Why there’s new barbed wire fencing below south Austin highway
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Drivers in south Austin may notice a new secure perimeter surrounding an area below a busy highway.
The city recently installed chain link fencing topped with rows of barbed wire underneath U.S. Highway 290 between South Lamar Boulevard and Pack Saddle Pass. According to the Austin Transportation Department, this is related to securing what’s known as a “placemaking project” that will also involve the Texas Department of Transportation.
A city spokesperson clarified in an email that placemaking includes “projects that aim to beautify and enhance a public place to benefit the community.”
“We are in early coordination with TxDOT to allow the City to install a pathway to connect the Westgate Transit Center to South Lamar Boulevard using the available space under the overpass,” the spokesperson’s email explained. “We are also exploring lighting, wayfinding, landscaping enhancements and public art to further activate the space.”
It appears this project is related to a resolution approved by city leaders in November 2022, which states the goal is to “facilitate the construction of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure that will provide a safer vehicle free segment of right-of-way, allowing pedestrians and bicyclists to better connect to neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and transit services in the area.”
Sydney Nyp, who works in an office building directly across the frontage road from the newly fenced-off area, said she kept wondering what the reasons were for the project.
“It went in pretty quick, like a week or a week and a half,” Nyp said. “I wasn’t really sure why it went up, but we kind of assumed maybe more was going to happen because they did mow it down at one point. But it’s kind of just been left here.”
This area is also where the city highlighted it closed a homeless encampment under the overpass in February 2023. At that time, it said the city and its partners helped a total of 60 people move from an encampment at Pack Saddle Pass and U.S. Highway 71 to temporary bridge shelters as part of the Housing-Focused Encampment Assistance Link (HEAL) Initiative.
To date the city’s homeless strategy office shared Monday that the initiative helped move 737 people experiencing homelessness to shelters since its inception.
While the project is not intended to act specifically as a deterrent for camping, Lisa Granger, who works at an insurance office nearby, said she likes how the fencing makes the area appear cleaner.
“Before, the city would come in — I don’t know if it’s the city or state, but they would come in with big garbage trucks and these claw things and move stuff around or whatever. So we haven’t seen that,” Granger said. “It just helps keep things — I feel like if you can contain them, it keeps them out.”
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