Advocacy
Our Future 35 Cap and Stitch
Reconnecting our community to build a better future.
For more than 60 years, I-35 has been both a physical and socioeconomic barrier between downtown and East Austin. Through its Capital Express Central Project, TxDOT plans to reconstruct I-35 by removing the upper decks and lowering the highway between Airport Boulevard and Cesar Chavez Street. This represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reconnect our community through 30 acres of buildable land above the highway (caps) and pedestrian and bike bridges across it (stitches). The Downtown Austin Alliance and the City of Austin have partnered with a diverse group of Austin leaders to co-create a shared vision for the Our Future 35 Cap and Stitch Project—transforming the area through enhanced transportation, community parks, artworks, buildings and amenities for all Austinites to enjoy. We continue to engage the community to gather input on the vision and advocate for the funding and policies to make this vision a reality.
Learn More About Our Future 35⟶Our Ongoing Advocacy
In 2019, we organized an Urban Land Institute (ULI) panel of international experts to help shape a roadmap for capping and connecting the I-35 corridor once TxDOT lowers the highway. This roadmap helped spur the project forward and create a collective community vision. In 2021, partnered with Public City and 45 community members to launch a 9-episode Our Future 35 Engagement Series. We also partnered with Life Anew Restorative Justice to facilitate a 50+ organization Scoping Working Group who collectively to responded to TxDOT’s early NEPA (environmental review) documents. In 2024, the Downtown Austin Alliance and the City of Austin won a $105 million U.S. Department of Transportation Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant to fund capping from Cesar Chavez to 4th Street. The USDOT also awarded a $1.12 million Reconnecting Communities Planning Grant to conduct an Equitable Mobility Study.
Read the ULI Report⟶A Divided Past: I-35’s History
When I-35 was built in the late 1950s, homes and businesses were displaced, and green spaces were removed. East Avenue, which served as a gathering place for ethnic communities, was bulldozed for construction. When that happened, natural and political ties to downtown were severed, creating a socioeconomic barrier in Austin. Subsequent segregationist policies worsened the impact of discriminatory land use and transportation policies on Austin’s communities of color.
An Inclusive Future: The Cap and Stitch Approach
A cap is a large deck plaza that runs north and south over portions of a sunken freeway that can be designed to support soil, trees, people and buildings. Caps—which will be designed locally with the community—will greatly improve connectivity and improve the surrounding businesses and neighborhoods. In addition to community parks and public space, caps can also accommodate buildings that provide incremental value, which can help pay for the construction, operation or maintenance of the improved deck plaza. The result will be an inclusive, accessible new Central Austin neighborhood.
A stitch is a widened bridge over a lowered highway that runs east to west with wide sidewalks, bike lanes, seating areas and supportive green space that reduces noise and sound pollution and makes crossing safe and inviting. The stitches over I-35 will reconnect downtown and East Austin while greatly improving mobility.
Learn More about Caps and Stitches⟶Follow Our Future 35 for updates and opportunities to provide input on the design process.