Dear Austin,
The Circuit of the Americas has now been open for 10 years. I distinctly recall a number of politicians yakking on and on about how they were going to upgrade the infrastructure around the track when they were begging for money to get the facility built. Well, it’s been 10 years and the people living there are still dealing with the same shitty ass roads that were there before, and the same shitty ass traffic. Only I am guessing now, that when an event is in town, they have to hunker down like it’s a winter storm. What happened? Is it too much for the place to do what they said they would do, and get some better roads going in and out. And before it gets said, I mean roads that us plebs have to take, not the toll road. It’s complete bullshit that it has been a decade and I am still having to deal with the same horrific traffic situation to get to the track. I truly feel sorry for people who have to live near there. Damnit Austin, we can really do better. But I guess the people who can get shit done are just helicoptered in so they don’t have a clue, and they are just too busy counting money.
Fig
All the land around COTA is Austin ETJ rather than full purpose. My understanding is under state law, a municipality has no right or responsibility over road construction or maintenance in their ETJ besides being a rubber stamp on the local community coming together and voting to form a Municipal Utility District (MUD), which would have the power of taxation to develop local road infrastructure. Otherwise, the only entities with any power to do anything here would be Travis County or the State of Texas.
If that community wanted to be annexed into Austin, I’m certain Austin would develop a plan for the roads there, but I doubt they’d agree to annexation
Texas road ownership law is a mess. Every road has a different owner — state, city, county. Need that pothole filled? Gonna depend on who owns it if it ever gets done. Light timing sucks? Same. Trash everywhere? Same. Doesn’t matter if the road is in Austin proper — 311 is going to pass the buck if they can.