Houston regular roads/streets you could see or should be extending or expanding

[TheBox]

.....soonish

Regular roads/streets I could see extending:
Orem Dr - between SH288 and Cullen Blvd
Hiram Clarke Rd - between Anderson Rd and the new neighborhood off of Summerlyn Rd by Beltway 8/SHT
Westgreen Blvd - north of Raintree Village Dr, bits and pieces (it's gonna get complete sooner or later)
Mason Rd - between Clay Rd and US-290, again bits and pieces

Regular roads i could see expanding:
Freeman Rd/FM 529 - between Grand Parkway/SH99 and FM362 (it's even confirmed)
Almeda-Genoa Rd - between SH288 and at least MLK, if not Mykawa Rd
Katy Hockley Cut Off Rd - between Morton Rd and at least Clay Rd, if not said Freeman Rd/FM529

[Bobby5280]

All of the Houston metro inside of Beltway-8 is damned near a lost cause. I don't think anything can be done to fix the traffic snarls on surface streets. There are no access controls at all. Every side street, every parking lot entrance and every driveway has direct access to the main arterials. You get the maximum amount of traffic conflicts. Then the lighted signals at so many intersections are ill-timed and take forever to cycle.

I vividly remember one experience on Gessner Road out on the West side of Houston. It was the middle of a Saturday afternoon. We were trying to pass between a medical complex and huge but old shopping mall to get to I-10. We could see the Interstate from the Kingsride Lane intersection. Traffic was so jammed up it took us nearly half an hour to travel barely half a mile North to finally get on I-10. That ordeal gave me a different perspective on horrible traffic back-ups I've seen in the North Dallas area around Addison and near Beltline Road.

In Houston, it's not so much that any surface streets need to be expanded. What really needs to happen is a lot of side streets and driveways need to have access greatly reduced to the main thoroughfares. Good luck at trying to make that happen though. It would be a very daunting challenge. Some intelligent traffic filtering needs to be put in place. If the main surface streets had few side streets and no driveways connecting to them the traffic on those main roads would move far more efficiently. The improvement would pay itself forward onto the freeways and toll roads.

Freeways and toll roads get scape-goated all the time for traffic woes in a city. But I think the real culprit for the problem (especially in the case of Houston) is a very poorly designed, outdated surface street grid with zero access controls. The traffic jams on the freeways begin at the interface between the freeway and the surface streets. Vehicles trying to use exit ramps get stuck because of gridlock down on the surface streets. Traffic backs up in reverse farther and farther up the exit ramp and then finally onto the damned main lanes of the freeway. Then it just gets worse from there.

[Chris]

It looks interesting on a map how SH 6 and FM 1960 form a sort of intermediate beltway south, west and north of Houston. It's probably too developed now to improve this route further?

[MaxConcrete]

It looks interesting on a map how SH 6 and FM 1960 form a sort of intermediate beltway south, west and north of Houston. It's probably too developed now to improve this route further?

The SH 6 and FM 1960 route should have been designated as a freeway, with right-of-way set aside in the 1960s and 1970s. Leaving it as a highway (SH 6) and arterial street (west FM 1960) was one of the biggest mistakes in Houston freeway planning. The right-of-way for a critical section of FM 1960, from US 290 to I-45, is only 100 feet (30.5m) wide.

When I did historical research for the Houston Freeways book, I never found any mention of the corridor as a freeway. So as best as I can determine, it was never even proposed or considered for freeway status. As a practical matter, it was a huge struggle to get Beltway 8 built, and most of it is a tollway due to lack of TxDOT funding in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The concept of the Grand Parkway originated in the 1960s and of course it was also built, nearly all of it a tollway. So even with the SH 6/FM 1960 planning failure, Houston is the national leader in loops.

The FM 1960 and SH 6 corridors have seen many improvements over the years. Some sections have a wide right-of-way and good standards, such as FM 1960 between I-45 and I-69. The recently-completed US 290 project includes a long overpass at US 290. A long section west of Lake Houston is currently being widened, which required right-of-way acquisition. Intersection improvement is currently in progress as Eldridge Road.

Some proposed improvements were canceled over the years, including a Sugar Land bypass and overpass at Westheimer.

But in terms of the corridor being a freeway, that ship sailed a long time ago, and the best we can hope for is occasional incremental improvements.

