hour to go sign some check. Which I took it at face value since he said it, but it didn't seem quite plausible. So I did a test that day. So these are a lot of numbers, and I don't expect to spend any time going through that other than to point out two things. We've got data in both rush hours, we've got data northbound, we've got data southbound in the morning the heavier traffic is going northbound. That's that zoning ordinance of blondeish color over on the far right side. In the evening it's the opposite of that. I collected data for every time period across there in 10 minute segments. The time that you see that have been marked in read are for that particular time segment across five days. It's the highest number, that is, the longest time it took to transit that intersection. And I put the highest numbers down in those yellow columns over there. Right next to them are the average ones. We're trying to look at this from a worst case standpoint. So let's look at the evening traffic. What you see in the evening is the traffic is basically spread out fairly evenly across the rush hour. That on average it takes five or six minutes to transition from slaughter lane -- that is, the outside of slaughter lane, whether you're coming west -- coming east from the west from mopac and you stop at the lane, that's when the clock goes on. While you're waiting in traffic to clear slaughter or if you're coming the other direction and you stop at the light in a line of traffic waiting to clear. When you're waiting to clear the clock goes on. The clock stops when you get to gatling gun on the other side of this. That transit is very regularly about five to six minutes, fairly flat and consistently across that entire time period. Once or twice in that five-day period we saw some peak travel times of eight minutes, and that was southbound with the heavier traffic. The evening rush hour speed through the neighborhood averaged -- because there's three speed zones there, two traffic lights that are in the center. The average speed across there was 25 to 30 miles per hour. Very consistently. At the lunch hour -- I only did this one day because there wasn't anybody there at lunch hour. It takes five minutes to get across there. By the way, I wanted to go back and point out one thing. If you travel that stretch of brodie either direction and there is -- you don't hit a light, there's no other traffic, and there's no school zone operating, the fastest that you can legally get across there is four minutes. The average here is a minute or two longer than that at rush hour. At noontime of course it's the same thing. You can't get through there any faster than about four minutes. You average about five as a practical matter because every now and then you do hit a stoplight. The situation in the morning is actually a little bit different. Prior to 7:00 you see the same sort of thing as you see in the evenings and in the lunch hour. It takes basically four to six minutes to get across there. At 7:00 things change. Why is that? Well, the school zone goes on. The school zone has a 20 miles per hour speed limit. The cars that are in the school zone slow down. The cars that are behind them that were going 35 miles per hour slow down. And that's when a queue builds. And on different days the queue is different lengths. That queue may be long, but it is moving and it's moving consistently. There's a little stop and go because you catch a light every now and then. The traffic problem, quote unquote, reaches a peak right at the 7:20 to 7:30 time frame. That's because of basically three things. The school zone is on. The students are going to school. There's a lot of intra shady hollow traffic as people taking their kids to school. And thirdly, there tends to be a clumping in the morning of people waiting as late as they can to go to work so the traffic gets a little heavier right around 7:30. You see it as it's pouring out of the neighborhood. The peak time, right at that time, through the neighborhood, to transit that neighborhood, based on about 30 times doing it during the -- during this two-hour period, is nine minutes. The worst case that was experienced over the five-day period was one time it was 12 minutes and one time it was 11 minutes. The fastest that you can get through there when the school zone is on is about five and a half minutes. The southbound traffic, which I’d like to make a comment on, as you drive north you see a lot of traffic coming from Austin going southbound along brodie heading out to 1626. It's people that for a variety of reasons, business or trying to get home from a morning shift or who knows what, but there's about a third of the traffic, give or take, that is running northbound -- excuse me, running southbound while the morning rush hour traffic is running northbound. That traffic takes about six minutes to get across there. That's not a bad proxy. For best case what might happen if there were no other traffic coming in from hays county. In fact, the traffic is -- it's probably even better than that because it's probably less traffic than you're going to wind up with if you take out the hays county and southern Travis County traffic. But it's about six minutes. The net average delay that we're talking about here is three minutes northbound with an occasional additional three minutes. That happens on an infrequent basis every now and then. The traffic is slow and the lines go at the peak morning rush hour, again, the primary number one reason is the school zone comes on and the traffic line changes and cars back up some. It makes impressive photographs. That's by the way the time when all of the photographers and news reporters are out there with their cameras pointing south down along that traffic.

