North Houston Highway Improvement Project (project resumed March 2023)

[Plutonic Panda]

PS, Houston absolutely needs a large, HRT system in downtown. It needs to be elevated like CTAs.

Why? Those el trains are hideous.

I don't think subway will work in Houston with the constant floods. At grade rail sucks.

[Plutonic Panda]

Wouldn't it be weird if a project of this magnitude would not be sued? I would expect such a large project to be appealed against.

Houston is one of the few metro areas that has seen its congestion level gone down. It also ranks lower today than it did during the 1980s, even with the explosive population growth. Houston has been better in keeping its infrastructure up with the growing demand than many other metropolitan areas.

More transit could be nice, but this wouldn't make a dent in traffic volumes. It should be a separate consideration. Even in Europe, which has urbanized more transit-friendly, new transit projects never reduce traffic volumes on freeways. Only covid or huge economic crises manage to do that.

Any transit planner that claims to build a rail or bus project to reduce traffic congestion is simply saying so to get car drivers to vote for it.

[kernals12]

PS, Houston absolutely needs a large, HRT system in downtown. It needs to be elevated like CTAs.

Why? Those el trains are hideous.

I don't think subway will work in Houston with the constant floods. At grade rail sucks.

That's a reason to not build rail at all.

[Bobby5280]

IMHO, building and expanding freeways in the Houston metro are hasn't worked well in reducing traffic congestion and maybe it's time to take a look at some mass transit options. The Houston metro area has to be the largest metro area in the country that doesn't have a robust mass transit network with things like light rail or subways.

Houston actually does have a mass transit system, including some mass transit rail. But building a much more elaborate light rail or subway system still won't solve the problem.

The real issue with Houston's traffic is the very outdated street layouts in most parts of the metro. There is virtually no traffic filtering at all. In most neighborhoods every cross street and driveway is able to empty directly out onto the main arterial streets. That's a great recipe for gridlock and it contributes directly to traffic jams on the freeways. Cars trying to exit the freeway get hung up in surface street traffic at the end of the exit ramps. Then traffic backs up the full length of the exit ramp and then backs up into the main lanes of the freeway itself.

It doesn't matter if a particular freeway in Houston is 30 lanes wide. If traffic can't exit the freeway efficiently the traffic will clog its way backward into the freeway.

The newest neighborhoods built farther on the outskirts of Houston have more modern street layouts which allow traffic signals on surface streets to be spaced considerably farther apart and allow more efficient movement of vehicle traffic. City planners in Houston have to figure out some way how to remodel the old street grids to do the same thing.

[kernals12]

IMHO, building and expanding freeways in the Houston metro are hasn't worked well in reducing traffic congestion and maybe it's time to take a look at some mass transit options. The Houston metro area has to be the largest metro area in the country that doesn't have a robust mass transit network with things like light rail or subways.

Houston actually does have a mass transit system, including some mass transit rail. But building a much more elaborate light rail or subway system still won't solve the problem.

The real issue with Houston's traffic is the very outdated street layouts in most parts of the metro. There is virtually no traffic filtering at all. In most neighborhoods every cross street and driveway is able to empty directly out onto the main arterial streets. That's a great recipe for gridlock and it contributes directly to traffic jams on the freeways. Cars trying to exit the freeway get hung up in surface street traffic at the end of the exit ramps. Then traffic backs up the full length of the exit ramp and then backs up into the main lanes of the freeway itself.

It doesn't matter if a particular freeway in Houston is 30 lanes wide. If traffic can't exit the freeway efficiently the traffic will clog its way backward into the freeway.

The newest neighborhoods built farther on the outskirts of Houston have more modern street layouts which allow traffic signals on surface streets to be spaced considerably farther apart and allow more efficient movement of vehicle traffic. City planners in Houston have to figure out some way how to remodel the old street grids to do the same thing.

Interesting, where is this problem most severe?

[Plutonic Panda]

PS, Houston absolutely needs a large, HRT system in downtown. It needs to be elevated like CTAs.

Why? Those el trains are hideous.

I don't think subway will work in Houston with the constant floods. At grade rail sucks.

That's a reason to not build rail at all.

