Houston: Grand Parkway segment B, construction starts in 2026

Started by MaxConcrete, January 22, 2017, 12:04:28 AM

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bluecountry

If they are upgrading 146 then

-Why not build segment A
-Why not re-sign 146 as 99?


nguyenhm16

Quote from: bluecountry on August 06, 2020, 10:55:20 AM
If they are upgrading 146 then

-Why not build segment A
-Why not re-sign 146 as 99?

There are a lot of homes and businesses between where segment B meets I-45 and SH146. Certainly it would be unfeasible for segment A to follow FM646 to SH146.

thisdj78

#27
Quote from: nguyenhm16 on August 06, 2020, 02:52:17 PM
Quote from: bluecountry on August 06, 2020, 10:55:20 AM
If they are upgrading 146 then

-Why not build segment A
-Why not re-sign 146 as 99?

There are a lot of homes and businesses between where segment B meets I-45 and SH146. Certainly it would be unfeasible for segment A to follow FM646 to SH146.

It's interesting because Highway 96, just to the north, has plenty of ROW to build a limited access highway east of Highway 3. I remember when 96 was being built and wondering if it was the Grand Parkway.

If they can figure out a way to utilize the 96 ROW for Segment A and swing it down to meet up with Segment B, they can avoid a lot of businesses and homes, but I think either way, it's unavoidable that some will need to be removed.

Bobby5280

Quote from: MaxConcreteConstruction is in progress to upgrade SH 146 to a freeway through Seabrook and Kemah, including a new bridge over the Clear Lake channel. There are plans to extend the freeway to south of SH 96. Going further south past SH 96, it is planned to be a 6 lane divided highway.

For TX-146 going South of the intersection with TX-96, I hope TX DOT at least builds the 6-lane divided highway in a manner where it can be upgraded into a limited access highway later. That would take into consideration possible development farther South. Hopefully they'll preserve as much ROW as possible.

The junction between I-45, TX-6 and TX-146 is an important one. I think TX-146 is worthy of a freeway upgrade going by the oil refineries in Texas City. It has a short freeway segment from the FM-1764 freeway intersection up to TX-197. Then TX-146 is a wide, divided road with a freeway-wide median. Overall TX-146 wouldn't be all that difficult to upgrade from Kemah down to I-45. I would expect some travelers wanting to visit tourist spots in Kemah, Seabrook and down in Galveston to use TX-146 as a back door in order to avoid Houston.

thisdj78

Saw this sign just pop up on Calder Rd in League City. Must have been put up in the last few weeks because it wasn't there as of Mid-December when I last drove through here:


Bobby5280

What was the nearest crossing street with Calder Road where that sign was posted?

thisdj78

#31
Quote from: Bobby5280 on December 30, 2022, 04:22:16 PM
What was the nearest crossing street with Calder Road where that sign was posted?


Halfway between Ervin St and Cross Colony Dr. I noticed today that there is also a sign on southbound FM646 just south of the Walgreens, west of I-45.

Bobby5280

I suppose that possible location for the Grand Parkway crossing of I-45 makes sense, although it looks like the highway will have to straddle a flood control channel. What ever alignment they finally decide to pursue will still require a lot of existing property to be bought and cleared. The longer they hold off at securing ROW will mean ever more properties to buy.

thisdj78

Quote from: Bobby5280 on December 30, 2022, 09:42:24 PM
I suppose that possible location for the Grand Parkway crossing of I-45 makes sense, although it looks like the highway will have to straddle a flood control channel. What ever alignment they finally decide to pursue will still require a lot of existing property to be bought and cleared. The longer they hold off at securing ROW will mean ever more properties to buy.

These schematics are over 10 years old, so not sure if they've made any changes since this was published:


Bobby5280

I was under the impression the Grand Parkway would cross over I-45 on the way East to the TX-146 corridor rather than just end at I-45 in a Y interchange. I guess they still haven't figured out a way to bridge the gap between I-45 and TX-146.

thisdj78

Quote from: Bobby5280 on December 30, 2022, 11:03:42 PM
I was under the impression the Grand Parkway would cross over I-45 on the way East to the TX-146 corridor rather than just end at I-45 in a Y interchange. I guess they still haven't figured out a way to bridge the gap between I-45 and TX-146.

Yeah, Segment A will be very challenging. As such, they don't even have schematics for that portion. Originally it was to follow FM646 all the way to 146 but this was before the shopping center was built. My guess is that it will need to go south of the shopping center and meet back up with 646 east of the shopping center, before HWY 3 (similar to below). It will still require some homes and small
businesses to be torn down for ROW.


Bobby5280

The path you drew going East of I-45 looks like the lesser of all the evils.

They would have to go at least another 2 miles farther South to reach a path between I-45 and TX-146 that would take fewer properties. Bridging the gap from around the Tanger Outlets site and going East would mean going over a fair amount of swamp land and Dickinson Bayou. Those extra bridges or causeways would dramatically raise construction costs. Plus the path of the Grand Parkway in that area would be substantially more jagged and out of the way.

thisdj78

$6 million in bonds were approved by League City for FY2023 and FY2024 in support of development and construction:

https://www.leaguecitytx.gov/3485/Grand-Parkway

CoreySamson

The TxDOT Project Tracker seems to confirm that SH 99 will use the FM 646 corridor as part of Segment A. I don't believe this was marked last time I checked this map.



