North Houston Highway Improvement Project (project resumed March 2023)

[Plutonic Panda]

The only logical and fair thing to do is this:

-Eliminate Pierce freeway
-Bury I45, cover it with green space, parks, mixed used affordable housing
-ONLY improve the highway so it has full breakdown lanes, safe merges, and dedicated transit/HOV-3 or HOT 24/7 lanes in each direction (still have at least 2 free lanes).

The central core of a city is for LOCAL business only, NOT THROUGH traffic.
If you don't have business inside 610, stay on 610 then to 10 east to Baytown or 45 south to Galveston or 10 west to San Antonio or 45 north to Dallas.

2 free lanes..... lol you just lost any creditability you had. I might as well counter that with wanting 50 free lanes. Same logic.

[bwana39]

The only logical and fair thing to do is this:

-Eliminate Pierce freeway
-Bury I45, cover it with green space, parks, mixed used affordable housing
-ONLY improve the highway so it has full breakdown lanes, safe merges, and dedicated transit/HOV-3 or HOT 24/7 lanes in each direction (still have at least 2 free lanes).

The central core of a city is for LOCAL business only, NOT THROUGH traffic.
If you don't have business inside 610, stay on 610 then to 10 east to Baytown or 45 south to Galveston or 10 west to San Antonio or 45 north to Dallas.

I would agree with you BUT.... I-610 is not adequate for this. I-10 actually has more lanes by itself than 610 does.  If this had been done circa 1963 it would have been a win.

I was probably the first poster on this thread to say move I-45 to a tunnel under the current Pierce elevated.  Then came the moot arguments about tunnels being a bad fit in Houston (The plan is to put I-69 in a depressed roadway with a deck-park at ground level. This is nothing but a tunnel.  ) Tunnel on the south side is OK... Tunnel on the west side; NOT OK.

Regardless of what is done with the Pierce elevated, affordable housing will not be what is constructed in its wake.

BTW... The cities themselves demanded the freeways come to their downtowns.

[abqtraveler]

-Bury I45, cover it with green space, parks, mixed used affordable housing

Reminder: Houston is a FLOOD PRONE CITY. Digging a new freeway into a trench and capping it with deck parks and "affordable housing" might sound like a good idea on paper. But it's not all that do-able in Houston's case.

The central core of a city is for LOCAL business only, NOT THROUGH traffic.

Over 2 million people live in the "core" of the Houston metro area. Most of them get around in automobiles. Houston is not New York City. And even in NYC people are cabbing-it if they have the money to do so.

And just like in NYC, it's impossible to eliminate all of the truck traffic within the urban core, as tens of thousands of trucks each day have to make pick-ups and deliveries to the multitude of businesses within the urban core.

[bwana39]

-Bury I45, cover it with green space, parks, mixed used affordable housing

Reminder: Houston is a FLOOD PRONE CITY. Digging a new freeway into a trench and capping it with deck parks and "affordable housing" might sound like a good idea on paper. But it's not all that do-able in Houston's case.

Whether you believe the tunnel is viable or not they are planning on doing this on I-69 on the south side of downtown.   

As tunnels go, the Washburn tunnel (under the  HOUSTON) ship channel has been in place since 1950.

[silverback1065]

all the downtown freeways could have been 3 digits and the main 2 digit routes could have bypassed. then through traffic could be encouraged to go around... maybe.  Anyway, extending the Hardy Toll Road is a stupid idea, there are 2 parallel freeways in close proximity. I'm for improving highways, but adding lanes like Texas is doing is going towards induced demand imo. Never been a fan of Texas road design, just induces sprawl and poorly designed cities.

[bwana39]

all the downtown freeways could have been 3 digits and the main 2 digit routes could have bypassed. then through traffic could be encouraged to go around... maybe.  Anyway, extending the Hardy Toll Road is a stupid idea, there are 2 parallel freeways in close proximity. I'm for improving highways, but adding lanes like Texas is doing is going towards induced demand imo. Never been a fan of Texas road design, just induces sprawl and poorly designed cities.

Lots of things could have been... The problem is we have to deal with what is.

