North Houston Highway Improvement Project (project resumed March 2023)

[Plutonic Panda]

So they didn't defund this project? That is good. Hopefully TxDOT can fight the FHWAs decision somehow.

[jadebenn]

So they didn't defund this project? That is good. Hopefully TxDOT can fight the FHWAs decision somehow.

Good luck when the city, county, and feds are all united against them. As many here have previously said, the administration clearly wants to make an example of this project.

[kernals12]

So they didn't defund this project? That is good. Hopefully TxDOT can fight the FHWAs decision somehow.

Good luck when the city, county, and feds are all united against them. As many here have previously said, the administration clearly wants to make an example of this project.

I thought the city was in favor

[jadebenn]

So they didn't defund this project? That is good. Hopefully TxDOT can fight the FHWAs decision somehow.

Good luck when the city, county, and feds are all united against them. As many here have previously said, the administration clearly wants to make an example of this project.

I thought the city was in favor

Used to be. Not anymore.

[Plutonic Panda]

So they didn't defund this project? That is good. Hopefully TxDOT can fight the FHWAs decision somehow.

Good luck when the city, county, and feds are all united against them. As many here have previously said, the administration clearly wants to make an example of this project.

TxDOT needs to work with city and county leaders to see what their alternatives are and what they don't like about this project that could possibly be improved.

[abqtraveler]

So they didn't defund this project? That is good. Hopefully TxDOT can fight the FHWAs decision somehow.

Good luck when the city, county, and feds are all united against them. As many here have previously said, the administration clearly wants to make an example of this project.

I thought the city was in favor

They are when it comes to removing the Pierce Elevated, but the city opposes just about everything else beyond that.

[bwana39]

So they didn't defund this project? That is good. Hopefully TxDOT can fight the FHWAs decision somehow.

Good luck when the city, county, and feds are all united against them. As many here have previously said, the administration clearly wants to make an example of this project.

TxDOT needs to work with city and county leaders to see what their alternatives are and what they don't like about this project that could possibly be improved.

TXDOT went to lengths to make a plan that the city wanted. TXDOT originally had wanted to replace the Pierce Elevated. Houston wanted it gone. They came up with the alternative of the massive 3-sided duplex.  I still don't think there is a big problem with this part of it.

The problem seems to be with the widening north of I-610.  I think the solution should be to extend the HTR on out to I-69 or I-10. Then again Houston doesn't like that either. I-45 is congested and the Hardy is underutilized.  Part of that problem is that I-610 is not a good entry point to HTR both because it is somewhat out of the way and because getting onto I-610 from either I-69 or I-45 is not smooth and I-610 itself is congested.  Tolls seemingly are not the issue.

It is hard to plan when the next time the administration changes so do the priorities.

[jadebenn]

TxDOT' hands are cuffed as well. By Texas law, 98% of TxDOT funds must be spent on auto infrastructure. That means no sweetening the pot and agreeing to "mitigate impacts" by:

* Funding local street projects (bike lanes, sidewalk improvements)
* Building transit infrastructure into the project (the best TxDOT can do is managed HOV/HOT lanes)
* Building that freeway cap (they can make provisions for it, but that's all)

This kind of wheeling and dealing is almost totally unavailable to them, and thus make it a lot harder for local politicians to go back to their constituents and say, "Okay, maybe we don't like this project, but look at what I got them to give us if it goes through." It's not totally absent - I do recall some flood infrastructure improvements being planned as part of this - but that's not really a big-ticket "sellable" item for most people.

Likewise, a big reimagining of the goals of the project (e.g: no footprint expansion) would probably need a new EIS, and there'd be very little of the existing design and engineering work that could be reused. So that puts you all the way back at the beginning of the design process; It's basically a cancellation of the existing project either way.

It's also important to note that the motivations of the new administration differ from those of the city. Their goals align, so they're working together, but they have slightly different reasons to be in opposition. As far as local city officials are concerned, this would piss off their constituency, and the benefits wouldn't happen until long after they're out of office. The political calculus is easy, and it's not good.

As for the feds, the racial impact is important and factors heavily into their decision-making, but it's not the whole story. They're also rewarding their voter base (we all know the cities lean differently from the state in aggregate), and doing a big symbolic thing to make a point of their changed transportation priorities (highways are out, transit is in). Bunch of different reasons behind that. Urbanists don't like urban freeways, environmentalists don't like increased car travel, poor voters don't like hearing about projects that impact other poor voters, etc. There's a pretty substantial anti-highway expansion coalition that's formed over the past decade, and this is their first real time in the big chair.