>> the average speed of the southbound traffic is about 25 miles per hour. The average speed of the northbound traffic slows to worst case about 17 miles per hour, but it sort of averages about 20 miles per hour. Ladies and gentlemen, this is -- all of these numbers are based if you're driving the whole stretch, that is, if you're trying to leave from gatlin gun and you have to drive the whole stretch. If you're trying to leave the street from somewhere in the middle it's going to be shorter. I don't know whether if you come in at the half it's half as much, but it's something shorter. So instead of a three-minute delay on average, you're looking at a minute or two delay on average.

>> you're about to get to your bottom line?

>> yes, sir, I am. Two quick points. As we drove back and forth on the street, we did not see -- I did not see over this entire period of time any cars having problems egressing on to the street for two reasons. One is, the lights worked, they changed, the streets, the traffic clears. The most I ever saw backed up with my own eyes was 15 cars and it's usually more like five to 10 during the rush hour. From the side streets the cars come in because the street is wide, the traffic's going slow, which is the main benefit of that school zone, and people wave them in and they blend in nicely. This is there for anybody to see that wants to go out and look. In the evening, cars turn left either at the turn lane at the light because there are two turn lanes there, or traffic flows smoothly around the cars, as someone pointed out. The schools are back in the neighborhood, arguing the issue of children and children's safety is -- that's a tough one is how do you do that, other than to point out what other people have said is there's a lot of schools to be considered here. In terms of children and cross walks along brodie in the morning, I did not see children on the sidewalks, I did not see children crossing at lights, I did not see children at the school zone, and I saw the crossing guard out of the vehicle only twice, once to cross an adult and once to visit with some people that were walking the dog. At the schools when I stopped and looked, there were very few children seen walking. Most were being dropped off by automobiles, I think some by buses, and the traffic seemed to flow well. There are multiple reasons why people don't send their children off into the neighborhood to walk to school. I don't know how to weight these. Some of them are distances. You can be in shady hollow and be almost two miles away from the schools. There's a lot of neighborhood streets to cross and I’m sure parents worry about that as well. Plus these are small children, elementary and middle school. You worry about sending them out and making they will vulnerable. I don't think any of that is going to change by stopping some cars from hays county. So my conclusion to all of this is brodie is well designed and it's working well at this instant in time. I don't know about things 15, 20 years ago and I don't know what things are going to be like three years, five years from now. At the moment it seems to be working well. It was a good investment by whoever put that capital improvement in, and it's working and it's doing its job. It serves not just shady hollow or not just hays, it serves southeastern travis and it serves a lot of people from Austin that use it on the wowrnt commute. The -- the ciewrnt commute. The road is safe for all users. We've heard a lot of horror stories about car crashes and things like that. What we need to get is the accident data and compare that rationally with accidents on similar streets over time. As far as I can tell, there are no out of the ordinary or excessive travel time delays, no apparent problem with access and egress. The children appear to be safe. Closing brodie on fm 1626 should have no material positive impact on shady hollow users, and, of course, closing it will have a material negative impact on both shady hollow users and non-shady hollow users. This study can basically be repeated by anyone or anyone that just wants to casually go out there and drive around for a couple of hours is welcome to do that. You'll see the same thing. So finally --

>> we do need you to conclude. We appreciate your hard work, thorough report. It's been a rather lengthy presentation, though. We'll give your report to our transportation staff and let them make of it what they wil we do appreciate it. A lot of work went into this. You were driving up and down brodie at the times that you indicate here?

>> yes, sir. I drove up and down 150 times. That's roughly equivalent to driving from Austin to dallas and back at 20 to 25 miles per hour.

>> okay.

>> over a period of about 20 hours. So I think the data, you know, may be statistically sound to some degree.

>> doing good work for the family. I’m glad your wife asked you to do it. Thank you. [ applause ]

>> sir, I appreciate the fact that you clearly put in some time and energy into this, but what is not in that report is how many other people were sharing the road with you during that same time period? This is not simply a matter of the quality of anybody's trip on that roadway, it's also about quantity. And that's the one thing that is missing from this report are traffic counts. And traffic counts are part of any valid traffic study.

>> yes, ma'am.

>> I don't want to get into an argument, I’m just saying thank you for your perspective.

>> I’m just telling you that those numbers have been previously presented. I didn't want to repeat them for you.

>> they're relevant as well.

>> right.