I disagree. Downtown Houston needs a robust rail system and it should elevated heavy rail. I don't find Chicago's elevated rail ugly as it adds a cool gritty element to the city. I do believe they are going to rebuild it so maybe that will make it more visually appealing. Every major city around the world has a robust rail network and Houston should too.

[abqtraveler]

PS, Houston absolutely needs a large, HRT system in downtown. It needs to be elevated like CTAs.

Why? Those el trains are hideous.

I don't think subway will work in Houston with the constant floods. At grade rail sucks.

That's a reason to not build rail at all.

I disagree. Downtown Houston needs a robust rail system and it should elevated heavy rail. I don't find Chicago's elevated rail ugly as it adds a cool gritty element to the city. I do believe they are going to rebuild it so maybe that will make it more visually appealing. Every major city around the world has a robust rail network and Houston should too.

Boston was built mostly on landfill pushed into Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, yet they were able to build subways and place their highways in underground tunnels that don't flood. If they can do that, Houston could do that too.

[Plutonic Panda]

PS, Houston absolutely needs a large, HRT system in downtown. It needs to be elevated like CTAs.

Why? Those el trains are hideous.

I don't think subway will work in Houston with the constant floods. At grade rail sucks.

That's a reason to not build rail at all.

I disagree. Downtown Houston needs a robust rail system and it should elevated heavy rail. I don't find Chicago's elevated rail ugly as it adds a cool gritty element to the city. I do believe they are going to rebuild it so maybe that will make it more visually appealing. Every major city around the world has a robust rail network and Houston should too.

Boston was built mostly on landfill pushed into Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, yet they were able to build subways and place their highways in underground tunnels that don't flood. If they can do that, Houston could do that too.

Houston gets way more heavy rain than Boston does though. I don't see why am elevated rail system wouldn't be ideal. I don't view them as unsightly but I can see why many do.

[TXtoNJ]

IMHO, building and expanding freeways in the Houston metro are hasn't worked well in reducing traffic congestion and maybe it's time to take a look at some mass transit options. The Houston metro area has to be the largest metro area in the country that doesn't have a robust mass transit network with things like light rail or subways.

Houston actually does have a mass transit system, including some mass transit rail. But building a much more elaborate light rail or subway system still won't solve the problem.

The real issue with Houston's traffic is the very outdated street layouts in most parts of the metro. There is virtually no traffic filtering at all. In most neighborhoods every cross street and driveway is able to empty directly out onto the main arterial streets. That's a great recipe for gridlock and it contributes directly to traffic jams on the freeways. Cars trying to exit the freeway get hung up in surface street traffic at the end of the exit ramps. Then traffic backs up the full length of the exit ramp and then backs up into the main lanes of the freeway itself.

It doesn't matter if a particular freeway in Houston is 30 lanes wide. If traffic can't exit the freeway efficiently the traffic will clog its way backward into the freeway.

The newest neighborhoods built farther on the outskirts of Houston have more modern street layouts which allow traffic signals on surface streets to be spaced considerably farther apart and allow more efficient movement of vehicle traffic. City planners in Houston have to figure out some way how to remodel the old street grids to do the same thing.

The funny thing is that this can be easily done through traffic calming measures. Conversion of streets to pedestrian- and/or bike-only ingress/egress allow for a greater implementation of road hierarchy while still permitting an integrated urban environment.

[hotdogPi]

IMHO, building and expanding freeways in the Houston metro are hasn't worked well in reducing traffic congestion and maybe it's time to take a look at some mass transit options. The Houston metro area has to be the largest metro area in the country that doesn't have a robust mass transit network with things like light rail or subways.

Houston actually does have a mass transit system, including some mass transit rail. But building a much more elaborate light rail or subway system still won't solve the problem.

The real issue with Houston's traffic is the very outdated street layouts in most parts of the metro. There is virtually no traffic filtering at all. In most neighborhoods every cross street and driveway is able to empty directly out onto the main arterial streets. That's a great recipe for gridlock and it contributes directly to traffic jams on the freeways. Cars trying to exit the freeway get hung up in surface street traffic at the end of the exit ramps. Then traffic backs up the full length of the exit ramp and then backs up into the main lanes of the freeway itself.