Poorly designed cities??? Houston doesn't even have zoning laws. In 1993, they passed some occupancy restrictions, but that regulates (broadly)what you can use a building for. You can technically still build heavy industrial in a neighborhood.  You just cannot live in an old plant or use a home for manufacturing. (That is a gross over-simplification, but it should make the point.)
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Weirdest-images-from-Houston-s-lack-of-zoning-laws-9171688.php#photo-10795336

I could get into a lengthy discussion of sprawl, but it boils down to lack of property standards and lack of disincentive to convert agricultural land to urban / suburban use.

[Bobby5280]

Never been a fan of Texas road design, just induces sprawl and poorly designed cities.

That is an overly simplistic statement. BTW, I believe Texas has some of the best super highways in the nation. They're certainly among the most impressive in scale.

Far more factors drive urban and suburban sprawl than highways. Cost of living in the city core forces many people to look farther away from the core for more affordable housing and other ammenities. Fear of crime also drives people out into the suburbs. Couples move out to suburbs looking for "better" quality school systems.

Some businesses choose not to inhabit city center office towers and opt for "low rise" suburban office campuses instead. Some are doing this to build their work place closer to where their employees can afford to live or choose to live.

New trends involve various work at home setups or a mix between working virtually and visiting the office in person only when necessary. No one has to live in an extreme cost city center to do business like that. And with the anti-roads sentiment among New Urbanists they seem driven on making city cores an absolute pain in the ass to visit by tearing out all the freeways. No motorist will want to slog his way through dozens of layers of traffic signals to reach a city core and then have to pay a punitive fortune to park. But that's the concept New Urbanists are promoting. The problem is there is zero romance at all spending an hour or two riding city buses and trains to reach a city core either. New Urbanists conveniently leave out that reality. All the more reason to build/rent more modest office space outside the city core and allow new kinds of work to take hold.

[In_Correct]

There is also this:

https://www.keranews.org/texas-news/2020-02-19/far-north-fort-worth-is-booming-how-the-city-is-addressing-the-growing-pains

An old article, but it says:

What is Fort Worth doing about the boom?

A couple of years ago, they got a report back on economic development that was pretty eye-opening to them. It showed that Fort Worth had the risk of becoming a bedroom community to Dallas County ... and they want to stop that.

One of the things they're doing is trying to redevelop the urban core area. They want to focus on getting corporate headquarters, and they want to grow the number of residential units within a mile of the downtown business district.  This is good for the city because it doesn't require the infrastructure that a northern suburb does. All of that infrastructure is already there – it just needs to be updated a little bit when you're talking about inside the city.

Having a high concentration of residents in the loop makes it more likely that a corporate headquarters will want to look inside the loop.

That would be successful as long as they keep said Infrastructure in place. More people can increase the traffic so keep the Interchanges and Frontage Roads and Other Bridges for crying out loud.

[silverback1065]

Never been a fan of Texas road design, just induces sprawl and poorly designed cities.

That is an overly simplistic statement. BTW, I believe Texas has some of the best super highways in the nation. They're certainly among the most impressive in scale.

Far more factors drive urban and suburban sprawl than highways. Cost of living in the city core forces many people to look farther away from the core for more affordable housing and other ammenities. Fear of crime also drives people out into the suburbs. Couples move out to suburbs looking for "better" quality school systems.

Some businesses choose not to inhabit city center office towers and opt for "low rise" suburban office campuses instead. Some are doing this to build their work place closer to where their employees can afford to live or choose to live.

New trends involve various work at home setups or a mix between working virtually and visiting the office in person only when necessary. No one has to live in an extreme cost city center to do business like that. And with the anti-roads sentiment among New Urbanists they seem driven on making city cores an absolute pain in the ass to visit by tearing out all the freeways. No motorist will want to slog his way through dozens of layers of traffic signals to reach a city core and then have to pay a punitive fortune to park. But that's the concept New Urbanists are promoting. The problem is there is zero romance at all spending an hour or two riding city buses and trains to reach a city core either. New Urbanists conveniently leave out that reality. All the more reason to build/rent more modest office space outside the city core and allow new kinds of work to take hold.

your thinking is exactly the problem. single choice transportation, we need more choices than cars.