>> now, without sounding arbitrary or callous, I’m kind of to the point where I’m not sure that more testimony today will help us. It seems to my -- not to cut y'all off because you're sitting there ready to chat and give testimony and we're ready to listen, but it seems to me that that whe theed to do is give all this some thought, try to give some directions to staff real soon and try to get from where we are to the next point. And my request is that if there is something that has not been said that you're convinced we ought to hear today, then we're ready to listen. My e-mail stack is about four, five inches. And really, I sent our transportation staff about 80% of the ones that I received because I started late after about two or three days, and then I have not sent over the ones that I received yesterday evening and this morning, and they numbered probably about 100. So what I’m saying is a whole lot has been said, it is hard to say something new and different, but we're ready to hear it. Yes?

>> I will pass to the next individual.

>> good afternoon. I would like to say that the comments I would like to make have been e-mailed to all of you, including his honor. My name is suzanne bhiet. I come from eight years living downtown. And have within the last six months become a resident of district 3 at emerald oaks drive. I’m a homeowner whose lot backs to brodie lane. And I’m here to say that I’m against closing in any way or in any way impeding traffic using that intersection of 1626 and brodie. I’m here to speak both for myself and for other people who cannot be here today. As for myself, I live in a house back to go brodie. I can sit on my back porch and I can watch and hear the traffic going both north and south on brodie, on a daily basis, any time day and night. I assure you that the only appearances of heavy traffic are during morning and evening commutes. I was going to say there was no night traffic nightmare on brodie lane and had numbers similar to ken's. One of the two wage earners that have moved here recently is a teacher who sought a teaching position in the area, but waited for months before an offer came. It was from the san marcos school district. He now bruises brodie and 1626 twice daily on weekdays to commute to his school. Closing brodie at 1626 would require him to take manchaca flortsdz 1626 during his evening commute and require a left turn at the intersection of manchaca and frate barker. You have also heard before how that can be dangerous even now. Having taken this route myself I can tell you this is a treacherous endeavor during the evening rush hour and one that could become even more so if 1626 is restricted. That neighborhood house also backs to brodie lane. They are against the closing and have state sod in writing. Although I office at home, I commute on average several times a week from my home to downtown via 1626 and 35. I would also have to use that intersection and I’ve got to tell you it's a possibility I would dread. I am here to speak for my next-door neighbor to the south who lived in shady hollow for approximately 13 years. They moved from shady hollow proper to the current home in about the last six months. They're a two wage earner family who both commute to their offices twice daily via brodie. Their house also backs to brodie and they've gone on record in writing as being against the closure. I’m here to speak of the residents of owe olympic heights who have two entrances to the neighborhood, one at manchaca and one at frate barker. That entrance would become much more difficult if brodie was impeded, causing much more traffic on frate barker. I am here to speak for our neighbors at mar bridge, the residents, employees, the contractors and the suppliers, restriction of 1626 and brodie would definitely be a hardship for them. I’m here to speak for our future neighbors who will reside in already approved, but not yet erected subdivisions between frate barker road and 1626. Who if the intersection is impeded will have an intersection virtually at the edge of their neighborhood which they will be prevented from using, forcing them to contribute to the brodie, frate barker and manchaca traffic all the time when they could otherwise use the 1626-brodie intersection when needed. I’m here to speak on behalf of residents served by the pedernales cooperative. Children who ride the aisd school buses. Children who attend manchaca elementary and area residents who may require fire, e.m.s. Assistance in the future. All these people would be adversely affected by any restriction of the intersections. A large percentage of the northbound traffic morning rush hour is either from shady hollow or adjacent neighborhoods such as mine. Diverting traffic from 16 twaiks and brodie would not make a significant difference in travel time, but it will cause hardships for many people. I thank you for your time and attention and I urge you to support brodie remaining what it was designated to be, an arterial roadway, not a neighborhood on road or street. Please vote to keep brodie open. [ applause ]

>> I’m jane dwayne and I am a president dent of barker ranch and I was just -- just quickly, I am not going to repeat any of the other things, but I was asked to give you these statistics from a survey of the residents of barker ranch. 72% of the residents have signed to keep the street open. Seven percent refuse to sign it or indicated that they want it closed, and 20% we had no response at all. Thank you.

>> thank you, ma'am.

