23: US 183 near Riata Trace Parkway

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183 @ Riata entrance

Where RTP should be realigned (about 500 feet south)

Riata Trace Parkway is a new arterial which was built to support the huge apartment complex and new office complex which fill the space between 183 and Parmer. This complex as it stands today is about as automobile-dependent as you can possibly get unless its only entrance was actually a freeway off-ramp (see subsequent slides).

The main entrance is off the NB US 183 frontage road, which is a one-way road. This is also the main exit, and this causes tremendous traffic problems in the afternoon as people try futilely to turn right onto the frontage road without the benefit of a light. Thanks to boneheaded site design, this situation can never be improved since the location of the intersection is far too close to the Oak Knoll off-ramp to add a traffic light.

The other entrance/exit to this complex is off Parmer Lane. Reportedly the complex also asked for an entrance to the south which could get you to Duval Rd., but were rebuffed by local neighborhoods. Then, the city Planning Commission recommended a bike/ped connection only through the neighborhood to the south and were again rebuffed, this time by the neighborhoods' appeal to the City Council to save them from the torture of having scruffy poor folk be able to get to work.

The second picture here shows a location where the intersection should have been designed in the first place. It's close enough to the Oak Knoll exit that exiting traffic could be separated with barriers as is done on Mopac at Bee Caves; and then a traffic light could be added later if still necessary (might not be necessary since about half of the traffic on the frontage road at the current intersection with RTP appears to be from the off-ramp).