[Anthony_JK]

Never been a fan of Texas road design, just induces sprawl and poorly designed cities.

That is an overly simplistic statement. BTW, I believe Texas has some of the best super highways in the nation. They're certainly among the most impressive in scale.

Far more factors drive urban and suburban sprawl than highways. Cost of living in the city core forces many people to look farther away from the core for more affordable housing and other ammenities. Fear of crime also drives people out into the suburbs. Couples move out to suburbs looking for "better" quality school systems.

Some businesses choose not to inhabit city center office towers and opt for "low rise" suburban office campuses instead. Some are doing this to build their work place closer to where their employees can afford to live or choose to live.

New trends involve various work at home setups or a mix between working virtually and visiting the office in person only when necessary. No one has to live in an extreme cost city center to do business like that. And with the anti-roads sentiment among New Urbanists they seem driven on making city cores an absolute pain in the ass to visit by tearing out all the freeways. No motorist will want to slog his way through dozens of layers of traffic signals to reach a city core and then have to pay a punitive fortune to park. But that's the concept New Urbanists are promoting. The problem is there is zero romance at all spending an hour or two riding city buses and trains to reach a city core either. New Urbanists conveniently leave out that reality. All the more reason to build/rent more modest office space outside the city core and allow new kinds of work to take hold.

your thinking is exactly the problem. single choice transportation, we need more choices than cars.

Agreed, but only to a point.

Yes, there should be more alternatives to driving in larger cities. However, since the majority of transportation usage will remain with cars and trucks for the forseeable future, and CBD's and inner cities need high-quality facilities that are accessible, it is a dangerous and highly irresponsible risk to tear down major freeways that directly access these locations.

I have no problem with building more alternative transportation modes; but not at the expense of removing vital freeways.

As for Houston, I still think that they should have retained and improved the Allen Elevated rather than creating this convoluted reroute of I-45. It is what it is, I guess. (Until, of course, it isn't.)

[silverback1065]

Never been a fan of Texas road design, just induces sprawl and poorly designed cities.

That is an overly simplistic statement. BTW, I believe Texas has some of the best super highways in the nation. They're certainly among the most impressive in scale.

Far more factors drive urban and suburban sprawl than highways. Cost of living in the city core forces many people to look farther away from the core for more affordable housing and other ammenities. Fear of crime also drives people out into the suburbs. Couples move out to suburbs looking for "better" quality school systems.

Some businesses choose not to inhabit city center office towers and opt for "low rise" suburban office campuses instead. Some are doing this to build their work place closer to where their employees can afford to live or choose to live.

New trends involve various work at home setups or a mix between working virtually and visiting the office in person only when necessary. No one has to live in an extreme cost city center to do business like that. And with the anti-roads sentiment among New Urbanists they seem driven on making city cores an absolute pain in the ass to visit by tearing out all the freeways. No motorist will want to slog his way through dozens of layers of traffic signals to reach a city core and then have to pay a punitive fortune to park. But that's the concept New Urbanists are promoting. The problem is there is zero romance at all spending an hour or two riding city buses and trains to reach a city core either. New Urbanists conveniently leave out that reality. All the more reason to build/rent more modest office space outside the city core and allow new kinds of work to take hold.

your thinking is exactly the problem. single choice transportation, we need more choices than cars.

Agreed, but only to a point.

Yes, there should be more alternatives to driving in larger cities. However, since the majority of transportation usage will remain with cars and trucks for the forseeable future, and CBD's and inner cities need high-quality facilities that are accessible, it is a dangerous and highly irresponsible risk to tear down major freeways that directly access these locations.

I have no problem with building more alternative transportation modes; but not at the expense of removing vital freeways.

As for Houston, I still think that they should have retained and improved the Allen Elevated rather than creating this convoluted reroute of I-45. It is what it is, I guess. (Until, of course, it isn't.)

To be clear I don't advocate for any removals. Except for certain exceptions like i-375 in Detroit, that highway isn't very useful anymore. Or the two x75's branching off 275 in st. Pete.

Pixel 5

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^ wow lol. Those two freeways are bizarre.