[vdeane]

Urbanists don't like urban freeways

Urbanists don't like freeways period.  What do you think the high speed rail push is about?  It's not about getting people to stop flying, it's about getting people to stop driving.

[kernals12]

Urbanists don't like urban freeways

Urbanists don't like freeways period.  What do you think the high speed rail push is about?  It's not about getting people to stop flying, it's about getting people to stop driving.

Actually, they've gone after flying now too. It's not a coincidence that flying is being attacked far more today than it was during the environmental movements of the 70s, despite being cleaner. It's because flying has gone from being the preserve of the rich to being accessible to the masses.

[vdeane]

Urbanists don't like urban freeways

Urbanists don't like freeways period.  What do you think the high speed rail push is about?  It's not about getting people to stop flying, it's about getting people to stop driving.

Actually, they've gone after flying now too. It's not a coincidence that flying is being attacked far more today than it was during the environmental movements of the 70s, despite being cleaner. It's because flying has gone from being the preserve of the rich to being accessible to the masses.

Environmental/climate activists are going after flying.  Not Urbanists (though those groups do tend to overlap).

[jadebenn]

Urbanists don't like urban freeways

Urbanists don't like freeways period.  What do you think the high speed rail push is about?  It's not about getting people to stop flying, it's about getting people to stop driving.

HSR doesn't remove the need for trucking, and only provides endpoint connectivity. As someone who hangs around in those kinds of communities, I've never heard of someone complain about a highway or freeway outside of a city's beltway.

[vdeane]

Urbanists don't like urban freeways

Urbanists don't like freeways period.  What do you think the high speed rail push is about?  It's not about getting people to stop flying, it's about getting people to stop driving.

HSR doesn't remove the need for trucking, and only provides endpoint connectivity. As someone who hangs around in those kinds of communities, I've never heard of someone complain about a highway or freeway outside of a city's beltway.

They do, however, complain about driving in general all the time, and want to get VMT down.  Many of them openly want to end private car ownership entirely.

[Bobby5280]

Ending private vehicle ownership? That sounds even more impossibly kooky than the chances the US will get a real high speed rail network anytime soon. Americans love their vehicles and the independent mobility they provide. And high speed rail networks are impossible to build in the US because we can't figure out how to build true HSR without it turning into a giant cost boondoggle. The US has gotten bad enough with the cost of new highways. HSR boils the red ink up to a whole new magnitude.

[vdeane]

Well, the idea is also to end driving by humans.  Everyone would just subscribe to a service and summon a self-driving car with an app when they need one.  And I don't think Urbanists care about costs.  If anything they'd say "just make the drivers pay, because things like free parking are a subsidy for them and they get too many of those".

[Plutonic Panda]

Why widen the freeway? Just tear it down so there isn't a traffic issue anymore:

https://www.texasobserver.org/the-road-home/

[bwana39]

Why widen the freeway? Just tear it down so there isn't a traffic issue anymore:

https://www.texasobserver.org/the-road-home/

We could tear down all the roads and require everyone to live within walking distance of their jobs or within walking distance of mass transit that takes them to within walking distance of their work.
Can you imagine the gentrification around those points?  While mass transit has its plusses and minuses, even in cities where it is plentiful, there are still lots of cars.

San Francisco and New York City are both in the top-five cities with the worst traffic congestion.  They are also the home to the two most comprehensive mass transit systems in the US.  While mass transit might lessen traffic, the fact is that POV traffic is still needed and used.

I will also add the Texas Observer article seemingly flexes between two different factoids. The fact that 85% of Texans live in urban areas and the fact that the people in the Urban Cores of the major Cities want expanded mass transit options to infer that 85% of Texans support major mass transit capital outlays. ( I am not sure a full 85% actually live in the city limits of cities of over 4,000 people) By the way only about half of the people in Texas live within 30 miles of towns over 250,000.

[Bobby5280]

Well, the idea is also to end driving by humans.  Everyone would just subscribe to a service and summon a self-driving car with an app when they need one.  And I don't think Urbanists care about costs.

The Urbanists apparently don't care about reality either. I wonder if they've been keeping up with the social experiment involving mask use in public or COVID-19 vaccines. Or even wearing seatbelts. Not everyone wants to go along, even if going along can be life saving.

