The City of Austin is pushing to demolish the historic Barton Springs Bridge over Barton Creek and replace it with a massive, freeway-style concrete span at an estimated cost of $54.5 million. Wednesday, March 4, at 6:00 PM at City Hall, the Historic Landmark Commission takes up Agenda Item 3. The Commission could initiate local historic zoning for the bridge — to match it’s already-protected federal status as part of the Zilker Park National Register HIstoric District.
- Current estimate for demolition and replacement is $54.5 million and construction would last 18 to 24 months; the 2022 estimate for teardown and replacement was only $10.2 million, compared to $14.5 million for rehabilitation of the bridge.
- Initially, the new bridge would carry four travel lanes plus a fifth turn lane, along with extra-wide bike and pedestrian lanes on both sides. Those side lanes would be engineered for future conversion to create six total car lanes, effectively setting up Barton Springs Road as a cross-town, freeway-style corridor serving the high-rise development now being approved between South First and Interstate 35.
- Project boundaries extend all the way to Sterzing, along Barton Creek, up Azie Morton, cutting into the Umlauf property and converting significant Zilker park land into construction and road uses.
- City-commissioned engineering reports have found the existing bridge to be in fair to good condition and capable of rehabilitation at substantially lower cost.
- The council’s initial 2023 vote happened without the required Historic Landmark Commission recommendations and with grossly misleading cost comparisons between saving versus replacing the bridge.
For full reporting on the demolition proposal, see the recent coverage in Austin Free Press and the Austin Chronicle. Both articles touch on the project’s escalating costs, expanded footprint, the history of City Council decisions and planning that led to this point, and the preservation and environmental stakes.