[In_Correct]

Never been a fan of Texas road design, just induces sprawl and poorly designed cities.

That is an overly simplistic statement. BTW, I believe Texas has some of the best super highways in the nation. They're certainly among the most impressive in scale.

Far more factors drive urban and suburban sprawl than highways. Cost of living in the city core forces many people to look farther away from the core for more affordable housing and other ammenities. Fear of crime also drives people out into the suburbs. Couples move out to suburbs looking for "better" quality school systems.

Some businesses choose not to inhabit city center office towers and opt for "low rise" suburban office campuses instead. Some are doing this to build their work place closer to where their employees can afford to live or choose to live.

New trends involve various work at home setups or a mix between working virtually and visiting the office in person only when necessary. No one has to live in an extreme cost city center to do business like that. And with the anti-roads sentiment among New Urbanists they seem driven on making city cores an absolute pain in the ass to visit by tearing out all the freeways. No motorist will want to slog his way through dozens of layers of traffic signals to reach a city core and then have to pay a punitive fortune to park. But that's the concept New Urbanists are promoting. The problem is there is zero romance at all spending an hour or two riding city buses and trains to reach a city core either. New Urbanists conveniently leave out that reality. All the more reason to build/rent more modest office space outside the city core and allow new kinds of work to take hold.

your thinking is exactly the problem. single choice transportation, we need more choices than cars.

Dallas, Tarrant, and Denton counties each have their own rail systems which badly needs expansion. Also, they do not necessarily work together. Houston's rail system is even worse than they are.

It is important to have rail especially since people do not know how to drive such as speeding and passing on shoulders, and at the same time demand Road Diets.

N.I.M.B.Y. prevents rail upgrades also. Removing ANY Infrastructure Upgrade including "Short Interstates" is not the solution. Gainesville Current U.S. 82 has the bridge over what seems to be an old alignment of U.S. 77

https://www.google.com/maps/place/US-82,+Gainesville,+TX/@33.6416325,-97.1346286,17z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x8636cd1b2145f725:0x8b2add7a157b27f7!8m2!3d33.6411655!4d-97.1363966

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.6411478,-97.1334213,3a,75y,2.9h,103.09t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sSie_KRw5lYYjacvBEAK8DA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.6422548,-97.1333506,3a,75y,162.8h,104.38t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s15_77c_L5mDym-UOwjKU7w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

which is useful especially since there is many traffic using it. Even after they ever start the U.S. 82 Realignment,

https://www.txdot.gov/inside-txdot/projects/studies/wichita-falls/us82-gainesville.html

that bridge must stay in place, and be a part of B.R. 82.

It is ludicrous to expect Rail upgrades if they want to downgrade a Highway.

The Problem Attitudes are those that hate bridges. Rail Lines are best elevated.

[kernals12]

Never been a fan of Texas road design, just induces sprawl and poorly designed cities.

That is an overly simplistic statement. BTW, I believe Texas has some of the best super highways in the nation. They're certainly among the most impressive in scale.

Far more factors drive urban and suburban sprawl than highways. Cost of living in the city core forces many people to look farther away from the core for more affordable housing and other ammenities. Fear of crime also drives people out into the suburbs. Couples move out to suburbs looking for "better" quality school systems.

Some businesses choose not to inhabit city center office towers and opt for "low rise" suburban office campuses instead. Some are doing this to build their work place closer to where their employees can afford to live or choose to live.

New trends involve various work at home setups or a mix between working virtually and visiting the office in person only when necessary. No one has to live in an extreme cost city center to do business like that. And with the anti-roads sentiment among New Urbanists they seem driven on making city cores an absolute pain in the ass to visit by tearing out all the freeways. No motorist will want to slog his way through dozens of layers of traffic signals to reach a city core and then have to pay a punitive fortune to park. But that's the concept New Urbanists are promoting. The problem is there is zero romance at all spending an hour or two riding city buses and trains to reach a city core either. New Urbanists conveniently leave out that reality. All the more reason to build/rent more modest office space outside the city core and allow new kinds of work to take hold.

your thinking is exactly the problem. single choice transportation, we need more choices than cars.

Not really. The car is the best way of getting around, we don't need inferior alternatives.