It doesn't matter if a particular freeway in Houston is 30 lanes wide. If traffic can't exit the freeway efficiently the traffic will clog its way backward into the freeway.

The newest neighborhoods built farther on the outskirts of Houston have more modern street layouts which allow traffic signals on surface streets to be spaced considerably farther apart and allow more efficient movement of vehicle traffic. City planners in Houston have to figure out some way how to remodel the old street grids to do the same thing.

The funny thing is that this can be easily done through traffic calming measures. Conversion of streets to pedestrian- and/or bike-only ingress/egress allow for a greater implementation of road hierarchy while still permitting an integrated urban environment.

Boston's traffic is bad because of a lack of good surface roads.

[kernals12]

IMHO, building and expanding freeways in the Houston metro are hasn't worked well in reducing traffic congestion and maybe it's time to take a look at some mass transit options. The Houston metro area has to be the largest metro area in the country that doesn't have a robust mass transit network with things like light rail or subways.

Houston actually does have a mass transit system, including some mass transit rail. But building a much more elaborate light rail or subway system still won't solve the problem.

The real issue with Houston's traffic is the very outdated street layouts in most parts of the metro. There is virtually no traffic filtering at all. In most neighborhoods every cross street and driveway is able to empty directly out onto the main arterial streets. That's a great recipe for gridlock and it contributes directly to traffic jams on the freeways. Cars trying to exit the freeway get hung up in surface street traffic at the end of the exit ramps. Then traffic backs up the full length of the exit ramp and then backs up into the main lanes of the freeway itself.

It doesn't matter if a particular freeway in Houston is 30 lanes wide. If traffic can't exit the freeway efficiently the traffic will clog its way backward into the freeway.

The newest neighborhoods built farther on the outskirts of Houston have more modern street layouts which allow traffic signals on surface streets to be spaced considerably farther apart and allow more efficient movement of vehicle traffic. City planners in Houston have to figure out some way how to remodel the old street grids to do the same thing.

The funny thing is that this can be easily done through traffic calming measures. Conversion of streets to pedestrian- and/or bike-only ingress/egress allow for a greater implementation of road hierarchy while still permitting an integrated urban environment.

Boston's traffic is bad because of a lack of good surface roads.

It's the lack of any access management. There are residential driveways on Route 9!

[Bobby5280]

The real issue with Houston's traffic is the very outdated street layouts in most parts of the metro.
Interesting, where is this problem most severe?

That's tough to say. I've had horrible traffic experiences at the interface between freeways and surface streets across many parts of Houston. There are dozens upon dozens of locations where you have a major crossing street connecting with a freeway and the crossing surface street is just pigged with traffic signals at multiple intersections in close proximity to the freeway. The area around Belaire, West University Park and going farther West is pretty bad. Zones along I-45 in any part of central Houston and going well to the North and South can be soul-crushing.

One area I particularly hate is Gessner Road crossing I-10. Just South of I-10 a large hospital is on the West side of Gessner and a large indoor mall is on the East side. I was stuck in traffic at that location once; it took a half hour just to move from the traffic light at Kingsride Lane up to I-10. The Interstate was visible up ahead; I could have walked there faster.

Boston was built mostly on landfill pushed into Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, yet they were able to build subways and place their highways in underground tunnels that don't flood. If they can do that, Houston could do that too.

You must be looking at the history of Boston's "Big Dig" with some rose colored glasses. That project had all kinds of water intrusion problems, among other issues. Historic Boston was not built at all on land fill. You might be thinking about Logan International Airport. Some parts of the "T" subway system are built underground, but most of its track miles are built at or above grade. The commuter rail network going farther to Boston's outskirts is hardly underground at all.

The funny thing is that this can be easily done through traffic calming measures. Conversion of streets to pedestrian- and/or bike-only ingress/egress allow for a greater implementation of road hierarchy while still permitting an integrated urban environment.

Some spots in downtown Houston might respond well to road diets, but it would be tricky to deploy elsewhere. In some respects the situation appears almost as hopeless as trying to un-explode a hand grenade. Many regions of the Houston area are a tangled mess.

