Public makes noise about big I-45 redo
TxDOT ‘doing a lot of listening’ on huge project
The region’s largest looming highway project — a massive rebuild of Interstate 45 from the Sam Houston Tollway to downtown Houston — has a lot of people looking into the rearview mirror, pressing officials to make sure the job does not come with some of the downsides of its predecessors.
Even with the worries, however, the mega-project planned by the Texas Department of Transportation hasn’t been like many others, from the time it has taken to develop to the types of new lanes proposed.
Though often characterized as a bureaucratic behemoth, the state transportation agency has gone to unprecedented levels of public engagement the past three years, taking the designs for adding two managed lanes in each direction to public meetings
and community groups, even sitting down with interested stakeholders for one-on-one meetings.
“We’re doing a lot of listening,” said Quincy Allen, district director for TxDOT. “We want to be a good partner, with others, in every sense of the word.”
The public comment period ends Thursday.
At a number of public meetings this year, two goals were cited by a number of residents: that the project not cut off neighborhoods by closing local streets and that any widening or improvement not be prohibitive to mass transit.
Both comments come from an awareness of the past and the future, especially the fear of freeways as barriers between neighborhoods.
“That is, obviously, ageold, going back to the first highways I’ve read about,” said Kyle Shelton, a researcher at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, who has studied the political history of highway development in Houston.
The project, expected to cost at least $7 billion, will start with a massive redo in the central business district that will rebuild the entire confluence of I-45, Interstate 10, Interstate 69 — also known as U.S. 59 in the Houston area — and Texas 288. The plan is to move I-45 to parallel I-69 along the east side of downtown and I-10 on the north side, sink I-45 and I-69 so the freeways can be covered by green space, and remove the elevated portion of the freeway along Pierce Street.
A final environmental review and formal federal approval of the project is expected next year, said Pat Henry, director of advanced project development for TxDOT in Houston.
Trying not to divide
Though the goal of many of the proposed changes is to tear down barriers, notably the Pierce Elevated, previous Houston freeway projects around downtown — including Interstate 10, Loop 610 and U.S. 59 — have left some neighborhoods cleaved. The north side, also divided by Buffalo Bayou, has not enjoyed downtown-centered investment as much as Midtown and the Fourth Ward. Bellaire residents and leaders still have bad feelings over how Loop 610 cut through the small city.
Drivers do not want that to happen with the I-45 project, which officials have called a generational project that commuters still could be using 40 years from now. Cutting off neighborhoods or restricting transit options could have devastating consequences.
“The easiest way to destroy a neighborhood is to divide it,” said Seth Hopkins, who lives at Emancipation and Polk, where residents worry about losing easy access to downtown if streets are cut off by the freeway.
Polk Street, Allen and Henry said, poses a challenge. To depress both freeways would require a complex dip and then climb back to ground level. To handle that safely, either Leeland or Polk would need to close. Officials chose Polk, which carries far less traffic.
In some cases, Allen said people worried about being cut off are mostly concerned with changes in routine. He said he believes in some cases the depressed freeway will help bridge the divide, not exacerbate it.
“When you have a discussion about deck parts, I believe you connect communities,” Allen said.
Mass transit possible
Widening freeways, meanwhile, notably I-10 west of Loop 610, also has hindered rather than helped future transit needs. When the Katy Managed Lanes were added to the center of I-10 — a project that cost $2.3 billion — the bigger freeway wiped out a nearby railroad line some saw as a potential commuter rail route between Houston and Katy.
That is what many people want to avoid with I-45.
“There is an opportunity for high-capacity transit, and we should not lose that simply because someone was not thinking ahead,” said Robin Holzer, a transit, cycling and pedestrian advocate who tracks local highway projects.
Though no parallel rail line will be lost to the I-45 widening, the road’s design affects future opportunities. Rail needs specific engineering distinct from freeways, including cathodic protection — which keeps the electrical current used for a rail line from corroding the steel used to support overpasses and roads.
Often, however, those design intricacies go unnoticed. Despite some rumors to the contrary, I-10 was built with cathodic protection and rail-capable overpasses, paid for by Metropolitan Transit Authority, that allows for conversion of the freeway for elevated rail. Though no plans have rail using the freeway — Metro is in the midst of a regional transit plan — TxDOT spokeswoman Raquelle Lewis said the agency included Metro in those talks before widening I-10.
The two projects also have different goals, she noted. In the case of I-10, Metro had an option to buy the rail line and chose not to, while TxDOT’s studies showed a need for greater freeway capacity — in other words, a much bigger road.
In the case of I-45, more emphasis has been placed on congestion management, where plans call for keeping the same number of general use lanes as exist today, with the addition of two-way managed lanes. The study of the I-45 corridor also led to Metro’s development of the Red Line extension from downtown to HCC’s Northline Commons campus.
Additional transit isn’t necessarily building more rail, Lewis said, noting the managed lanes will allow for better bus movement along I-45.
Evolving process
As TxDOT projects go, the I-45 widening project is revolutionary in terms of scope, style and development.
“Yes, they are widening, but the big departure is they are not just building a brand new 28-lane road,” Shelton said.
Rather, especially in downtown, the major changes are redesigning how freeways intersect, adding merge lanes through key stretches and moving ramps farther back from the crossing so drivers are not making a mad dash across two or three lanes.
The widening also incorporates managed lanes in the center of the freeway, similar to the HOT lanes within I-10, which could improve travel times for transit, carpools and, perhaps, those willing to pay. Officials said a final decision on tolling the lanes has not been made, though many observers believe it is the likeliest outcome.
The process of designing the road also has broken from TxDOT’s previous mold, state transportation officials, neighborhood groups and observers said.
Discussions with community groups started in 2004, and since 2014, when the first plans were unveiled, TxDOT and Houston leaders have held dozens of community meetings with residents who voiced suggestions.
Oscar Slotboom, who wrote a book on Houston’s freeway development, has tracked detailed changes to the project — some of which he suggested in meetings with engineers — which have made it into the project.
“The plan continues to improve, but there are still many remaining concerns which can be fixed with minor or moderate revisions to the current plan,” Slotboom said in a May update to his comments.
The level of public input and willingness to make changes is different than how TxDOT operated for decades, Shelton said.
“The days of them showing up and saying ‘Here’s the plan,’ that’s just not what is happening here,” he said.