Cameron Road / Dessau Road Safety Project

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In a 2019  listening session and public survey  hosted by the City of Austin, community members expressed strong support for safer ways to travel along the Cameron Road/Dessau Road corridor – a corridor which sees nearly 100 people injured or killed in traffic crashes and an estimated $100 million in  comprehensive costs  to our community each year.

In response to community input, and in order to advance Austin’s  Vision Zero  goals, the City of Austin is proposing safety and mobility improvements for Cameron Road / Dessau Road between 51st Street and Parmer Lane, and  is now seeking feedback on the proposed design  to help shape this important project. 

The proposed design seeks to improve safety and connections to destinations for people travelling by all transportation modes. Improvements will include:

• Adding new or enhanced pedestrian crossings
• Increasing separation between sidewalks and motor vehicle traffic,
• Adding physically protected bicycle facilities throughout the corridor,
• Enhancing street lighting
• Locating bus stops closer to safe crossings

Between US 290 and Parmer Lane the project proposes to reconfigure vehicle travel lanes—generally going from three lanes in each direction to two lanes—to significantly improve safety while also maintaining existing motor vehicle operations. 

Transportation and Public Works Department (TPW) staff are collecting community feedback on the proposed design through  an online survey  through Sept. 3, 2024. Staff will then report back on what we heard and any design adjustments before starting implementation of the project in late 2024/early 2025.  

The proposed project will be funded through Austin’s 2022  Safe Streets and Roads for All grant  and 2020 Mobility Bond funding from Bikeways, Vision Zero, Transit Enhancement and Sidewalks.  

The City of Austin held a listening session in late 2019 to gather input from the community on how the Cameron / Dessau Road corridor can better serve the safety, accessibility, and mobility needs of all road users. Along with an in-person event held at the Gus Garcia Recreation Center in November 2019, City staff gathered input from the community through an online survey filled out by over 750 people. Key findings from the listening session include: 

• 85% of respondents reported feeling very or somewhat uncomfortable on Cameron Road / Dessau Road. 
• People wanted access to safe multimodal options.
• The most cited ideas to improve comfort were protected bicycle lanes, safer intersections, and more separation between sidewalks and vehicle lanes. 

You can view the listening session  feedback summary  and  full feedback report  to see more information on survey responses, top locations of concern, and open-ended responses from the community.  

Austin’s Vision Zero program began implementing critical safety improvements at several locations starting in 2020, through Mobility Bond funding and its  High-Injury Roadways  initiative, to address some of the safety concerns expressed by the community and the significant history of severe crashes along the corridor. Safety projects included: 

• Multimodal safety enhancements at the intersection of  Cameron Road and Ferguson Lane  
• Lowering the speed limit on Cameron Road to 35 mph between US 290 and US 183 and lowering the speed limit on Dessau Road to 40 mph between Rundberg Lane and Meadowmear Drive 
• Safety upgrades at traffic signals, including battery backup systems, flashing yellow arrows, protected left turns and pedestrian head-starts (also known as leading pedestrian intervals)
• Relocated bus stops near St. Johns Avenue closer to the intersection to reduce mid-block pedestrian crossings
• Access management treatments on Cameron Road south of US 290 to reduce conflicts associated with turns into and out of driveways

Despite these efforts, some of the major safety issues identified by the community remain and will require a more substantial redesign to improve safety for everyone using the corridor. 

Staff have collected data and reviewed City policy documents related to Cameron / Dessau Road to better define the factors that need to be considered in crafting a safer design for the corridor.  

Austin crash data shows that between 2019 and 2023 there were nearly 2,400 crashes (including 1,200 with a full police crash report) on Cameron Road / Dessau Road between East 51st Street and Parmer Lane—or more than one crash every single day. These crashes tragically resulted in 12 people killed, 77 seriously injured, and another 397 suffering minor injuries.  

