oakhillgazette.com
June 27, 2013 Volume 18, No. 12 Southwest Austin’s Community Newspaper Since 1995
OHAN gets update on local road projects by Bobbie Jean Sawyer
OAK HILL - Staff members from the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority and TxDOT updated the Oak Hill Association of Neighborhoods (OHAN) on key mobility improvement projects affecting Southwest Austin at the June OHAN meeting held at ACC Pinnacle. OHAN holds its monthly meetings on the second Wednesday of the month. The earliest traffic relief will come in the form of lane and intersection improvements. Dual left-turn lanes
Inside supplement: Our 18th annual
Meet Your Merchants special issue See the people and faces who own and run Oak Hill area businesses in this special annual business yearbook supplement. Photo at right: General Manager Brian Ahart (left) and the gang at Austin Pizza Garden. Many more photos of local business people in pull-out supplement inside.
South Mopac to Slaughter could get a makeover will be installed at RM 1826, the Austin Community College campus and Convict Hill Road. A center turn lane will be put in place between RM 1826 and Convict Hill Road. Speakers at the meeting explained how Continuous Flow Intersections (CFI’s) work. CFI’s eliminate the left-turn traffic signal phase by moving the left-turn traffic down the road several hundred feet. The left-turn signal time
is coordinated with separate traffic movement, allowing more cars to pass through the intersection. CFI’s will be constructed at Joe Tanner, William Cannon and SH 71. Project status: Construction of turn lanes between Convict Hill and RM 1826, a 14-month long project, began in May. Construction on Continuous Flow Intersections is anticipated to begin this summer and is estimated to take 19 months
for completion. Kelli Reyna, TxDOT public information officer, said while the improvements will provide much-needed relief, they’re only a temporary solution. “Our traffic modeling shows 30 to 50 percent improvement in traffic flow in this area,” Reyna said. “Thirty to fifty percent is great. We all realize any little bit helps. But it’s not a long See OHAN on page 27