In addition, the portion of Segment B from S Alvin to FM 646 is now projected to begin construction in less than 4 years. The rest of Segment B and C is projected to begin construction in 5-10 years.
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thisdj78

Quote from: CoreySamson on May 16, 2023, 11:04:40 PM
The TxDOT Project Tracker seems to confirm that SH 99 will use the FM 646 corridor as part of Segment A. I don't believe this was marked last time I checked this map.



In addition, the portion of Segment B from S Alvin to FM 646 is now projected to begin construction in less than 4 years. The rest of Segment B and C is projected to begin construction in 5-10 years.

Wow, I wonder how they are going to make that work between I-45 and Highway 3. I guess if ROW property acquisitions start in the next few years, we'll have the answer.

Henry

Quote from: thisdj78 on May 16, 2023, 11:14:23 PM
Quote from: CoreySamson on May 16, 2023, 11:04:40 PM
The TxDOT Project Tracker seems to confirm that SH 99 will use the FM 646 corridor as part of Segment A. I don't believe this was marked last time I checked this map.



In addition, the portion of Segment B from S Alvin to FM 646 is now projected to begin construction in less than 4 years. The rest of Segment B and C is projected to begin construction in 5-10 years.

Wow, I wonder how they are going to make that work between I-45 and Highway 3. I guess if ROW property acquisitions start in the next few years, we'll have the answer.
It may come sooner than you think, since the timeline is being moved up for the project. My guess is they'll get South Alvin to FM 646 out of the way first before they start worrying about the eastern section.
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DJStephens

May be "easier" to take parking areas, and lots in front of businesses and malls on 646, than to "swing around" taking only residential areas.   Find this whole 99 Parkway debacle ridiculous, no foresight, little to no land preservation years if not decades ago, and very crooked and indirect.   No thought was ever given to upgrades of FM 1960, back in the day?   

Bobby5280

Texas arguably used to be the best in the nation at planning out and preserving ROW for future freeway corridors. Over the past roughly 30 years TX DOT and state lawmakers grew badly complacent at this sort of thing. As a result, just about any new freeway or toll road project in the state is a far bigger pain in the ass to build than it used to be.

And this problem isn't just in giant metros like Houston. For instance, in Wichita Falls there was a plan to extend Kell Freeway farther west to connect into the existing Holliday Bypass. Now that project is pretty much dead. The alternative that will be built instead is a very modest upgrade of US-82/277 from a 4-lane undivided street into a 4-lane undivided street with a center turn lane. Woo hoo!
:rolleyes:

MaxConcrete

#43
Quote from: DJStephens on May 20, 2023, 05:29:58 PM
May be "easier" to take parking areas, and lots in front of businesses and malls on 646, than to "swing around" taking only residential areas.   Find this whole 99 Parkway debacle ridiculous, no foresight, little to no land preservation years if not decades ago, and very crooked and indirect.   No thought was ever given to upgrades of FM 1960, back in the day?   
Quote from: Bobby5280 on May 20, 2023, 10:28:32 PM
Texas arguably used to be the best in the nation at planning out and preserving ROW for future freeway corridors. Over the past roughly 30 years TX DOT and state lawmakers grew badly complacent at this sort of thing. As a result, just about any new freeway or toll road project in the state is a far bigger pain in the ass to build than it used to be.

And this problem isn't just in giant metros like Houston. For instance, in Wichita Falls there was a plan to extend Kell Freeway farther west to connect into the existing Holliday Bypass. Now that project is pretty much dead. The alternative that will be built instead is a very modest upgrade of US-82/277 from a 4-lane undivided street into a 4-lane undivided street with a center turn lane. Woo hoo!
:rolleyes:

Texas is planning and building more freeways than any other state in the country, by far. Look at once-mightly California, now doing nearly nothing to improve their highways. Of course, New York state has done very little since the 1970s. Atlanta has done very little since the 1980s. Colorado and Washington state do very little or nothing to improve their freeways. Phoenix was a leader in the 1990s and 2000s, but their plan has mostly played out.

The list of planned new freeways and expansions in Texas is so long it would take a very long time to list them all.
Have you seen the DFW long-term plan? https://www.nctcog.org/getmedia/193f11c2-c52c-49cc-8e0c-4484d65c9f5c/Map-Packet-Final-Update.pdf
Have you seen the Williamson County plan? page 35 https://www.wilco.org/Portals/0/Departments/CountyEngineer/LRTP_Revised03302016.pdf?ver=2016-07-01-113807-843
Do you think any city outside of Texas could plan anything as ambitious as Houston's NHHIP or I-35 in Austin?
And Texas is making steady progress on I-69, building more new rural interstate miles than any other state.

The main reasons for these planning missteps you mention are extremely high growth rate, required environmental studies which take many years (while growth continues), local opposition and lack of funding. TxDOT can't purchase right-of-way until a ROD is received, and it's a very long and difficult process to get the ROD.

