Austin Mobility News For August 23

Press release from the City of Austin:

August 24, 2021

The Texas Department of Transportation is leading a $4.9 billion project to reconstruct the 8-mile stretch of I-35 that passes through Central Austin. Right now, TxDOT is considering a range of alternatives for the design of the project, and TxDOT anticipates it will select the preferred alternative in the fall of 2022.

Now is the opportunity for residents to have input in the process and guide TxDOT as it makes its design decisions. A virtual open house is available now where you can submit your feedback online or by mail by September 8. If you would like to review the designs in person, you can stop by the Austin Central Library, 710 W. Cesar Chavez St., and the Austin Public Library Carver branch, 1161 Angelina St., anytime the library branches are open.

The Austin Transportation Department is a participating agency on the project along with the Capital Planning Office, which is overseeing the development of “cap-and-stitch" projects, or decks or wide bridges covering the highways to enhance east-west connections. You can read more about the city’s role and its goals here.

All Austin Public Library branches are operating at 50% capacity, and masks are required inside for patrons over the age of 2.

After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, many U.S. cities honored the civil rights leader by renaming streets. As KXAN’s Robert Sims documents, Austin City Council approved the renaming of 19th Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in 1975, but the process was not easy.

Sims writes that many residents and business owners on the west side of I-35 opposed the name change, citing “the cost of signs and the inconvenience of updating their address to a new name.”

Dr. John Jarvis Seabrook, a well-known community leader in the area and onetime president of Huston-Tillotson University, pushed to change the name of 19th Street on both sides of I-35. At the May 1, 1975 meeting where he made his remarks to council, Seabrook collapsed from a heart attack. He died later that night. Five days later, the city council approved renaming the street MLK Jr. Boulevard on both sides of I-35.

Today, as Sims notes, the bridge over I-35 along MLK is named for J.J. Seabrook, along with a greenbelt in East Austin and the neighborhood association located just east of I-35 with MLK Jr. Boulevard as its southern border.

Thanks to KXAN for sharing a great piece of Austin history!

This press release was produced by the City of Austin. The views expressed here are the author’s own.