Houston needs to upgrade a lot of major arterials with grade separated intersections. They need to cut off a lot of side streets and driveways from directly accessing the major streets. The trouble is so much stuff has been built so close to the main streets that it's difficult or impossible to build any substantial street upgrades at all. Too many places are so packed in with clutter. Houston's biggest sin was becoming a giant major city before a lot of modern urban planning techniques were put into use. The street layout of Houston in its oldest zones is not much different than cities in developing countries.

Downtown Houston needs a robust rail system and it should elevated heavy rail. I don't find Chicago's elevated rail ugly as it adds a cool gritty element to the city. I do believe they are going to rebuild it so maybe that will make it more visually appealing. Every major city around the world has a robust rail network and Houston should too.

If Chicago's "L" lines didn't already exist today and they wanted to start building them from scratch it would be impossible to do. The "L" network is over 100 years old. New elevated rail lines are much more difficult to build. The construction costs are routinely outrageous. That ridiculous situation is matched only by all the government red tape and litigation that always plagues such projects. As costly and controversial as elevated rail can be, putting the rail lines under ground is even worse. In Houston's case I think subways are a non-starter.

[TXtoNJ]

Yeah outside the loop, a combination of developers and small business interests will prevent any sort of improvement to the situation. There's really only hope inside the loop.

[abqtraveler]

Boston was built mostly on landfill pushed into Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, yet they were able to build subways and place their highways in underground tunnels that don't flood. If they can do that, Houston could do that too.

You must be looking at the history of Boston's "Big Dig" with some rose colored glasses. That project had all kinds of water intrusion problems, among other issues. Historic Boston was not built at all on land fill. You might be thinking about Logan International Airport. Some parts of the "T" subway system are built underground, but most of its track miles are built at or above grade. The commuter rail network going farther to Boston's outskirts is hardly underground at all.

Here are a couple of links to good articles that discuss how much of Boston was created by filling in the Back Bay and other inlets into Boston Harbor. Point is, most of the city was built on landfill. A lot of that fill was garbage produced by the city's residents. Now I never said the Big Dig was without its own problems, but they managed to fix those problems and I haven't heard of an instance of the Big Dig tunnels flooding in at least the past decade, despite a few hurricanes and intense rain events that brought flooding to nearby areas.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/Boston-landfill-maps-history
http://www.celebrateboston.com/map/boston-1775.htm

[Finrod]

Comparing Boston's Logan airport with Houston's Hobby airport (all data via wikipedia):

Boston averages 43 inches of rain over 126 days a year
Houston averages 54 inches of rain over 103 days a year

So Houston gets more rain over fewer days; averaging approximately half an inch of rain per rain day as opposed to Boston's third of an inch of rain per rain day.  Also Boston gets a significant amount of its winter precipitation via snow instead of rain, and snow won't flood until it melts.

I would guess that would mean that Houston tunnels would be at significantly greater flooding risk than Boston's.

[Plutonic Panda]

This doesn't sound good:

https://www.texasobserver.org/in-houston-a-plan-to-expand-interstate-45-encounters-federal-pushback/

[silverback1065]

This doesn't sound good:

https://www.texasobserver.org/in-houston-a-plan-to-expand-interstate-45-encounters-federal-pushback/

not surprising. pete says he's against virtually all highways and this of course would be his pet project to be against. i still have no idea why he's the head of this. i'm not convinced he has any idea what he's doing, let alone knows anything about transportation. his "smart streets" project in south bend turned out nice, but doesn't provide the kind of experience i think you would need for this job.

[abqtraveler]

Comparing Boston's Logan airport with Houston's Hobby airport (all data via wikipedia):

Boston averages 43 inches of rain over 126 days a year
Houston averages 54 inches of rain over 103 days a year

So Houston gets more rain over fewer days; averaging approximately half an inch of rain per rain day as opposed to Boston's third of an inch of rain per rain day.  Also Boston gets a significant amount of its winter precipitation via snow instead of rain, and snow won't flood until it melts.

I would guess that would mean that Houston tunnels would be at significantly greater flooding risk than Boston's.

As part of the tunnel design, you could incorporate a system of pumps with redundant power to keep the tunnels dry even when the power goes out. Add to that a series of watertight bulkheads (remotely operated, also on redundant power) to isolate any flooding that does occur to keep the entire system from being flooded.

