Austin Daily Photo
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
  Roads in the sky
IMG_0844

What do you do if you want a new road but you don't want to knock down any buildings and killing grass or trees? Build it in the sky!

I do not know for sure whether that is the thinking behind Austin road-building, as there are also quite a few flyover roads on the edge of town, even where the only thing to fly over seems to be empty fields. America is a car culture, so of course there are a lot of big roads, and surely this helps with congestion problems (although you definitely don't want to get stuck in a slow lane during rush-hour in the summer when your air-conditioning is broken).

But they don't dominate the view. You only really notice them while on one. Real life is lived at ground level.
 
Comments:
Many readers have seen elevated highways but I doubt if they have seen one a long as those in Austin. If I remember correctly it is almost the length of the city. In my mind a "fly over" road serves a similar function as loops which by-pass major cities.
 
I liked your words about car culture and road building in the US.
 
The Interstate 35 does go right through the city (you can stay on it all the way to Canada one way and Mexico the other) and I've never checked to see how much of it is elevated but very likely you are right.

I have mixed feelings about the US car culture, but one of them is definitely fascination. Hybrid cars are becoming a lot more popular here now. I will look for some to photograph.
 
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A picture a day from the capital of slackerdom! (unless we had too many mango margaritas the night before). Always weird, sometimes wonderful... put on your flip-flops, grab a breakfast taco, and hop in the VW bus with us for a spin around town :)

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