>> my name is (indiscernible). I’m a resident of hays county. I have a slightly unique perspective on some of these issues because I make maps for the city of Austin and I have considerable gis data available to make an analysis. I gave you a project I spent quite a bit of time producing that shows some of the measurements of areas from the schools in question to right-of-way. You can see those and look through them. I’m not going to go through it page by page. You can through it. I’ve e-mailed each one of you too in the past. You can hook through there and see the distances to the schools. We've already talked about it. It's kind of a dead horse at this point. But you can go back and see exactly these distances that we're talking about. It's very close. One thing I want to bring to your attention, and this has not been discussed, is there have been several occasions where 1626 has been blocked because of severe weather, flooding and severe accidents where there's fatalities. This has happened between brodie and the manchaca volunteer fire department. When that happens, the road is blocked. It's blocked until the investigation is over. And who knows how long the investigations will take. This map shows how far the manchaca volunteer fire department has to go to get to my subdivision. If brodie is closed and if 1626 is blocked. And it's 16.9 miles all the way through the city of buda. There's no other route, period. That's the shortest distance. Okay. You can look through these other things. The demographics -- it's very interesting when you compare it to the rest of Travis County. They had mentioned the 2020 plan. The 2020 plan that Austin approved, Austin metropolitan transit plan, identifies brodie as a four-lane divided road. And you think, how could that be that two-lane road a four-lane divided road. It just doesn't make sense. If you look in gis and you look at the aerial photos and you turn based on the right-of-way going through shady hollow is aye feet wide. That's plenty of width for a four-lane divided road.

>> I also have a measurement of south first street. The right-of-way for south first street is 64 feet. So it's significantly anyway rower and it's supporting -- narrower and it's supporting four lanes. I have one other idea that popped up as a solution. You can look through any solutions if you want. My solution that I thought of that would be a lose-lose, but I would be willing to accept it because it's not a they win, we lose proposition, is if you close brodie north of shady hollow and they were as equally inconvenienced as we are. They would be forced to drive on majorly congested roads just like we are, but they would achieve the dead end subdivision that they desire. They wouldn't have people cutting through if it were blocked north of their subdivision. Thank you.

>> good afternoon. My name is john gommer. I’m a hays county resident. I work in Travis County. What I presented to you is a very simple summary of a traffic study that a fellow and I did. We spent time to collect six hours of videotape footage and you might ask what would we do with that? Watch all six hours and collect every bit of numbers that we could are from it. Each of the areas on the sheet indicate the numbers of northbound and southbound traffic at three major intersections. We chose them because it core dons off all the traffic between the brodie triangle area. Most of the traffic appears to be originating from within the brodie triangle area itself. Now, the total numbers you'll see in the upper right corner there break out where the vehicles came from. Now, what this -- where this study started is I’m an analyst by disposition and by training. And I found this to be a very unique problem. Unfortunately, mrs. Sonleitner has departed here just in time to miss the numbers she so desperately wanted. But the 1562 vehicles that lead the area everyday are -- a majority of the traffic appears to originate based on this study from that area. So I suppose that the other useful piece of that that I have is in watching this six hours of footage, this particular two hours of footage looking at frate barker at hugh let lane there was very interesting, seeing lots and lots of evidence of contention. It's a term the civil engineers like to use when people nearly get in accidents. There were a few times where people were stopping and starting and the most -- if it weren't actually happening to a real person, the hilarious one would be the fellow that had to back up in order to yield properly to traffic moving eastbound on frate barker. Now, that's caused partly by close encoachment of trees on the south side of frate barker to the west of hewlett lane. I would ask that y'all request an observation on that by your engineers to see if there is something to be done in that point. Thank you for your time. [ applause ]

>> (indiscernible).

>> yes. In fact, I believe it backs up eight of the positions he revealed as well earlier.

>> yes, sir.

