20260520-003, Barton Springs Road Bridge Project Public Comment Part 2 — original pdf

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20260520-003, Barton Springs Road Bridge Project Public Comment Chair Krueger, Vice Chair Bristol, Commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Barbara LaFollette, President of the Barton Hills Neighborhood Association, and I’m here to ask you to oppose demolition and full replacement of the Barton Springs Road Bridge, and instead urge the City to pursue a lower-impact rehabilitation and roadway “diet” alternative. First, the environmental footprint of full replacement is enormous and has not been fully presented to this Commission. Demolishing a nearly century-old bridge in the middle of Barton Creek’s floodplain will require heavy construction in and adjacent to the channel, deep foundations, dewatering, and staging areas that will permanently convert parkland and temporarily clear even more acreage during construction. Staff materials and past briefings acknowledge parkland takings and substantial construction easements, but this Commission has not been given a current, comprehensive environmental impact summary. Proceeding toward demolition without that information before the Environmental Commission is exactly backward. Second, the bridge is located within the Zilker Park Historic District, and the federal Section 106 process has already concluded that the proposed project would adversely affect historic resources. The City’s own historic consultants found that replacement would damage the setting, design, materials, workmanship, and feeling of Zilker Park’s historic entrance, which is part of the “human environment” your body is charged to consider. In plain terms, we are talking about tearing out a contributing historic structure at the front door of Austin’s most iconic park and replacing it with a much wider, more intrusive modern bridge. Third, scale matters. Commissioners have already raised concerns that the proposed bridge cross-section almost doubles the width—from roughly 60 feet today to on the order of 100 feet or more—despite Barton Springs Road already operating as a single lane in each direction for safety. A much wider deck, longer construction duration, and larger footprint directly translate to more shade changes, more concrete over Barton Creek, more habitat disturbance, and more permanent encroachment into parkland, all to push additional vehicle capacity into a constrained, two-lane roadway on either side. That is not a context-sensitive solution in a sensitive riparian corridor. Fourth, the record shows that rehabilitation is feasible and that cost differences between rehabilitation and replacement are small. Commissioners have noted that engineering estimates characterize the cost difference as negligible, while life-cycle expectations are on the order of 50 years for rehabilitation versus 75 years for a new structure. When impacts to a historic, park-adjacent bridge are this high, a modest extension of service life does not justify ignoring the lower-impact option. FHWA’s own Section 106 guidance emphasizes avoidance and minimization of adverse effects where feasible; here, the City appears to be moving directly to the most damaging alternative. Fifth, there are reasonable alternatives that better align with your environmental mission. The Zilker Park Vision Plan looked at putting Barton Springs Road on a diet—one lane each way, with safer, separated space for people walking and biking—without assuming full demolition of the bridge. Commissioners have also discussed options ranging from structural rehabilitation to restricting the bridge to bikes, pedestrians, transit, and emergency vehicles. These ideas would reduce traffic impacts, reduce air and noise pollution in the park, and preserve the bridge’s distinctive sense of place at creek level, which many of you have experienced from a canoe or on foot. Finally, process and transparency matter. At prior meetings, you and the public had to repeatedly ask for basic environmental and structural information and were told that key reports were either unavailable, redacted, or would come later in NEPA. Yet Council has already accepted federal funds and advanced full replacement. That sequence effectively sidelines this Commission from shaping the project while alternatives are still on the table. It also undermines public trust in how we treat both Barton Creek and Zilker Park. Given all of this, I respectfully ask the Environmental Commission to: - Formally find that demolition and full replacement of the Barton Springs Road Bridge would cause unnecessary and significant environmental and parkland impacts in the Barton Creek riparian corridor and Zilker Park Historic District. - Recommend that Council direct staff to bring back a genuine avoidance and minimization alternative, including structural rehabilitation and a Barton Springs Road “road diet,” with full disclosure of environmental impacts, Section 106 outcomes, and parkland conversion. - Request that no further commitments be made to a demolition alternative until this Commission has received and reviewed the complete environmental and historic documentation, including NEPA and Section 106 findings and responses. Barton Creek and Zilker Park are irreplaceable. Once we demolish this historic bridge and expand the concrete footprint over the creek, we cannot get that setting, that habitat, or that experience back. I urge you to use your voice tonight to slow this process down and to insist on the least-harm alternative for the environment. Thank you for your time and for your service. Barbara LaFollette President BHNA