[MaxConcrete]

I posted a blog article articulating the extensive project benefits and listing the cancellation risks due to the lawsuit

http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/

[Plutonic Panda]

Great, great article MC. Indeed it will be a huge blow to Houston. I'm bracing myself for what I feel is the ultimate outcome for the 5, 605 project in LA. I hope Houston doesn't follow CAs path in canceling freeway projects left and right.

[Bobby5280]

your thinking is exactly the problem. single choice transportation, we need more choices than cars.

My thinking is based on REALITY. It's financially impossible to canvas most cities enough with various types of rail service that people don't need to drive cars some distance to reach a train station. The costs of building the lines is so perversely expensive that building any rail lines at all is out of reach for all but the largest cities.

And please show me anyone who truthfully enjoys riding the bus.

I've personally had years of experience riding city buses in New York City, along with taking the subway and Staten Island Ferry. Waiting outside in the weather at a bus stop is often a suck-tastic experience. Unless you live in a really large city, like NYC, you might be standing at that bus stop for quite a while. In smaller cities, like where I currently live, the city buses have a pretty limited number of routes and a limited schedule. The cost of commuting by cab or by Ãœber gets very expensive very fast. Pedaling a bicycle along city streets isn't very safe thanks to so many motorists driving with their heads up their digital a$$es. Around here the only adults riding bicycles through the neighborhoods look like hoodlums. So if you're on a bicycle motorists passing by might think you're a crackhead.

Until the United States can figure out some way how to build any kind of rail-based mode of transportation in a cost effective manner highways and super highways are going to remain very critical modes of transportation in urban and suburban areas.

[hotdogPi]

And please show me anyone who truthfully enjoys riding the bus.

I'm perfectly fine with riding the bus.

[Plutonic Panda]

And please show me anyone who truthfully enjoys riding the bus.

I'm perfectly fine with riding the bus.

In the US, you're likely in a super small minority.

[The Ghostbuster]

Count me in that "super small minority". Here in Madison, the bus system is the only major public transit option; since I don't have a car, I use the bus system to get around (and might try the proposed bus rapid-transit line when it opens in a few years). Madison has had rail proposals, which haven't gone forward. I am grateful for that, since I prefer buses to trains.

[Plutonic Panda]

Count me in that "super small minority". Here in Madison, the bus system is the only major public transit option; since I don't have a car, I use the bus system to get around (and might try the proposed bus rapid-transit line when it opens in a few years). Madison has had rail proposals, which haven't gone forward. I am grateful for that, since I prefer buses to trains.

Okay you are in that "super small majority"  and empirical evidence exists to prove it.

[kernals12]

And please show me anyone who truthfully enjoys riding the bus.

I'm perfectly fine with riding the bus.

In the US, you're likely in a super small minority.

Pretty much anywhere. I am definitely sure New Delhi residents wish they could get to work in their own air conditioned automobile rather than a sweaty, noisy, smelly bus.

[kernals12]

Count me in that "super small minority". Here in Madison, the bus system is the only major public transit option; since I don't have a car, I use the bus system to get around (and might try the proposed bus rapid-transit line when it opens in a few years). Madison has had rail proposals, which haven't gone forward. I am grateful for that, since I prefer buses to trains.

I would strongly implore you to go on Autotrader. You will find that a 15 year old Honda Civic will give you orders of magnitude more independence than a bus pass.

[Plutonic Panda]

And please show me anyone who truthfully enjoys riding the bus.

I'm perfectly fine with riding the bus.

In the US, you're likely in a super small minority.

Pretty much anywhere. I am definitely sure New Delhi residents wish they could get to work in their own air conditioned automobile rather than a sweaty, noisy, smelly bus.

You can believe that which is why modal share is moving towards cars in BRIC countries.

[In_Correct]

I also do not have any problem with riding Public Transportation. In addition to my other reasons, there are also the insufficient Highway Interchanges. They are not big enough and requires you slow down immensely before you are near the exit, since many traffic is stopped at traffic lights ... all the way through the ramp ... and the line continues on the shoulder.

As for long distance travel, I prefer to drive Motor Homes.

Bicycles are silly.