This area is a bit of a mess at the moment. Random highway flyovers, cut off buildings, and wasted land opportunity. The exchange takes up over 20 acres of land.
This first image is ramps, roads and flyovers which I'd propose getting rid off. Nearly all of them.
However, they'd need to be replaced. So what I've thought about is essentially returning as much of the grid as possible, replacing flyover with surface streets and at grade intersections. This image below is probably a bit hard to understand, so I'll try my best to explain.
-Macon Street currently turns into an onramp north of Lancaster, where it flys over Lancaster Henderson and then under Rio Grande before turning into I-30. A portion of Lancaster also currently merges onto this ramp. Instead, this ramp would be demolished and Macon would be made an at grade street continuing due south following the grid, intersecting Lancaster and eventually dead ending. Instead of using Macon as an onramp, an intersection would be created at at Lake and Rio Grande/El paso streets. Drivers leaving downtown would then use the existing ramp to the south to enter I-30 Westbound. This would free up a large amount of land for potential development and would drivers on Henderson easier access to WB30.
-The U-turn lane from exiting WB30 drivers onto Lancaster would be elimated and the land used for developable space. NB Henderson has an existing 3rd lane and yeild lanes which makes such U turns easy and simple to do anyway.
-There is an existing ramp for exiting EB30 drivers which flys over the existing RIo Grande exit tunnel, and then splits, offering drivers an option to exit onto EB lancaster or continue north into downtown where the road turns into Cherry street. This ramp would be altered so instead of flying over Lancaster it would intersect with it at grade, allowing drivers to go east or west, and eliminating the need for the Lancaster branch. This opens up additional land north and south of the Lancaster.
-This plans main goal is to open more room for development while hindering drivers as little as possible. North to South roads Florence, Macon, Cherry, and Burnett streets could all be extended 2 blocks south while East to West streets Presidio and El Paso could be extended several blocks west, which would expand much of the grid. In total, this would create 11 new full size blocks and 2 partial blocks. Some of the blocks come close to the drilling pad however, which could be limiting. Another benefit is the Public Market would no longer be so ostracized, and development could fill in the area to the north and create a much more coherent neighborhood with a driect connection to downtown, the upper west side, and less separation between downtown and southside.
-This could be done in phases as demand is needed. Doing it all at once would create a traffic nightmare. For now, there is still plenty of land available, but as land downtown and along the Lancaster masterplan area is developed, more would be needed.
The final plan, blue being new roads and yellow being new develop able land.