>> my name is robin lee and I live in an area called southwest territory, which is at the far southwest corner of Travis County. That's off of 1626. That puts us in the bowie and the bailey school districts. Right now aisd buses go down this and pull children from the 40 or 50 homes back in that territory. I just wanted to ask you to vote no against the closing of brodie because that's our access to the schools that we choose to bring our children to. My wife and I made many sacrifices last July to buy a home in that area just so we could bring our kids in that school district, into bowie high school, and it seems like the residents of shady hollow just want to take that away from us. I would appreciate it if you would vote no, leave it open, and consider those that still live in Travis County beyond frate barker. Thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> my name is craig (indiscernible). I’d like to speak to you as an individual and make one recommendation I haven't heard here yet today. My last stint in the marine corps was at the pentagon, and one of the things that I had to do was commute there on a daily basis. You talk about traffic. You haven't seen traffic. Like, I’ve seen -- you haven't seen traffic like I’ve seen. In the city of arlington to move traffic through a city that is small and has small roads, what they do is they allow a movement -- they actually have cones and street lights to designate certain lanes going northbound and then reverse that process in the evening commute so that you have -- like in the case of shady hollow, you could have three lanes of traffic, two moving north and one moving south. There's enough roadway to do that already. And so you could expedite some of that traffic that's going through there and do the reverse in the evening to where you have two lanes through shady hollow at night and one lane going north. It's just a different type of perspective. In reality if you looked -- and I don't know the gentleman from the city. I didn't know about the right-of-way. Just looking at the fence setbacks, there's enough room there to give four lanes of traffic and a turn lane and then you could go down to three until you got to green emerald. And then from green emerald all the way down to 1626 there's enough right-of-way to do four lanes again. So worst case scenario you're at fourth, you come down to two and you go back to four. That would do a lot to ease some of the congestion. Thank you.

>> my name is jo mcgraw and I live in the estates of shady hollow. I’ve been a resident of the shady hollow, manchaca area for in excess of 25 years. So I don't have the luxury of some of these people that don't remember when brodie didn't go through all the way. All the brodie traffic used to go in front of my front door on edwards hollow run. When the county came to us years ago and said we would like to extend brodie and we have this grand traffic plan for improving the road and state highway 45 was on the map at that time, we were going to go frate barker through to 45, all these grand plans. That's the last thing that's happened. You know, I can't speak for shady hollow, I can speak for myself. We don't want to live in a dead end neighborhood. I support the closing of brodie, but I simply support it to -- let's be honest, to put pressure on somebody to do something. Widen brodie, bring pressure on the state to finish 45. Do something. It might just be right. But do something. But right now the only alternative to us on the table because everybody is saying there's no money to do anything. Closing -- I support the closing of brodie. I don't think it's long-term solution. I don't think most of us think it's a long-term solution. It's a quick fix, but maybe it will bring enough pressure to bear that something will get done in the southwest part of town. For those -- the nicest thing that's happened over the last few weeks is with all the publicity, the traffic volume has plummeted on brodie. The people coming in from hays county and from out have looked -- it's been obvious to me. I’m at my intersection every morning at 7:05, regular as rain. The volume is incredible. People are abandoning that path because they think it's closing and they're looking for alternate paths. I talked to people in hays county that are now coming over and coming in 290. Peopl are looking for alternatives. If we keep it up it might get down to liveable levels. The the long-term is there's got to be something done in the southwest quadrant of time. We cannot continue to go year after year after year with no plan to do any improvements out there and we continue to issue permits for new diswitionz. The extension of brodie was done simply to supply access, path for new subdivisions to be built, and they're built and now there's more subdivisions being built. And sooner or later there's got to be some increased traffic flow in that part of town. There's been nothing done out there for so many years that I can't even count it. And y'all are acutely aware of that. There has been no traffic improvement out there. Manchaca still sitting there choked down to two lanes, brodie still sitting there at two lanes. Please do something. Just make an effort to do something. Thank you.

>> john, let me say something about that. If anybody thinks that any of us aren't doing everything within our power -- I live in -- you know. Anybody that knows anything about me, the reason I got into this is because I was so frustrated with not being able to get from point a to point b and I’ve been in this community 37 years.

>> absolutely.

>> and let me tell you, unfortunately it takes things like this to ignite people to get -- I’m not saying that you're lazy because everybody has got kids, everybody has got family, everybody has got everything in the world to do. We go to campo once a month, and let me tell you, I’d like to have a show of hands in this room, who thinks they are for the toll roads? Let me tell you, there's not a hand that goes up in this room. And let me tell you what we are up against the wall with.

>> I understand.