Getting back to Houston...
For section A of the Grand Parkway, I'm not aware of local governments advocating for it, so TxDOT focused its limited resources on sections where support existed and the need was greater. Also, those business along FM 646 have mostly been there a long time (mostly since the early and mid 2000s). TxDOT has financial and resource (i.e. manpower) limitations so it needed to focus on the greatest needs and highest priorities, which were elsewhere in the 2000s.

Except for Los Angeles (which has a grid forming multiple loops), Houston is the only city with a complete freeway/tollway second loop. That required planning.
Regarding FM 1960: yes, it should have been planned as a freeway but we need some context here. When Loop 610 was completed in 1975, transportation funding had collapsed nationwide and officials were in a desperate struggle to save Beltway 8. That would have been the same time that right-of-way would have needed to be preserved for an FM 1960/SH 6 freeway. But it just couldn't be done due to lack of funding and the need to focus attention on Beltway 8.

The first section of the Grand Parkway opened in 1994 in west Houston before Cinco Ranch and nearby developments were built. That qualifies as good planning. Rights-of-way were preserved in many areas, for example along a long section Riley Fuzzel road. The recently-opened sections H and I-1 are built through mostly-undeveloped areas.

About 66% of the Grand Parkway is built. No other city has that much of a wide outer loop built. Single-loop Atlanta canceled their Outer Perimeter a long time ago. Single-loop Washington DC needs a second loop but will never get one.

In an ideal world, TxDOT would be buying up right-of-way anywhere and everywhere that could need a freeway in the future. But that's not how our system works. It's a long and difficult process to get approval for a new freeway/tollway, and the cost and complexity of the process means that there will be delays that cause these planning failures.
www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

thisdj78

Quote from: MaxConcrete on May 21, 2023, 12:48:52 AM
Quote from: DJStephens on May 20, 2023, 05:29:58 PM
May be "easier" to take parking areas, and lots in front of businesses and malls on 646, than to "swing around" taking only residential areas.   Find this whole 99 Parkway debacle ridiculous, no foresight, little to no land preservation years if not decades ago, and very crooked and indirect.   No thought was ever given to upgrades of FM 1960, back in the day?   
Quote from: Bobby5280 on May 20, 2023, 10:28:32 PM
Texas arguably used to be the best in the nation at planning out and preserving ROW for future freeway corridors. Over the past roughly 30 years TX DOT and state lawmakers grew badly complacent at this sort of thing. As a result, just about any new freeway or toll road project in the state is a far bigger pain in the ass to build than it used to be.

And this problem isn't just in giant metros like Houston. For instance, in Wichita Falls there was a plan to extend Kell Freeway farther west to connect into the existing Holliday Bypass. Now that project is pretty much dead. The alternative that will be built instead is a very modest upgrade of US-82/277 from a 4-lane undivided street into a 4-lane undivided street with a center turn lane. Woo hoo!
:rolleyes:

Texas is planning and building more freeways than any other state in the country, by far.

I think North Carolina could be a close second to Texas, if not tied (in terms of active freeway/interstate projects).

Bobby5280

The issue is Texas is not as good at long term planning and follow-thru as it used to be. I've seen long term plans for DFW and other areas around the state. The plans are ambitious, but I'm skeptical about many of those proposals ever being completed.

Yes, in a perfect world TX DOT could convert any road into a divided highway with a freeway-sized median for future upgrades. Obviously they can't do this everywhere. But they did so far more often decades ago than they're doing now.

DJStephens

Am using personal observation of El Paso District and the Oilfields in shaping my comments.  Am of belief it gets better in Texas once one is East of the Oilfields.   So many mistakes in W Texas, so much squandered.   

Bobby5280

There is a lot of squandering in the Eastern part of Texas too. Cough: US-380 from Denton to McKinney. Other corridors are getting covered up. TX DOT is being forced to do things like normalizing skinny 11' wide lanes as a permanent feature on some new projects.

The people calling the shots can't (or won't) do anything to keep up with the pace of development -a trend that has been steady since at least the early 1990's. The growth has been staggering, but also predictable. I think those guys are more obsessed with other priorities than highway infrastructure concerns.

DJStephens

Statewide, billions on clearview, landscaping and architectural frills.  Where are the watchdogs and whistleblowers?   

Bobby5280

I don't understand how Clearview would be costing billions on its own. Not unless they're buying literally hundreds of thousands of licenses. Otherwise a typeface isn't going to make much of any difference with on-going highway sign costs. Highway sign faces have a limited life span. The type III retroreflective sheeting backgrounds will degrade noticeably in 7-10 years or even sooner in some regions. The "engineer's grade" reflective lettering applied to many big green signs is cracking and starting to flake off the sign by around year 5. Any state DOT is (hopefully) going to have an on-going program to replace the graphics on sign structures as needed.

A bunch of the extra visual frills on retaining walls, bridge structures, etc are nice. But when the state DOT is being forced to incorporate 11' wide lanes into a freeway project's permanent design the frills are definitely a misplaced priority. I'm guessing the visual enhancements are done to make people who live and work in the immediate area of that project more happy with the finished result.



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