After reviewing crash and speed data staff noted several key safety issues along the corridor, including: 

• High vehicular speeds along the corridor likely play a role in almost every severe crash. Speed data collected in one 24-hour period in March 2024, for example, recorded over 2,900 vehicles travelling over 50 mph on Cameron Road where the posted speed limit is 40 mph. On Dessau Road, 3,900 vehicles were observed to be travelling faster than 60 mph where the posted speed limit is 50 mph, and over 300 vehicles per day were clocked going over 70 mph! Simply put, these egregiously high speeds lead to a greater frequency and severity of crashes and are inconsistent with Austin’s safety goals. 
• Frequent crashes, including injury and fatal crashes, at major intersections, particularly at the intersections of US 183, US 290, and Parmer Lane. Other intersections along the corridor ranking within the top 100 crash locations in Austin include St. Johns Avenue, Ferguson Lane, and Braker Lane. 
• A high concentration of pedestrian and bicycle-involved crashes between East 51st Street and US 183, as well as between Cross Park Drive and Rundberg Lane. Compared with the northern section of the corridor, these areas have more commercial and mixed land uses and higher levels of multimodal activity. These areas also lack physically protected bike facilities and safe crossing opportunities—as does most of the corridor.  
• Nearly 20% of crashes (all modes) occurring at night occurred in dark, unlit conditions, with the highest concentration of such crashes occurring between Parmer Lane and Braker Lane. 
• An overrepresentation of people of color among severe crash victims.  Black or Hispanic people made up 72% of those seriously injured or killed in crashes on Cameron Road / Dessau Road between 2019-2023. 
• Beyond the emotional and physical toll these incidents cause, they also translate to significant economic losses for our community. Staff estimate that crashes along the Cameron / Dessau corridor are associated with over $100 million in  comprehensive costs  each and every year. These incidents also require substantial resources from police, fire and EMS personnel who respond to crashes and treat victims, diverting limited public safety resources away from other high priority needs across the city. 

The  2023 Transit Enhancement Infrastructure Report  identified Cameron Road between 51st Street and Rundberg Lane as a priority location for improving transit speed, reliability, safety and access. Recommended improvements on the Cameron Road corridor include relocating bus stops to existing signalized intersections, introducing new pedestrian crossings at stops, upgrading bus stop designs, and adding bus queue jump lanes at locations where transit regularly experiences delay.  

In 2019 Austin City Council adopted the  Austin Strategic Mobility Plan (ASMP)  to serve as the north star for future transportation decisions in Austin. Importantly, the ASMP directs staff to “prioritize the protection of human life over all else in the planning, design, and operation of Austin’s transportation network.”

The  2023 Bicycle Plan , as well as its previous plans and prioritization efforts, identified Cameron / Dessau Road as a top citywide priority given northeast Austin’s nearly complete lack of All Ages and Abilities Bicycle Priority Network connectivity. Other prioritization factors include equity, destinations and travel demand, safety, and cost. You can learn more at  AustinTexas.gov/AAABikeNetwork .    

The 2023  City of Austin Sidewalks, Crossings, and Shared Streets Plan  identified several high-priority and very high-priority crossing gaps along Cameron Road / Dessau Road where safe crossings are needed to complete the pedestrian network. Given the high vehicular speeds and wide street profiles along most of the corridor, signalized crossings or pedestrian hybrid beacons are needed to allow pedestrians to safely cross. On the southern end (i.e. south of US 290), crossing islands may be suitable treatments where there is only one lane in each direction to cross. 

Based on the overwhelming safety concerns expressed by the Austin community and the recurring pattern of severe crashes and egregious speeds along the corridor, a more substantial redesign of Cameron Road / Dessau Road is needed to improve safety.  

Engineering treatments to improve safety have been proposed by City mobility engineers based on a thorough review of community feedback, crash history, speeds, traffic volumes, and other information. Recognizing that Cameron / Dessau Road is an important motor vehicle connection in northeast Austin, staff took extra care to design a concept that is expected to maintain similar motor vehicle capacity while significantly improving safety and access for all people using the street. 

