TxDOT may hit brakes on segments of city’s 3rd ring

10-year plan could drop parts of Grand Parkway south of city

Southern segments of the Grand Parkway could be shelved for years if state transportation officials follow through on a plan to remove portions of the tollway in Fort Bend, Brazoria and Galveston counties from Texas’ 10year highway plan.

Segments B and C, which would extend the tollway from Interstate 69 southwest of Sugar Land to Interstate 45 in League City, would be removed from the upcoming Unified Transportation Plan, or UTP, halting all development work on them by the Texas Department of Transportation.

Improvements planned for Segment D north of I-69 in Sugar Land also would be removed from the plan, along with ramps between the parkway and Interstate 10 in Chambers County. Combined, the projects are expected to cost $1.35 billion, to be repaid by tolls assessed to drivers — which is what could cost the projects their place on the list.

“We are looking for nontolled solutions to the highway system going forward,” said Colt Amberg, deputy director of TxDOT’s rail division, who previously managed development of the UTP.

The tollway segments have been on the

drawing board for years, but are not close to development, TxDOT Executive Director James Bass said last month. Removing them, he told members of the Texas Transportation Commission, just puts them in stasis in terms of moving ahead.

“That would not limit them from adding them back in a future year,” Bass said, noting the proposal was meant to gauge response.

The reaction from local officials included promises to preserve the tollway.

“These projects are vital to relieving our safety and congestion issues,” Alvin City Manager Junru Roland said in a statement.

The UTP is the 10-year plan for what TxDOT plans to build, acting largely as a playbook for when officials can spend money on specific projects. Inclusion does not guarantee a project is built, but exclusion keeps projects shelved and shut out of state money.

The plan is divided among 13 categories, ranging from alternative projects such as bike trails and transit — which also find money elsewhere — to preventive maintenance and roadway safety. Projects can use money from various categories, depending on specifics and whether they fit the criteria to spend that pot of money.

For the decade, officials plan to spend $76.2 billion, mostly on highway improvements, repairs and expansions. The bulk of that, almost $48 billion, falls into four categories: preventive maintenance, urban corridors, statewide connectivity and strategic priorities.

Beyond the Grand Parkway, the UTP has a huge effect on future Houston-area projects, directly and indirectly. More than $4.7 billion is slated for major parts of the planned rebuild of I-45 in and north of downtown Houston. The region also is likely to receive a sizable portion of a planned $600 million over the decade aimed at reducing roadway fatalities.

“The $600 million for safety keeps blowing my mind,” said Jay Blazek Crossley, who has advocated for more attention to roadway deaths statewide. “Everybody seems to agree that it makes sense and we have to do it.”

It was the Grand Parkway sections at risk of removal, however, that dominated discussions among Houston-area officials when the plan was unveiled Thursday.

Removing the portions of the tollway would need approval by the transportation commission in August as part of the update, following a one-month public comment period that began Friday.

Local officials said they will not let the removal happen without a fight.

“We will be there in August advocating for the completion of the Grand Parkway,” said Larry Buehler, economic development director for Alvin, one of a handful of cities in which the parkway would open up access and development.

To bolster their case, officials along the corridor have amassed letters of support from federal and state lawmakers, various chambers of commerce, and resolutions from the local counties and 19 area cities supporting the project.

While officials locally have pressed for inclusion in the UTP, removing the segments is a blow but not a fatal one. Under the rules established for developing toll projects in Texas, counties have first crack at constructing them, an option referred to as primacy. If counties waive primacy, TxDOT can move forward. For all the other segments of the tollway, locals have abdicated to the state.

Brazoria and Galveston officials prepared for the state to continue taking the lead on the southern segments, with both counties discussing resolutions this year to cede control to TxDOT.

Buehler said the preference remains for the state to develop the Grand Parkway.

“What happens when projects come out of the UTP is, it is much, much harder to get back in,” he said.

The southern segments were placed in the UTP in 2014, after decades of discussion about a third freeway ring for the Houston region. Five years ago, state officials were trumpeting toll projects as a way to provide much-needed relief, lining up the next segments of the tollway. The Grand Parkway from Interstate 10 in Katy to U.S. 290 north of Cypress recently had opened and more work was planned to build the northern portions around to I-69 near New Caney.

The new portions have exceeded expectations in terms of vehicle use and keep growing. In February, the most recent month available, the tollway logged 13.4 million transactions, up from 12.1 million transactions in February 2018.

Segments H and I of the tollway are under construction in Liberty and Chambers counties. The lanes are scheduled for completion in May 2022, with one or two toll lanes in each direction from I-69 to I-10 in Mont Belvieu.

As drivers have taken to the tollway, however, state officials have moved on from tolls. Two voter-passed initiatives, Proposition 7 in 2014 and Proposition 1 in 2015, directed about $2 billion annually to transportation spending, with the caveat that none of the money can be used for toll lane development. Gov. Greg Abbott has given clear instructions to not develop toll projects, transportation commission Chairman Bruce Bugg said.

Unresolved, and what the removal of the Grand Parkway segments and two toll projects in the Rio Grande Valley will test, is whether the prohibition on tolls extends to projects that enjoy support in their communities and have been promised to drivers.

“If I lived in Houston, I would be really shocked to know that which we voted on and has been on the planning boards is being removed,” said state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville and chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. “You have projects already on the books.”

Transportation Commissioner Laura Ryan, the appointee from the Houston region, questioned last month whether that made it “a grandfathered situation” that could proceed.

“I would hate to see something done now that will impact us later,” Ryan said.

Skeptics of the project — and further reliance on freeways or tollways — share a similar sentiment. Just as thoughts on tolling have changed in the past five years, so has some thinking about development. Recent road projects, including the redesign of I-45, have faced greater scrutiny following floods in the past four years, concerns likely to surface once any plans for the Grand Parkway segments proceed.

“Obviously, thinking is different post-Harvey,” said Jill Boullion, executive director of the Bayou Land Conservancy.

Boullion, who said she was not versed in specifics of the Grand Parkway segments, said many of the assumptions about development and transportation have changed in recent years. That has led Houston and Harris County to reconsider development rules. As a result, many long-range projects are getting a second look.

“That kind of thinking gets us down the same road we were going,” she said.