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I dont remember even having those entry structures, and Traditions was not even a thought.Northgate seems to have really widened quite a bit- seems to me it was only a block wide but a few blocks long stretching down University.
That's a result of the city's ongoing inferiority complex about Austin. They want SO desperately to have their own version of 6th Street here. They've done all they can to create a specific little bar-nightclub area to that end. Changed drinking hours, brightened up Church Street, chopped off Patricia and built the "promenade", added sanitary parking lots and garages, and now they block off vehicle traffic every weekend evening so the drinkers have free reign of College Main.
(Remember "North by Northgate" - their failed attempt to compete with Austin's South By Southwest festival?)
None of these are bad ideas in themselves, but CS is trying to do all this right by one of the major thoroughfares through town. Unlike 6th Street, where traffic can easily be routed to other streets a block or two over, Northgate is adjacent to Highway 60 and is too close to a lot of vehicular traffic. Cars + drunks = lots of problems. The city's anti-jaywalking approach was shouted down by the drinking / stumbling contingent. Now they're going to have to put in that new traffic light at Boyett. Maybe one day the city can achieve its dream by building a raised overpass so no cars at all will inconvenience the bar-hoppers.
) Thats the government for ya! LOL