[bwana39]

Here is the issue for this entire project.

The first part of it is a widening project from the (Current) I-10 -I-45 split going to around Beltway 8. This portion of this project is causing LOTS of conflict  because it is possibly destroying neighborhoods. This part of the project would include a complete reconstruction of the I-45 / I-610 junction.

The part south of the current I-10 split and the (proposed) southern I-69 split is so far in the future, that in spite of the seeming finality, anything could happen.
 
Any argument against a tunnel is moot. . there is already a tunnel planned for this. They call it a depressed highway section with a ground level deck park.  It would be as easy to do the same thing to replace the Pierce Elevated as it is t build it on the south side of downtown.  This whole downtown proposal is just a way to try to create (new) buildable commercial land on the reclaimed row from I-45.

[MaxConcrete]

The part south of the current I-10 split and the (proposed) southern I-69 split is so far in the future, that in spite of the seeming finality, anything could happen.

The planned construction sequence is to start on the south end with the section of IH 69 between Spur 527 and SH 288, and then proceed northward. All the work from the south end to the IH-45/IH610 interchange (including the interchange) is funded, at about $5.1 billion. If the project proceeds it won't necessarily be in exact order from south to north, but downtown will be done first.

Nothing north of IH 610 is funded.

You are correct that IH 45 north of Loop 610 is the most controversial due to the planned right-of-way clearance.

[Plutonic Panda]

So if it was a white neighborhood it would be fine. I mean this is insanity. How is this road ever supposed to get widened then?

https://apple.news/A6zuE9OFbRcuwlLjxCF1DXw

[MaxConcrete]

So if it was a white neighborhood it would be fine. I mean this is insanity. How is this road ever supposed to get widened then?

https://apple.news/A6zuE9OFbRcuwlLjxCF1DXw

It certainly looks like Buttigieg is going to make an example of Houston by killing the project. That will also burnish his anti-car credentials.

What's lost in all of this is that the minority communities which the feds are "protecting" would be the main beneficiaries of the mobility improvements. Those minority communities will lose the mobility benefits when the project is cancelled. Houston is only 24% white. The City of Houston and Harris County want a plan that forces more people onto public transit that goes downtown, but the minority workforce generally does not work downtown. The Hispanic workforce in particular (construction, trades, landscape, industrial workers, warehousing) is more reliant on highways to go to dispersed work sites.

[Chris]

If you observe the news reports and actions taken, it seems that transportation policy on the left side of politics has been hijacked by the far left, with all this 'racist highways' and 'climate killer' rhetoric. This is also true in Europe, there are almost no moderate / pragmatic center-left views on transportation anymore.

I think this can be attributed to the failure of understanding their own electorate and being stuck in an ideological bubble. Parties that say they represent the working class or lower incomes don't seem to understand that those people usually rely on a car to commute to work, they typically do not work in a shiny office tower near a transit station (or from home), but much more likely in a dispersed landscape of suburban industrial or commercial sites.

You can also see they tend to have a very 1960s view of suburbs: white people commuting to work to downtown, on highways built over minority neighborhoods. Suburbs are much more diverse today, and so are the commuters.

[kernals12]

If you observe the news reports and actions taken, it seems that transportation policy on the left side of politics has been hijacked by the far left, with all this 'racist highways' and 'climate killer' rhetoric. This is also true in Europe, there are almost no moderate / pragmatic center-left views on transportation anymore.

I think this can be attributed to the failure of understanding their own electorate and being stuck in an ideological bubble. Parties that say they represent the working class or lower incomes don't seem to understand that those people usually rely on a car to commute to work, they typically do not work in a shiny office tower near a transit station (or from home), but much more likely in a dispersed landscape of suburban industrial or commercial sites.

You can also see they tend to have a very 1960s view of suburbs: white people commuting to work to downtown, on highways built over minority neighborhoods. Suburbs are much more diverse today, and so are the commuters.

That's been the case since the 60s, except back then it was smog, not climate change, that was the issue. But I'd question how much impact the far left has on transportation planning, with plenty of Democrats backing massive highway projects.

[kernals12]

Couldn't extending the Hardy Toll Road to Downtown, as has long been proposed, do the same thing as this widening but with far less community disruption?