Spur 5 faces long closure, creating traffic headache
Relieving one of Houston’s worst bottlenecks will come with some lengthy complications for northbound drivers on Interstate 45 headed into Houston’s central business district, starting Friday night.
After years of delay, work is starting on a modification to Spur 5, the ramp that connects northbound I-45 traffic to downtown via Pease and St. Joseph. The spur is being rebuilt to also be the connection from northbound I-45 to Interstate 69, also U.S. 59 in the Houston area.
Though it is a major improvement, the work means seven months of construction detours for downtown-bound drivers, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Crews will close Spur 5 at Scott Street starting at 9 p.m. Friday, so they can demolish the ramp parallel to I-45.
In the interim, drivers who would normally use
the spur will exit at Scott and use the I-45 frontage road to travel into downtown. More than 13,000 vehicles use Spur 5 to access downtown at St. Joseph, according to a 2015 TxDOT traffic count. More than 200,000 vehicles use I-45 in the area.
In addition to affecting downtown-bound traffic, the spur closure means drivers won’t be able to access northbound I-45 at Scott Street, said Deidrea George, spokeswoman for TxDOT in Houston.
Officials with Houston Public Works and the Houston Downtown Management District are working with TxDOT to reach out to drivers and businesses.
Public works is also “currently evaluating the signal timing along the corridor to see if modifications are necessary,” said deputy public works director Jeff Weatherford.
Improvement predicted
When finished in mid2019, the new interchange will be a marked improvement, said Quincy Allen, district director for TxDOT in Houston. It will reduce sudden weaving where the freeways cross.
“Changing that is a major improvement,” Allen said. “Not only does it help take away a lot of that (congestion), but it is a much safer interchange.”
The new interchange also eliminates the ramp that now connects the fast lane of northbound I-45 to southbound I-69.
Typically, modern highway design favors all exits and interchange ramps to be on the right side of the freeway where traffic is intended to move slower.
Having the ramps on both sides of northbound I-45 and so close to the interchange led to problems with through-traffic jammed as drivers darted between the lanes. Pulling the I-69 ramps back and using Spur 5, officials said, will mean less weaving. The ramp from eastbound U.S. 290 to Interstate 10, opened in late 2014, was designed for the same purpose and many drivers say it has improved traffic flow along U.S. 290 despite many delays related to the ongoing freeway construction.
Work on Spur 5, meanwhile, faced delays of its own moving toward construction. Largely designed by 2009, the project sat awaiting funding for roughly five years as TxDOT spent money elsewhere.
Once the money was secure, the project languished as Tradeco, the Woodlands-based contractor for the job, struggled to keep all of its Texas highway projects going. Tradeco eventually defaulted on all its highway jobs in mid-2015, leaving TxDOT and the surety bond company that insured Tradeco to regroup.
TxDOT rebid the job in January, awarding it to Williams Brothers Construction, one of the largest road builders in the area. The company’s $30.5 million bid was roughly $2 million more than Tradeco estimated in 2014.
Allen said last month that the bid includes incentives for Williams Brothers to finish the southbound ramp quickly and reopen Spur 5’s connection to downtown. The company can make up to $520,000 for successfully speeding up the work.
Delays within the company’s control, however, could cost the Williams Brothers, Allen said, which is a common feature of TxDOT contracts.
The interchange work is hardly the end of construction along the I-45 corridor around downtown, with many considering it a precursor to potentially a decade of constant construction. TxDOT is proceeding with plans to realign I-45, I-69 and the interchange with Texas 288 as part of a $3 billion redesign of the downtown freeway network.
Major work in 2020
The first of seven projects to rebuild interchanges, widen the freeways and shift I-45 to run parallel to I-69 along the east side of downtown is scheduled to begin in 2020, about a year after the Spur 5 work is set to finish.
Allen said the Spur 5 project is being designed with the future interchanges in mind, but will require some minor modifications once I-45 moves.
He said officials are also working to address concerns about bicycle and pedestrian safety where the new entrance at Scott will connect to Spur 5. Riders have raised concerns, noting Scott is a major entry point to the University of Houston and numerous cyclists are expected to use the intersection.