Austin Motorists: Here's Your List Of Street Closures During SXSW

AUSTIN, TX — It's that time of year when motorists need to carefully plot out their routes to and from destinations when traveling downtown when streets will be closed during the ten-day SXSW festival. Street closures start on Friday, and the city this week released a list of street closures to accommodate the music and arts festival.

The earliest of the street closures for the massive conference will start at 3 a.m. on Friday and remain closed until March 20. City officials released the master list of street closures on Tuesday.

The streets below will be closed starting Friday (March 10) until March 19:

• Sixth Street from Brazos Street to Sabine Street
• Brazos and Sabine streets from Fifth Street to Seventh Street
• Red River Street from Fifth Street to Tenth Street
• Trinity Street and San Jacinto Boulevard from Fifth to Sixth street
• Red River Street from Cesar Chavez Street to Davis Street
• Rainey Street from Driskill Street to Holly Street

Other streets will be closed at intermittently, at various times:

• Neches Street, Trinity Street and San Jacinto Boulevard, closures from March 14 to March 19.
• Trinity Street will be closed from Cesar Chavez Street to Fourth Street, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday through March 18
• Riverside Drive from Congress Avenue to Lee Barton Drive, closed from March 13 to March 19, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Neches Street will be closed from March 13 to March 19, 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.
• Fourth Street, from Lavaca to Colorado, closed March 17 and March 18, 5 a.m. to 5 a.m.
• Dawson Street, Bouldin Street, South Third Street and Christopher Street, closed March 16 and 17, 1 p.m. to 10 p.m., and March 18, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (resident access permitted)

These aren't all the closures, mind you. The city also will be closing multiple arteries surrounding the downtown nucleus of the festival to accommodate the throngs of SXSW attendees descending to Austin from all over the world. To see the fuller list, click on a city-issued PDF map found at the city website.

Related story: Free SXSW-Centered Apps Designed To Enhance Austin Festival Experience

Save yourself headaches and frustration, motorists. Print out the map, make a mental or written note of street closures, prepare for some delays and focus on the idea that this only happens once a year. And after SXSW is done, you can return to that otherwise seamlessly smooth Austin traffic to arrive to your destinations.

Sorry, we're being funny about the normal state of SXSW-less traffic. It's better to laugh though, no? Happy SXSW!

>>> Photo credit: : Osvaldo Gago via Wikimedia Commons