290 is pretty much finished now.
Is the Hempstead Tollway still on the radar, or has that project faded away after the ban on new toll roads?
I believe it was originally planned to be built simultaneously with US 290, to be a system of express lanes on a parallel alignment instead of in the median.
I believe it’s dead now. They rebuilt 290 with a separated reversible HOV/Bus lane in the middle and a high occupancy lane going each direction as part of the main lanes.
The Hempstead Tollway is most likely dead, and TxDOT is trying to replace it with 2x2 toll-free managed lanes along the same alignment. The managed lanes are proposed to be elevated inside BW8 to reduce right-of-way requirements. TxDOT is asking H-GAC to modify the long-term plan to include the elevated managed lanes, but as of tomorrow's meeting H-GAC is not including the change. H-GAC is also rejecting TxDOT's request for managed lanes on the West Loop and on the inner Katy Freeway.
https://www.h-gac.com/media/hgac/transportation-advisory-committee/meeting-agendas/documents/2021/june/ITEM-07.pdf
The freeway expansion era is largely over in Houston, it seems. We'll probably see a few projects get finished (if in a reduced state, I don't expect I-45 north of DT to get expanded), but anything on a new ROW (except for SH 35 and everything other than Segment A of the Grand Parkway) is done, and reconstructions will almost certainly be no capacity added.
I think 25 years of PAINFUL reconstructions, along with apparently-limited benefits (even if the actual benefits were fairly good), has shifted the political climate away from expansion anywhere inside Beltway 8.
Disagree, far more than 'limited' benefits. In the last 21 years only the DFW Combined Statistical Area has had a larger total number of population increase (not percentage) in the US (not even the LA CSA grew as much in raw numbers.) Harris County would be choking from congestion now if those improvements hadn't been made. That's like arguing buying new clothes for a kid from age 6 to 18 is of 'limited benefit'.
The mass transit map is even more exciting. I didn't know Houston actually had two commuter rail lines planned. Nevertheless, I see some glaring holes in that light rail map. Hobby Airport needs to be connected, and I think that there should be a line going all the way out to League City (or even Kemah or Galveston, but that's probably unfeasible). Plus I would extend the southern line all the way to Pearland given all the people who live there who work at the Medical Center.
Perhaps the best thing the Houston transit agency has done was use HOT/HOV lanes to build out a bus network for longer distance commuters. More cost effective and extensive in the short term.
However, their commuter rail planning has been pretty much a joke. It seems pretty clear that for much of the last couple of decades they internally viewed a commuter rail network as a threat to their precious light-rail plans. There's only so much money to go around, and nowhere near enough to build their, and the city council's provincial LRT wish lists, before even a penny could be committed to commuter rail. Cost, control, and politics results in just a few planned commuter rail lines (there's potential for a pretty extensive network) and ending them at outer LRT/busway transit hubs instead of providing a 1-seat ride all the way to downtown.
Don't get me wrong, LRT is important and a good way to increase and properly serve denser development inside the loop. But a huge problem is that to stretch lines into so many councilmembers pet districts, they had to somewhat design and build on the cheap. Thus a lot of very slow running that makes it take too long once you try and use it from very far outside the loop. It takes 30 minutes to ride less than 7 miles from the 610 south parking lots to downtown. Hence the wisdom of feeding the central core of LRT with suburban commuter bus lines, even though it requires a transfer (though an extensive LRT network would still require lots of transfers, that's unavoidable in a multi-hub network.)
Complicating matters is that after the South Main line they've focused more on putting LRT in councilmembers pet districts over serving major job hubs beyond downtown and the Med Ctr, like the Galleria area. The ridership numbers would be higher, if accurately estimated (transit agencies are great about manipulating the estimates to show what they and their political masters want. To the point of flat out lying, dig down and look at the assumptions they make in creating their estimates.) But of course the race card is always ready to be played, so we got certain favored mostly residential (and to be fair, some dense redevelopment potential) neighborhoods served instead.
I went to a Metro meeting about their mid and long range transit plan they were pushing at the time (right after they told TXDOT that they wanted their portion of the Katy Fwy rebuild to be bus HOT only, no LRT or commuter rail.
So yeah, long ago.) They flat out lied to the audience, telling them what they wanted to hear. That the proposed LRT line from downtown to Intercontinental Airport using surface streets would be super fast because it would be elevated the entire way and would be one of the first in line and funding shouldn't be a hindrance. Ha! They knew they could never afford elevated along the entire route, they knew the cost/rider wouldn't meet the fed requirements at the time for project eligibility, and they knew that any airport line, if routed up surface streets, would be a phased buildout because of distance. And they knew their time estimates were just bait and switch unachievable for such a routing.
But on the flip side, when asked why they weren't proposing in early or mid phases commuter rail to downtown on the existing rail corridor towards Galveston, it was one reason after another why it just wasn't feasible. Too expensive because it required 3 grade separations over major freight lines. True, yet a starter single track, off the shelf, diesel commuter rail line built in that freight RR ROW to Clear Lake City would still be much cheaper than dual electrified LRT tracks built into street ROW, and the more complex grade separations that parallel LRT line just to Harrisburg would require.
Again, I think their ultimate choice of suburban HOT bus feeding central LRT was mostly the right choice. I was just disgusted at the pandering and widespread dishonesty I've seen for years out of Metro, and their jealous provincialism. They should have preserved corridor in the planned I-45 reroute and reroute of the downtown freight line, so as to serve a future commuter rail hub station at either the Post Office site or the bus barns on the east side of the UH-Downtown LRT station. Either site could be connected to the downtown tunnel system with enclosed walkways and perhaps moving sidewalks, which would allow many commuters to walk the last segment to their jobs no matter how hot or rainy it gets. That would encourage some conversion from car commutes, and reduce overloading of the Main Street LRT line. But instead they've always gone with the further away future Burnett hub station, which every plan I've seen is would not have the footprint to handle enough tracks for a full CR network and possible intercity/HSR network. Short-sighted.
Commuter rail is complex, and probably not yet ripe for development in Houston. You have to work out agreements with the freight railroad owners, and that is not guaranteed. Union Pacific RR killed off the proposed SA-Austin commuter rail line that wanted to share its ROW. Though perhaps the time is right for Congress to finally take on the freight RR monopoly/duopoly and reduce some of their leverage. But that would require Congress to go some big donors to their campaigns.
So bottom line, unless Harris County and Houston have a big change in preferences, a CR network will be a missed future opportunity that will likely never happen. DFW, Miami-Ft.L-Palm Beach, Austin-SA, Denver, Salt Lake City, DC, and Seattle have all figured out how to properly plan for an integrated network of bus, LRT, and CR where appropriate. Houston? Doesn't seem like they'll ever learn.
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Topic: General Houston-area projects thread (Read 8168 times)