>> I don't believe everything that txdot tells me. I’ve learned not to believe everything, but we have somehow got to find a way to go to the right places -- and for example, there is a 500-million-dollar bond proposal that's coming up for the city of Austin, and there's not one dollar in there about added capacity of roads. I mean, what's the water quality land cut off everything that we could have gotten to southwest, we fight the city of Austin to build 45 southwest. Some of us are trying like all get out to do these things. I doubt that there's anybody -- I mean, 99% of the people that voted for the closing of it will look you in the eye and tell you they think that it's the thing to do. But they'll look you in the eye and tell you that I don't have any choice. I mean, we're up to here. Everybody knows -- and I rode with ken and the one thing that I saw is that you can flow through there. The flow is not necessarily an issue. Commissioner Sonleitner brought it up. But the volume of traffic is of issue. That doesn't mean that you can't get up and down the road. But trust me, when you look at it and say do something, I mean, short of taking a gun to the highway commission and saying -- what has to happen here for us to get something to happen? I mean, 45 southwest, you're right, should have been done. And we have gone -- I’ve gone to senators, I’ve gone to state representatives, I’ve gone to congressional people, and do you know what? U.s. Fish and wildlife is federal law, and whenever you have something that's called a blind salamander that is stop everything. And it is the water flow. It's not necessarily -- I mean, not to say that we don't drink the water in the edwards aquifer, but it is stopping, it is degradation and it is perhaps harmful to the salamander. That is absolutely the thing that has stopped us from building the road. And I know that people go to meeting and I know that we can all get real exercised to do things, but let me tell you what, I mean, I’m happy. I mean, I hope that I get this much enthusiasm to come and go to the highway commission or come to campo because I’m going to tell you, we go, like I said, once a month and what we do is we go up and get called everything other than a human being for doing something that we think that we're supposed to be doing, which is finding -- because part of the problem is funding of roadways. I mean, it's not just environmental. Some of it is funding. It just so happens that 45 southwest is not a funding issue. The county spent three million dollars to buy the land. The road is completely designed. We have got the money and the bank to build it, we just can't build it from an environmental standpoint. So I don't want anybody to leave this room today thinking that wee we don't care and that we're not trying. I mean, I will assure you that we don't sit around and agenda sitting each week and think, let's put something on here that is going to really tick off about 5,000 people. I mean, that's not what we're trying to do.

>> Gerald, don't get me bronc. I appreciate the -- don't get me wrong. I appreciate the effort you're putting forth. Unless the pressure is brought to bar, nothing is going to happen.

>> let's not leave -- and quite frankly, I know that some of the shady hollow people are afraid, they're not going to get a 5-0 vote and people will go back to their houses and they won't care about shady hollow. They won't care about the traffic. And I don't think that any of y'all that say vote no on it that you don't care about shady hollow. I know because you're people and if you lived somewhere where it was come thrug there, you would want an elected official to come up and say, do something for us. That's really what we're trying to do, but too often we are put in a spot where I watch people leave and they think, they just don't care. My god, this job is no fun at best. I mean, whenever you have something this contentious. I mean, it's not that anybody wants to make anybody mad, y'all. We're just trying to figure out how to do it. I hope that I can depend on the people that came to this room to either come to campo or maybe we need to go to the highway commission because I will tell you the people that go to the highway commission are the people that want something from the highway commission. And it's not -- I probably couldn't have found 10 people in this room today when it was completely full that's ever been to a highway commission meeting. Now, part of that is because you don't know where to go. I didn't know where to go either until I got into this stuff, but I will assure you that we have enough e-mail addresses now from this subject matter that -- [ laughter ]

>> hopefully you'll send them to us.

>> that some of you may be getting e-mails from my office, saying I want you to show up at the highway commission, I’ll go and I’ll start and I’ll been over there twice and gotten slapped around both times when I’ve gone over there, but sometimes numbers work. So don't just leave us today and whatever decision is made on this thing and act like that -- or think that we don't care because I will assure you there's no a person up here that will look at you and say, we don't really care what you think. That's not the reason we do this job. [one moment, please, for change in captioners] there are Travis County residents impacted by this as well, I know our voice is much smaller than shady hollow, I have a lot of very good friends in shady hollow, obviously my daughter does, too, because her friends live there. But please consider closing brodie does impact Travis County residents as well as hays county residents. I would also like since I’ve got the microphone and the attention is to address f.m. 1626 and the intersection of bliss miller right next to the softball fields recently located there. There's a lot of traffic that comes down off of brodie going to the softball practice, baseball practice, softball games, baseball games and that intersection is -- has become quite a bit more dangerous over the last year or so. Since the softball fields have been put in, that's also traffic from shady hollow that uses that intersection. Southbound manner. Thank you.

>> thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> my name is brenda when it taker -- whitaker, I’m a Travis County voter, I have family that lives in leisurewood and I am there almost every day. My main concern is safety on 1626, two traffic fatalities on that road. My daughter-in-law was killed a year ago February on that road and -- from the intersection on 1626 to manchaca there's a curve that's called dead man's curve. There's no lighting, it's a two lane, very dangerous and the thought of putting I think y'all said 10,000 more vehicles on that road bypassing brodie is just scary to me. The other fact is that there is a lot of accidents on that curve and when like the gentleman from the city said, when those roads are completely blocked off, where are we diverted from hays county, leashwood, those areas. Leisurewood, those areas, there really is no diversion there. You do have accidents especially on that curve a lot. One of the fatalities three or four weeks ago happened on a curve closer to i-35 but had south first completely closed or had 1626 closed before south first which diverted everybody back to manchaca. If you have brodie closed that's everybody in that area now going to manchaca trying to get out. So that's a huge concern of mine that if you do close brodie where are we diverted to because you are going to have those accidents. I know it's probably a while before that becomes a four lane, before that's proper lighting on that highway, but it is extremely dangerous and I really hope y'all take that into consideration. Thank you. [ applause ]

>> thank you.

>> my name is Ron brown. And I’m a 12-year leisurewoods resident. I just wanted to point out that -- that we've been impacted out there by the five to 10,000 homes built in kyle that I would say a large number of them, perhaps not half, tend to drive north on 1626. Past our subdivision and we have 55 miles an hour speed limits at our entrance there, that's -- that's a location of several bad accidents and just -- just the idea that -- that doing anything to close roads in this area is a little bit of insanity, and I would like to thank the Commissioners for their thought going into this matter. And I would like to -- to hope that all of us can pull together and build some sensible roads, environmentally sound, and complete our sr 45 extension there. Thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ]

>> yes, sir.

>> I’m kevin cooper, a barker ranch resident. I am here to say that I would like to see you oppose the closing of brodie lane. My family uses it every day. I would also like to commend each and every Commissioner on this court because -- in the past life I worked with y'all. All the time on different issues. Especially Commissioner Daugherty on transportation issues and always there as an advocate for your county and your people and you work hard at it and I don't know if you are recognized for it or not. But thank you for what you do for us. Again, I reiterate that I believe it may not have been said, also, that -- that closing brodie lane may indeed adversely affect the value of my home and I’m all about making money off of that place later. So -- so please consider that, that it might not if you close brodie lane that it may make some buyer not want it. I -- I appreciate your time and if you have any questions of me, I would be glad to try to answer them. So -- thanks.

>> what's the latest word from the senator? Kevin worked for senator hutchinson for a long time and so he's always been a real go-to guy for me. I know that she's, you know, sympathetic to our cause here and so we are in contact with her, but, you know, you are still -- you know --

>> I will have to turn that around and say you have always been her go-to guy here in the county. She's doing fine, I’ve been gone from there about two months now.

>> governor ratliff.

>> yes, thank you.

>> yes, thanks.

>> my name is angela streeter, I live in hays county off of bliss miller, in a neighborhood called chaparral park. I am sort of representative of my neighborhood and the fact that we do not want brodie to be closed. I’m not going to repeat anything that -- about safety issues or e.m.s., but I haven't heard anything about economic impact that would directly affect us, mileage, gas, extra commute time, et cetera, but there is also considerations like kevin mentioned on home values and also we have extremely high home insurance rates due to having a volunteer fire department with 10 to 12 minute average response times already. And if -- if brodie was closed, it will impact the response time, who knows how long, two minutes, five minutes, I don't know. But -- but the insurance rates would go up. So -- so we would be directly affected economically that way, also. So not only would we pay higher insurance than we already pay, but we would also pay more in gas, more in mileage, you know, et cetera. So that's just what I wanted to say. [ applause ]

>> thank you very much. We do appreciate all of you for coming down and providing input. This item did attract a little attention.

>> I kept waiting to see if somebody would say it, and didn't.

>> if you don't mind.

>> don't mind at all. Dinner is on the table at 5:00. It's cold whenever I get there.