• Add protected bicycle lanes along the full corridor to provide physical separation from motor vehicle traffic and improve the safety and comfort of people riding bicycles and scooters or using the sidewalk.  
• Repurpose outside travel lanes between US 290 and Parmer Lane—generally going from three lanes in each direction to two—to create space for safe and comfortable multimodal facilities, reduce motor vehicles speeds and conflict points, and limit unsafe passing movements. 
• Provide additional vehicle lanes at key locations to maintain similar levels of motor vehicle capacity along the corridor. See the “How It Works” section to learn how the proposed project will maintain vehicular capacity by focusing on key locations.  
• Install new or enhanced pedestrian crossings across Cameron / Dessau Road and on side streets to improve safety and accessibility for people walking, rolling and using transit.   
• Upgrade curb ramps and sidewalks to create a fully connected pedestrian network along the corridor and address critical ADA issues.  
• New street lighting between 51st Street and Howard Lane to improve visibility between all road users and reduce the risk of nighttime crashes. 
• Upgrade bus stops to a multimodal design that provides physical separation between buses and bicyclists, improving safety and providing more comfortable facilities for both transit users and people on bikes. 
• Relocate bus stops closer to safe pedestrian crossings to reduce risky mid-block crossings. 
• Implement raised medians or other a ccess management  treatments at strategic locations to limit unsafe left-turn movements into and out of driveways. Provide U-turn opportunities at certain locations to maintain local vehicular access throughout the corridor. 
• Evaluate the benefits of adding transit priority lane treatments on Cameron Road at 51st Street, US 290, and US 183 to reduce transit delays. These treatments, if feasible, would be implemented as part of future work along the corridor.  

 National research  and local experience have shown that adding separated bike facilities and optimizing the number of vehicle lanes can reduce crashes and lower high-risk speeding.

A project on  South Pleasant Valley Road , for example, saw a 46% reduction in total crashes, an 82% reduction in injury and fatal crashes, and a 46% reduction in crashes involving people walking, bicycling, or riding scooters, after vehicle lanes were optimized to provide safer multimodal facilities in 2021. More recently, early results from the  Barton Springs Road Safety Pilot  are showing a 64% reduction in the number of people driving 10 mph or more over the speed limit and a reduction in crashes following project implementation. 

The diagrams below show the existing and proposed typical cross sections for various segments along the corridor. The exact dimensions of these cross sections will vary, particularly closer to major intersections where extra vehicle capacity (e.g. turn lanes) are needed. Use the right arrows on the images to cycle through the existing conditions and the proposed improvements.

*Additional lanes to be provided at signalized intersections to maintain motor vehicle capacity. See details below. 

View the full proposed design of the Cameron / Dessau Road Corridor 

•  Cameron Road: 51st Street to north of US 290  
•  Cameron Road: North of US 290 to Rundberg Lane  
•  Dessau Road: Rundberg Lane to Braker Lane 
•  Dessau Road: Braker Lane to Parmer Lane  

So how do we plan to maintain motor vehicle capacity while repurposing a travel lane for much of the corridor? The answer comes down to how and where congestion occurs. Motor vehicle congestion typically occurs at intersections with a traffic signal because traffic in one direction must stop while other directions take their turn. In contrast, a free-flowing lane away from a traffic signal can carry about three times the traffic volume as a lane through a traffic signal and is therefore typically not the source of congestion.  This video explains how this street can become safer through repurposing vehicle lanes while maintaining existing motor vehicle traffic capacity.  

Since capacity is limited by major signalized intersections, in the proposed design existing motor vehicle capacity along Cameron Road / Dessau Road is maintained by providing additional traffic lanes at key intersections and segments. Where additional vehicle lanes are needed, shared-use paths are provided through the intersection to connect to in-street protected bicycle lanes. For this project additional motor vehicle lanes will be provided at the following locations: 

• A new northbound right-turn lane will be added at the US 290 intersection. A southbound right-turn lane will be added approaching US 290.  
• Three motor vehicle lanes are maintained in both directions approaching the US 183/Anderson Lane intersection: 1/4 mile long in the northbound direction and 1/2 mile long in the southbound direction. 
• Three northbound motor vehicle lanes are maintained from Cross Park Drive up to Rundberg Lane to accommodate vehicular demand onto and from side streets. 
• At the Rundberg Lane intersection a second northbound left-turn lane and a dedicated southbound right-turn lane will be included.  
• At the Braker Lane intersection a long southbound right-turn lane will be included.  
• At the Shropshire Boulevard / Braker Lane intersection northbound and southbound right-turn lanes will be provided.  

We’d like to hear from you.  Complete the survey  to share your feedback on the proposed design. The survey is open through Sept. 3, 2024.

This fall, staff will provide a summary of feedback we’ve received on the proposed design and any design changes we are making in response to that input. Phased implementation of the project is anticipated to begin in late 2024/early 2025 and last approximately 12-18 months.

For questions, please email  mobilitybonds@austintexas.gov  or call 512-974-2300.