I strongly suspect at least some (if not a lot) of so-called New Urbanists are hypocrites. We're hearing a bunch of this stuff from lawmakers who are often also upper income elites. These aren't the types of people who stand out in the weather waiting for a city bus. They romanticize mass transit but aren't living the reality. I have a keen appreciation for driving a personal vehicle, developed after 5 years of using mass transit in New York City. There is a lot that sucks about taking the bus or train. I suspect some of these Urbanists are taking cabs and car services to work and other destinations, if they're not driving their own personal vehicles.

We could tear down all the roads and require everyone to live within walking distance of their jobs or within walking distance of mass transit that takes them to within walking distance of their work.
Can you imagine the gentrification around those points?

Many kinds of service businesses would cease to function. The employees would not find any affordable places to live in many job locations. Really, that's already becoming a big problem.

[kernals12]

Why widen the freeway? Just tear it down so there isn't a traffic issue anymore:

https://www.texasobserver.org/the-road-home/

We could tear down all the roads and require everyone to live within walking distance of their jobs or within walking distance of mass transit that takes them to within walking distance of their work.
Can you imagine the gentrification around those points?  While mass transit has its plusses and minuses, even in cities where it is plentiful, there are still lots of cars.

San Francisco and New York City are both in the top-five cities with the worst traffic congestion.  They are also the home to the two most comprehensive mass transit systems in the US.  While mass transit might lessen traffic, the fact is that POV traffic is still needed and used.

I will also add the Texas Observer article seemingly flexes between two different factoids. The fact that 85% of Texans live in urban areas and the fact that the people in the Urban Cores of the major Cities want expanded mass transit options to infer that 85% of Texans support major mass transit capital outlays. ( I am not sure a full 85% actually live in the city limits of cities of over 4,000 people) By the way only about half of the people in Texas live within 30 miles of towns over 250,000.

They also ignore the impact of freeways on surface streets. Memorial Drive has less traffic on it now than it did in 1960 thanks to the Katy Freeway.

[MaxConcrete]

Here's the newest twist on the NHHIP story. TxDOT just posted a promotional video for the REAL network, which is a conceptual network of interconnected managed lanes to serve future mobility needs and accommodate technologies of the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjtVjCcRzDo

I'm super-excited to see this video because I was the co-author of a 2017 report promoting this idea. In fact, I prepared the report including all the graphics and maps.
http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/2017/05/max-lanes-next-generation-strategy-for.html

So here's the twist: The video shows the Pierce Elevated corridor as a REAL network downtown connector, including a hub station. Of course this is entirely dependent on NNHIP moving forward, to make the corridor available.

Reality check: this may be hard sell to downtown interests who want to get rid of the Pierce Elevated if/when NHHIP moves forward.

[Anthony_JK]

Fascinating, but I just can't see the New Urbanist crowd endorsing this idea, when their primary goal is to remove and downgrade freeways and replace them with rail-based transit and higher-density housing. Also, there's the danger of privatizing public infrastructure as a means of paying for all this.

[Henry]

Well, there are far fewer people interested in driving than there were 30 years ago, and even if the electric vehicle becomes our only mode of transportation, I don't see that trend changing anytime soon. New Urbanism is definitely to blame for all this, plus the freeway revolts that left a lot of corridors either unbuilt or incomplete further prove their point, which is that cities should be bypassed entirely, with mass transit and surface boulevards serving the downtowns. And they continue to ignore the sad reality that all cities as a whole have suffered greatly from crime and violence over the years, even in areas where the opposition was successful in stopping a freeway from coming through them, while thinking that renewal and gentrification will be the magic pill that solves everything. (It simply does not work that way.)

[The Ghostbuster]

Maybe if existing Interstate 45 between Interstate 69 and Interstate 10 along the Pierce Elevated is eventually torn down, the remnants of the Interstate 45 freeway could become an extension of Spur 527, with 527 running up Brazos St. (Northbound) and Bagby St. (Southbound) to connect the existing 527 with the former Interstate 45 freeway (527 would be signposted along this route as well). I would suggest connecting connecting the 527 and former 45 freeways, but that likely wouldn't fly.

[In_Correct]

New Urbanists do not like any Infrastructure ... even if it is Rail ... and Private.

[Thegeet]

New Urbanists do not like any Infrastructure ... even if it is Rail ... and Private.

That's why we can't have nice things. Everyone tries to block everything. Such a shame.