[TheBox]

Almeda-Genoa Rd needs to be expanded more the any other road in Houston IMO:
You have:
-a 2-lane road, undivided ofc
-complete with ditches
-with a 45 speed limit
-one of the most non-highway truck heavy roads that isn't in East Houston; For ref, Mykawa Rd (which will be a freeway in the future) is 4-lanes north of Airport Blvd, same with Holmes Rd west of Almeda Rd, S. Post Oak Rd is also 4-lane and even 6-lane north of W. Orem Dr
-Some newer neighborhoods and apartments built around it the last decade

The question is, when will City of Houston and whoever contractor they choose just do it? I'll never know

[Bobby5280]

Aside from the suggestion of reducing the amount of driveways and side streets connecting to main arterials Houston's planners will have to build a lot more grade-separated intersections.

I can't imagine anyone having the stomach to take TX-6 from Bayou Vista clear up to a place like Sugar Land 45 miles away. It wouldn't surprise me if there was more than 100 signaled intersections on that stretch of road. Some locations have enough room to build grade separated intersections. Still, it would take an incredible amount of work just to upgrade it to "super street" standards, like US-1 in New Jersey between Trenton and New Brunswick.

[TXtoNJ]

Aside from the suggestion of reducing the amount of driveways and side streets connecting to main arterials Houston's planners will have to build a lot more grade-separated intersections.

I can't imagine anyone having the stomach to take TX-6 from Bayou Vista clear up to a place like Sugar Land 45 miles away. It wouldn't surprise me if there was more than 100 signaled intersections on that stretch of road. Some locations have enough room to build grade separated intersections. Still, it would take an incredible amount of work just to upgrade it to "super street" standards, like US-1 in New Jersey between Trenton and New Brunswick.

A "Jersey Freeway" would be the optimal solution for this and other Houston-area arterials. They get a lot of pushback, though, from impacted businesses.

[TheStranger]

Aside from the suggestion of reducing the amount of driveways and side streets connecting to main arterials Houston's planners will have to build a lot more grade-separated intersections.

I can't imagine anyone having the stomach to take TX-6 from Bayou Vista clear up to a place like Sugar Land 45 miles away. It wouldn't surprise me if there was more than 100 signaled intersections on that stretch of road. Some locations have enough room to build grade separated intersections. Still, it would take an incredible amount of work just to upgrade it to "super street" standards, like US-1 in New Jersey between Trenton and New Brunswick.

A "Jersey Freeway" would be the optimal solution for this and other Houston-area arterials. They get a lot of pushback, though, from impacted businesses.

When the Alternate US 90 upgrades occurred in the early 2000s between US 59 (I-69) in Sugar Land and 610, how were they received by the locals?  That to me is one interesting example of conversion from multi-lane boulevard to suburban freeway (along the same right-of-way) - though it is notable that the junction with 59/69 and the interchange with 610 are not at all limited-access connections, which limited the need to take more real estate in those areas.  (The only freeway-to-freeway setup along this part of 90A is with the Fort Bend Parkway Toll Road)

[achilles765]

I have my "wildest dream" scenarios for Houston, my beloved adopted home town:

Routes converted to freeway/tollway/expressway:
Hempstead road (expressway style like US 90 Alt) from IH 610 to grand parkway
SH 6: freeway from US 290 to south of Grand Parkway (south)
A freeway route paralleling FM 1488
US 90 Alt from IH 69/US 59 to outside of grand parkway
Designating the following routes:
FM 1764—-> Interstate 145
NASA 1 bypass——-> interstate 545
Spur 330——> interstate 710
Spur 527—-> interstate 569, and extend along roughly Fannin/San Jacinto to downtown
Grand parkway from IH 69/US 59 in sugar land to IH 69/US 59 in the northeast——> interstate 469
Hardy roll road——> interstate 445(and designate it from IH 45 in downtown, multiplex with IH 69, IH 610 from current terminus)
Airport connector——> interstate 769
Beltway 8——> interstate 245

[jlwm]

Link up the disjointed sections of Kirby between Holmes and BW 8.

Finish the missing W. Airport link from Chimney Rock and over S. Main to S. Post Oak.

[BJ59]

I have my "wildest dream" scenarios for Houston, my beloved adopted home town:

Routes converted to freeway/tollway/expressway:
Hempstead road (expressway style like US 90 Alt) from IH 610 to grand parkway

Doesn't US-290 already serve as a freeway route in that area?

[TheBox]

Link up the disjointed sections of Kirby between Holmes and BW 8.

Finish the missing W. Airport link from Chimney Rock and over S. Main to S. Post Oak.

I think both of these ships have since long been sailed IMO (especially Kirby)

But I could always be wrong in the future