Great Streets Master Plan

Summary

In August 2000 City Council awarded Black & Vernooy + Kinney, a local urban design consultant team, to create a "Great Streets" master plan for the Downtown. The study area is roughly bounded by Martin Luther King Boulevard, IH-35, North Lamar Boulevard and Town Lake. The estimated project completion date is November 2001.

The Great Streets Vision: The Great Streets Program was initiated by the Downtown Austin Alliance (DAA) in 1996 to improve the quality of downtown streets and sidewalks, aiming ultimately to make these great public spaces, where residents and tourists alike can thrive in the heart of a vital, humane and memorable place: Austin, Texas. A major goal of the DAA's Great Streets Program is to create an accessible, comfortable and aesthetic pedestrian network throughout downtown with coordinated participation from both public and private entities.

Issues

The Great Streets Mater Plan will be founded on the vision set forth in the Council-adopted Downtown Austin Design Guidelines of creating a dense, vibrant downtown with a strong sense of place and a strong concern for the public. A large part of achieving this vision depends on improving the public arena by guiding both public and private development of the public spaces and paths: the streetscape. The Great Streets Project will create a master plan for the downtown public right-of-way network that - through excellent urban design and an understanding of the unique nature and character of Austin - integrates all modes of transportation into a balanced system of streets and sidewalks. The Project must enhance the livability, safety and aesthetics of the public realm - prioritizing first the pedestrian experience - thereby enhancing and encouraging walking, biking and using transit.

Coordination Efforts: Careful coordination between the Downtown Great Streets Master Plan and two related studies, the Downtown Access & Mobility Plan (DAMP) and the Downtown Austin Comprehensive Parking Study, is paramount to the success of this project. The DAMP study, currently underway through the Transportation, Planning & Sustainability Department's Traffic Operations & Engineering Division, will propose direction and number of travel lanes and intersection, but will not produce a final public right-of-way design, which is the fundamental purpose of the Great Streets Master Plan. The Great Streets Master Plan is the urban design "complement" of the DAMP project. The Downtown Great Streets Master Plan will provide the sorely needed vision of downtown streets and sidewalks that will enable private property owners and public agencies alike to coordinate streetscape improvements, both in their design and implementation. The Downtown Great Streets Master Plan will also work with the Downtown Austin Comprehensive Parking Study, completed last year. Staff will compare the on-street parking impact due to proposed traffic improvements in DAMP and Great Streets with the Parking Study inventory.

Streetscape Design Standards and Priority Great Streets: The Downtown Great Streets Master Plan scope of work calls for the consultant to generate a set of downtown streetscape design standards for the redevelopment of downtown streets for each primary street "type" according to their primary use characteristics (pedestrian, transit, automobile access, etc.). Street Typology Illustrations will illustrate and dimension typical right-of-way widths (curb-to-curb, parking and travel lanes, sidewalks, etc.), as well as locate typical bulb-outs, street trees, street lighting/traffic signal pole locations. The streetscape standards should conceive of a system of coordinated street furnishings, utilities and amenities as well as provide detailed standards for their location in the public right-of-way. The consultant will develop concept design plans for priority Great Streets and create a strategy for implementation of the Downtown Great Streets Master Plan.

Description

Public Involvement: The Downtown Great Streets Master Plan has and will continue to involve downtown stakeholders and affected agencies throughout the Project planning process. Both a Community Advisory Group and a Technical Advisory Group were established to review and provide input on recommendations emerging from the consultant team throughout the project. If you would like more information about this project please visit the website at http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/greatstreets/. The consultant can be contacted by email via a link form the Great Streets Project website. Jose Martinez of Jose Martinez Associates is responsible for the public involvement component of this project as a subconsultant to Black & Vernooy + Kinney.

Basic Data

• Project Manager: Jana McCann, Urban Design Officer, Transportation, Planning and Sustainability Department, 974-6096
• Consultant: Black & Vernooy + Kinney Joint Venture
• Contract Awarded: August 2000
• Start Date: February 2001
• Estimated Completion Date: November 2001