Council Member Brewster McCracken and the Northwest Austin Civic Association (NWACA) hosted a public Town Hall meeting, Tuesday, October 24th at 6:00 pm at the Murchison School cafeteria. Approximately 250 neighbors attended.
Karla Villalon, President of NWACA explained the purpose of the meeting. TXDOT is planning to replace the bridge on RM 2222 over Bull Creek, west of Loop 360. This bridge will be approximately 19 ft. above the current road bed, and will be built to withstand a 100 year flood. This will require a vertical adjustment to Lakewood Dr., known as the “ramp”, to connect Lakewood Drive to the new bridge. The Lakewood Club neighbors want Lakewood Dr. closed to RM 2222 and other residents want Lakewood Dr. to stay open at RM 2222.
Speakers included:
TXDOT representative Terry McCoy.
Mr. Steve Galloway, President of Lakewood Club.
Mr. Bob Wood, representing neighbors against closing Lakewood Dr. and
Council Member Brewster McCracken
City of Austin Public Works, Watershed Protection, EMS and Austin Fire Department officials were available for questions.
Lakewood Club opposes the ramp and wants Lakewood Dr. closed to RM 2222 to improve their quality of life. Opponents are concerned about neighborhood access, and increased response times for emergency vehicles, affecting their quality of life.
The Austin Fire Department & EMS oppose closing Lakewood because of the increased response times, in particular as affects acute trauma and sudden cardiac arrest cases. The EMS medical representative indicated that a 2.6 minute response time increase would result in an approximate 25% reduction in chances of survival for such cases, (10% per minute).
TXDOT surprised everyone by presenting four alternatives that they will consider but the final decision will rest with the Austin City Council:
Build the ramp and connect Lakewood Dr. to RM 2222
Keep Lakewood Dr. open but only allow right in turns for West bound traffic on RM 2222
Keep Lakewood Dr. open but provide emergency vehicle access only with crash gates
Close Lakewood Dr. and provide emergency vehicle access under the new RM 2222 bridge with a 14 ft. 6 inch vertical clearance, raise RM 2222 proposed bridge 2 ½ ft. When flooded emergency vehicles will not have access. This option has not been previously presented.
Due to TXDOT’s surprise alternatives, everyone is going back to the drawing board. City Council was slated to hold a public hearing on this issue on November 2, 2006 but this has now been postponed.
Council Member McCracken took a vote by show of hands:
Close Lakewood Dr. to RM 2222
Keep Lakewood Dr. open to RM 2222
No count was taken of the votes, but there was a large showing for each option, indicating a split within the neighborhood.
NWACA provides information from TXDOT, City of Austin, Fire Department & EMS, the Lakewood Club and Residents for Keeping Lakewood Open, concerning this issue. For more information go to www.nwaca.org.
On a related but separate project, The City of Austin announced that they have funded and are planning to build a small bridge over Bull Creek on Lakewood out to 360 at the low water crossing by the park in 2008. This will keep cars from polluting the creek. This bridge will flood at times and will not be passable. Updates on this related project will be posted at Bridge Over Low Water Crossing