From Iowa, Issues finding a place in South Austin. (Fort Worth: real estate, apartment)

[cm4]

I had to look up Nalle Woods. Very nice area. Loop 360 near the 360 bridge. If he cycles, the Loop 360 south end is a good place. The north end of 360 has too much traffic to cycle (for my likes).

I think pricing will be higher there than the suggestions you were getting here, as anything off Loop 360 is basically high end.

I've driven through there during rush hour a few times, and there may be some troubled times. He may want to drive it a few days when he would be heading to work just to be sure. I think the commuter traffic goes both ways as Loop 360 is one of the major ways to go from south to north.

There is a back way via Westlake Drive / Toro Canyon, but it may have its share of people taking as an alternate route.

[tstwahine]

What about if he went into work early? He really likes this area and has scrapped south Austin. His work is flexible on when he can come in, he's an early bird so he is thinking of going in early and leaving early. How is traffic between 630-730am and 230-4pm?

Originally Posted by cm4

I had to look up Nalle Woods. Very nice area. Loop 360 near the 360 bridge. If he cycles, the Loop 360 south end is a good place. The north end of 360 has too much traffic to cycle (for my likes).

I think pricing will be higher there than the suggestions you were getting here, as anything off Loop 360 is basically high end.

I've driven through there during rush hour a few times, and there may be some troubled times. He may want to drive it a few days when he would be heading to work just to be sure. I think the commuter traffic goes both ways as Loop 360 is one of the major ways to go from south to north.

There is a back way via Westlake Drive / Toro Canyon, but it may have its share of people taking as an alternate route.

[Dr.Mom]

Originally Posted by tstwahine

What about if he went into work early? He really likes this area and has scrapped south Austin. His work is flexible on when he can come in, he's an early bird so he is thinking of going in early and leaving early. How is traffic between 630-730am and 230-4pm?

You could set up the drive on traffic.com to see what it's like, with traffic, during his commute times.

[tstwahine]

Originally Posted by Dr.Mom

You could set up the drive on traffic.com to see what it's like, with traffic, during his commute times.

Oh great! Thank you very much. I didn't know that existed. Again it's very hard for me to get an idea of things as I have yet to set foot in Austin. He describes the traffic as horrific, and I get the idea that there arent really any freeways as he keeps mentioning stoplights? I am coming from the perspective of southern california (south orange county) so to me that is traffic, is it similar? As I mentioned before his experience with traffic was a suburb of Atlanta as a child and then growing up in a suburb of Chicago before going to school in Iowa City and working here for the past seven years so he and I both have rather different perspectives

Great now he has decided buying would be better, roller coaster of fun here!

[Trainwreck20]

Traffic in Austin could be described as 'horrific', but having traveled a bit, it really isn't all that bad. Yes, some sections of the highway come to a standstill during rush hour, but those segments tend to be relatively short. Houston has excellent highway infrastructure, especially if compared to Austin, but you have to go so damn far that you can still be caught in traffic forever, it seems.

That said, one of the least favorite routes I have had to take over the years has been 360 north from right around Westbank Drive. Before 4:00 in the afternoon, it is not really that bad, but gets worse very quickly, until the traffic at 5:00 pm is some of the most frustrating in Austin.

[tstwahine]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Traffic in Austin could be described as 'horrific', but having traveled a bit, it really isn't all that bad. Yes, some sections of the highway come to a standstill during rush hour, but those segments tend to be relatively short. Houston has excellent highway infrastructure, especially if compared to Austin, but you have to go so damn far that you can still be caught in traffic forever, it seems.

That said, one of the least favorite routes I have had to take over the years has been 360 north from right around Westbank Drive. Before 4:00 in the afternoon, it is not really that bad, but gets worse very quickly, until the traffic at 5:00 pm is some of the most frustrating in Austin.

Thanks for the info, I will let him know. I think as long as he can avoid the stop and go he will be a much happier camper

Why is the infrastructure so poor in Austin? is it one of those cases of a quickly expanding city or a lack of usable land for freeways?

[Aquitaine]

There is a ton of discussion and not always a lot of agreement on that subject. Austin has definitely grown a great deal, pretty much steadily since the 1980s. There is a thread contrasting Austin to Seattle, which has a similar "downtown" population but a much, much better transit system, and we had some back and forth speculating as to why -- I think it's partially because Seattle's "metro area" (the people using the system to commute) is twice as populous as Austin's, and their annual transit budget is a good 30-40% more than Austin's (suggesting that ours is actually greater per capita if you count metro area.)

There are specific issues with Mopac and land use that have made it difficult, though not impossible, to plan around. The current plan in the works is to add variable toll lanes to Mopac over the next couple of years. Not universally popular but it's something.

[cm4]

Originally Posted by tstwahine

What about if he went into work early? He really likes this area and has scrapped south Austin. His work is flexible on when he can come in, he's an early bird so he is thinking of going in early and leaving early. How is traffic between 630-730am and 230-4pm?

Seems like traffic takes off like crazy right at 7 am. Before is not that bad. He would just have to check it out.

The good thing is it's really not that far. Stop and go is bad, but from 360 bridge to Mopac is maybe 12 miles. He will find some


There is an excellent fitness club about half way between his work and 360 bridge. It's called The Hills Fitness Center. They have a good running trail behind the main club area. It's very nice.


Here is their website Home (http://www.thehillsfitness.com/home.asp - broken link)

[Jennibc]

Austin Runners Club - Home When we lived here in the late 90s this is how my very social, engineering husband, got his social needs met. Another thing to consider is his university might have a local alumni association that meets for game watching - although football and basketball season have passed so that might not work until the fall.

[BevoLJ]

I live in South West Austin just inside of 360. I also used to live in Santa Monica and know well your experience with roads like the 405. lol. 360 is no 405 but it can get quite frustrating. It has lots of lights, and around the Holidays he will hate going from near Pennybacker (the 360 Bridge over Lake Austin) to Mopac. The part around Barton Creek Mall is a disaster from Nov until the New Year. Not 405 disaster, but enough that a guy like him might not like it. On the upside though, during the summer time there is no one on it. In West Austin everyone leaves town during the summer, and Westlake (360 and Bee Caves) becomes a ghost town.

To your question on why the traffic and poor highway infrastructure is that way in SW Austin, that is because of environmental concerns. SW Austin is over something called the Edwards Aquifer. Any development over it is highly restricted. Also at one time there was a plan for more central east west highways in Austin, but they never happened for several reasons. One the environmental reasons mentioned. And another was the idea that if they could limit infrastructure construction then people would stop moving to Austin. But as we now know it didn't prevent people from moving to Austin.

If he enjoys running and biking West Austin is full of great places to ride. And there are tons of group rides all the time in West Austin. Just suggest he visit some of the shops and talk to some of the folks behind the counters or hanging out in those shops. There are many wonderful locally owned running and biking shops and the people working in them are very outgoing and passionate. I am sure they could give him tons and tons of suggestions.