'Serious tradeoffs': Austin considering I-35 covers versus other city needs
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Tuesday, city leaders are slated to discuss whether or not Austin can afford to build covers over the Texas Department of Transportation's (TxDOT's) I-35 expansion project, connecting east and central Austin.
Those covers are called "caps and stitches" and may look like deck plazas, walking or biking trails or green spaces running over the wider highway.
"These caps would not only stitch our city back together, they would create new, valuable land in central Austin for parks, civic space, and future development. If we fail to fund the roadway elements now, those caps can never be built," Austin City Council Member Chito Vela wrote in a message board post.
But Austin’s current proposed Cap and Stitch Vision Plan could cost more than $1.4 billion, city transportation officials have previously explained. That doesn't include the cost of operating and maintaining those spaces.
"That would use up our entire capital budget and so we really have to be careful in the investments we're making both in terms of our annual general fund decisions as well as our capital budget decisions," Austin City Council Member Mike Siegel said on an episode of Inside Austin's Agenda last week.
But Vela would like to better understand what the economic benefits of building the caps would be. He said in other cities where major caps have been built, like Dallas, they attract new business and housing to an area that otherwise wouldn't see it.
"If we make it an attractive area with parks and amenities...how much property tax revenue will that generate for the city? And then can we use part of that property tax revenue to pay for the caps, to pay for the amenities and the maintenance," Vela said.
'Serious tradeoffs'
Austin leaders need to commit funding to TxDOT to build the roadway elements of the caps and stitches by next month, if all goes according to schedule. That part alone could cost roughly $250 million, transportation staff have previously said.
"What I want to get into is whether it's worth it compared to the tradeoffs," Siegel said.
He noted the city's financial department has explained the city can only ask for so much in bond funding before its credit rating goes down and the price of debt goes up.
"We have about $10 billion in unmet capital needs, we can only spend $1 billion at most, or ask for $1 billion at most in expenditures and so there's going to be some serious tradeoffs," Siegel said.
That's where the city's possible 2026 bond election rubs against the cap and stitch project. While the city works through a comprehensive bond package that it may bring to Austin voters next year, the amount of money the city may need to borrow for caps and stitches will play a role.
"If we take that [the bond proposal] to the voters in November of 2026, that will require debt. And if we're issuing debt to deal with the caps that we're talking about, that will impact how much we can do on the comprehensive bond package," Austin Mayor Kirk Watson explained.
That is likely to be a central point of Tuesday's Austin City Council work session before council votes on its caps and stitches commitment to TxDOT next month. If the city doesn't commit to the foundational elements of the caps, it won't be able to retroactively add them.
"We can't wait until 2028 to do something, or 2030 to do something. The other infrastructure issues that we have, which are many, we can do that in '28, we can do that in 2030, but this is a decision that we need to make right now, or it is forever closed to us," Vela said.
What bond package?
Austin leaders are eying a comprehensive bond package that you could vote on in November 2026.
The 2026 Bond Election Advisory Task Force is working through what may be included in that ask of taxpayers. That task force has two appointees from each council office and the mayor. It meets once every month, starting in January of this year.
"The city has real needs whether it be parks, whether it be road infrastructure...the council has asked for a comprehensive approach," Watson said.
While the task force is still in the early stages of figuring out what it might work into that bond package, they're gathering information from city staff on what each department may want to prioritize. The task force's March meeting included briefings from city leaders working on transportation, homelessness and housing.
"In July 2025, staff will present the preliminary ranked needs assessment that will NOT include refined project scoping and cost estimating since that work will not have been initiated at that time," a memo from city staff said.
You can find a proposed timeline from city staff in that memo here.
