Greenroads Certified Silver

Todd Lane Improvements

Summary

The City of Austin is home to the second certified Greenroads Project in Texas and yet another successful example of a "Pilot Project Conversion" for Greenroads. The Project reconstructed Todd Lane to provide a vibrant corridor that accommodates traffic needs while improving pedestrian and bicycling accessibility and sustainably managing water resources with integrated green infrastructure features. The City of Austin began working with Greenroads just as this project was going through final design and administration of the construction contract, so they started with a Pilot Project to make sure they were eligible to go all in, and opted-in to the Certification program after receiving the results that Bronze would be possible. They took what they learned and turned Todd Lane into the first Greenroads Silver Certification for a state capital!

Actual Cost: $7,265,953 USD

Engineer's Estimate: $6,180,000 USD

Lowest Bidder: $7,790,000 USD

Length: 0.68 mi (1.36 lane miles)

Funders/Stakeholders: Local Government Bond

Owner: City of Austin, TX

Design: City of Austin, Engineering Services Division

Contractor: Chasco Construction

Functional Class: Collector

Greenroads Version: 1.5

Description

The Todd Lane Improvements Project includes the reconstruction and widening of Todd Lane between St. Elmo Road and Ben White Boulevard (Highway 71). Construction will include right?of?way acquisition to widen the alignment and add sidewalks and bike lanes, base stabilization, removal and reconstruction of existing pavements, intersection improvements including a roundabout, new stormwater controls including several bioretention basins, and upgraded lighting and landscaping.

The purpose of the Todd Lane Improvements is to increase multimodal capacity of the roadway due to new traffic volumes anticipated from the future Pleasant Valley Road development area and its planned neighboring developments.

Features

• A modern roundabout that helps improve traffic flows and reduce delays at peak hours and reduces criteria pollutants by 10-20% over the next 20-40 years. 
• Cement- and lime-treated base stabilized the existing poor clayey soils below the roadway surface, providing a robust base for a long-life asphalt pavement section
• The base treatment process allowed the project to reclaim 88% of what was already in place.
• Recycled asphalt pavement with an averaged recycled binder content of 23.9%.
• Stormwater bioswales sized for Texas rainstorms throughout the corridor treating and controlling more than 90% of rainfall to enhanced quality standards.
• Complete streets treatments with context sensitive design, adding bike lanes both ways, sidewalks, transit and freight improvements 
• Native drought-tolerant vegetation and street trees