>> mine is fixed whenever I get there. This is one of those things where everybody is right. This is one of those things where everybody is right. One thing that I mentioned is we certainly got everybody's attention. There were a whole lot of folks that didn't think they were stakeholders related to the impasse on s.h. 45 southwest, guess what, you are now stakeholders. We need your help and we need to redirect this energy and this enthusiasm, this civic participation to help us try to get that roadway done. Nine years is ridiculous. In terms of something that was placed before the voters, approved by the voters and we need, this is certainly going to bring a lot of stakeholders in terms of somebody saying please do something, let me also tell you that I have been pulling plats for discussion for the last year, anything on brodie lane, anything on frate barker, putting it in the record that once again we are ministerially having to approve a plat and we do not have the if you are to support what's going on. I have stopped approving preliminary plans for that area, which is a discretionary action because there is insufficient infrastructure. The train wreck is here and people have got to pay attention to the third train that is fixing to hit the wreck that's already happened. Anyone that is in the city of Austin or the city of Austin e.t.j. I beg you to please get educated and participate in the election that has to do with proposition 2. This is the things that was not mentioned by anyone. I heard a lot of people suggesting well, work with the city to get traffic lights. Work with the city to get an expansion of the road. Work with the city, fill in the blank. If proposition 2 passes forget about it. The language of this, shall the city charter be amended to limit investment in roads, utilities, water quality infrastructure, drainage infrastructure and other infrastructure extensions and capacity expansions, in the barton springs zone, which includes a large portion of southwest Austin and Travis County, including and it mentions a whole lot of neighborhoods, it furthermore goes in talking about prohibiting the city of Austin from participating in or supporting certain road projects. I’m not going to tell you how to vote on this, I think you can figure out how I’m going to vote on this. But for goodness sakes get educated and participate in this election because the debate over brodie is going to pale in comparison if proposition 2 becomes law. Thank you.

>> where do we go from here? In my view we ought to take time and mull over comments that we received today and that we received in the last 10 to 14 days and reduce to writing specific recommendations, get with staff, try to figure out what is doable, what kind of time schedule we are looking at, at some point we have to address the issue of closure, in some way or the -- or the other and put this matter back on the court's agenda, I would say in two weeks. May 14th, that's 16th, I guess, and hopefully three or four days before the 16th try to make public specific written recommendations so those who desire to give some response and/or come down on may 16th will have a few days to look at our recommendations. To decide how to respond. I heard three or four ideas that kind of makes sense to me, but I don't know whether it makes sense to others. I have not looked at specific right-of-way already available and what options we have with it. The other thing is if it's already congested and you go in and add one or two more lanes in places where you can, the question is how much relief does that provide, how long will it take you to do it, what will it cost? What would be the source of funding to get it done. So some of the options make sense, but I think that they require a bit more due diligence before we can land on them. As well as maybe kind of brainstorm with txdot and s.o.s. About ways that we can expedite completion of s.h. 45, if it's possible. There may be ways to reach some sort of compromise on environmental measures. And if not I think that we just have to live with that and let that project unfold. But it forces us to focus on other remedies that we might be able to implement.

>> judge, I told you that I had a meeting next Monday at 2:00 with -- with all of our staff, txdot and s.o.s. To talk about -- about you know what we might be able to find some, you know, some ground with them. I mean, I think you all heard don nyland say that it's not just that issue. It's not just the threat of a lawsuit, I mean, there are things that we have to do procedurally, I mean, because u.s. Fish and wildlife says that what you've got to do. But we're going to work towards something. What I would like for people to think about is are there some things that people can throw out there to the other side to say, you know, we do feel your pain, I mean,, you know, what people don't want to hear is just, you know, we don't care. I hope in the spirit of getting something done that everybody will go back and -- and try to work, you know, with -- with this situation. So -- anyway, a couple of weeks.

>> that's my idea. Anything else from the court members.

>> thank you all for coming down.

>> thank you all for coming down. If we have e-mail addresses for most of you?

>> certainly.

>> we can try to e-mail those recommendations. Hopefully the Friday before the Tuesday that's the 16th. So that ought to be about the 12th or 13th.

>> do we need to [indiscernible] or send them to all of our e-mail addresses that you have?

>> my recommendation would be to send them to the e-mail addresses that we have. If you have sent us an e-mail we should have your address. But if you -- if you doubt whether we have it, feel free to leave it with us. Okay? I was about to point out joe gieselman our transportation director, but he was smart enough to leave.

>> he's here.

>> he's hiding.

>> he's trying to hide [laughter]

>> good, joe. Anything else today?

>> [indiscernible] 38.

>> 38. That's the reorg thing.

>> I’m not advocating.

>> I was hoping to --

>> I thought we were postponing that.

>> I was hoping that I have a different strategy to get something done between now and then but I don't have one. We will have it back on. How is that.

>> motion to adjourn.

>> second.

>> all in favor? That passes unanimously.

The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.

Last Modified: Wednesday, May 3, 2006 1:14 PM

May 2, 2006 Item 24

May 2, 2006
Item 24