County Road Becomes a Deathtrap
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Skip Connett March 14, 2023, 512-949-9830 friendsoland@gmail.com COUNTRY ROAD BECOMES DEATHTRAP Residents Warn Tourists,
Call for Mining Moratorium until Public Safety Assured BASTROP, TEXAS, MARCH 14, 2023 —As bluebonnet season and SXSW begin, neighbors, living along the winding country roads between Austin and Bastrop (FMs 969 and 1209) are warning visitors about extremely dangerous driving conditions caused by a massive influx of 18- wheelers servicing the tunneling, mining, and manufacturing operations that have moved here in the past year. “I agree. F.M. 969 is a deathtrap,” said Bastrop County Judge Gregory Klaus at a recent Commissioners Court meeting. A dramatic rise in accidents, especially those involving commercial trucks in recent years has prompted Friends of the Land, a local all-volunteer farmland protection initiative, to seek a moratorium on all new state permits for Aggregate Production Operations (APOs) until major improvements are completed. Concerns and needed improvements include:
• Exponential increase in traffic for the past two years. TXDOT data show four separate accidents involving a total of four fatalities in December 2022 and January 2023 alone, more fatalities in two months than in the previous 10 years.
• FM 969 has been in constant disrepair as cement trucks and 18-wheelers hauling sand and gravel have damaged 969’s 18-mile stretch of dangerous curves. Four new APOs have opened up on 969 in the past three years.
• Travis County reduced the speed limit of 969 to 55 mph. The speed limit in Bastrop County is 65mph.
• Install warning signs, turning lanes, and yellow warning lights. Most of these high volume operations don’t have acceleration and turning lanes, including Space X and the Boring Company (See www.KeepBastropBoring.com)
Country Road Becomes Deathtrap/page 2 Brenda Jones, whose family has lived in the village of Utley a few miles west of Bastrop for more than 100 years, had just unbuckled her seatbelt to reach into her mailbox when she was hit head-on. “I was parked completely off the road when I heard his brakes screeching,” she recalls of the incident three years ago that threw her out of her car, 10 feet into the air. She landed hard, breaking her arm and spraining her ankle. Her vehicle was totaled as were her mailboxes. Over the next few years these mailboxes would be shattered time and again, including as part of a fatal accident in December and then a multi-car crash a month later. Around the corner on FM 1209, Maura Ambrose, owner of Folk Fibers, has had her mailboxes crushed multiple times too. Then in December, her car was rear-ended as she approached her mailboxes, sited near the new entrance to Elon Musk’s Boring Company. “I was coming home from school with our two children when we were sideswiped,” she says, explaining that the impact deployed her airbags and crushed the length of her car. “As a Mom, this is the most traumatizing thing ever to happen to me.” “Beautiful Wilbarger Bend, an ecological paradise where bald eagles are nesting and where farmers grow food for Austin and Bastrop, needs to be protected,” says Skip Connett, co-founder of Friends. “Our neighbors, who have lived here for generations, deserve to be heard and to be safe. Action taken now will save lives in the future.” Under current state regulations, no public notices or hearings are required for new sand and gravel operations. See Texans for Responsible Aggregate Mining for more info. To insist on a public meeting, please sign this petition. Friends of the Land is an all-volunteer organization addressing local food security and farmland preservation through innovative land-use reform. FOL’s Save Wilbarger Bend campaign seeks to protect this critical organic farming and ecologically sensitive area from sand and gravel mining through conservation easements and agricultural zones like Vermont’s Intervale.
