I-10 may get even wider
TxDOT has new ideas for highway, but critics worry old thinking will lead to continuous building, expansion
State highways officials set out in 2004 to develop a plan to remake Interstate 45 and add managed lanes, only to face increasingly stiff opposition in the past three years from elected officials and community activists that its plan was out of step with future travel needs.
New plans to add managed lanes along Interstate 10 along a corridor inside Loop 610 took only days to get that same response.
The Texas Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transit Authority are jointly presenting plans for a so-called Inner Katy Corridor, a project to remake the 10-lane freeway — five lanes in each direction supported by frontage roads and entrance and exit ramps — by building dedicated bus lanes, adding two managed lanes in each direction and upgrading drainage along depressed portions of the freeway.
“The commitment remains to moving the same
number of single-occupant vehicles at high speed,” said Neal Ehardt, a freeway critic who advocates a more urban-focused approach that includes downsizing major highways. “We are keeping the same number of single-occupant car lanes and we are adding managed lanes. This is not the mode transition we want. It is more like mode bloat.”
Officials counter that it is a necessary step — and an unconventional one for TxDOT — to stay within the existing freeway footprint as much as possible but meet demand. They understand there are some that believe no additional lanes are needed, said James Koch, director of transportation planning and development for TxDOT’s Houston office.
“That is a nice goal to have, but where we are today, we are not there,” Koch said. “We still have traffic and congestion today and we are dealing with those things. I understand the passion those folks have, but not everybody wants to get on the bus.”
Comments for this phase can be submitted to TxDOT or Metro until March 31. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials created a virtual meeting room, also available until March 31.
Planners have three objectives for the eventual project along the I-10 corridor:
• Building dedicated bus lanes along the freeway to extend Metro’s bus rapid transit from the Northwest Transit Center near Loop 610 to downtown Houston.
• Improving drainage along the segment where I-10 is below local streets, from Patterson to Loop 610.
• Adding two managed lanes in each direction and improving carpool access by eliminating any gaps where HOV drivers mingle with general traffic.
Different timelines
Those objectives would be broken up into multiple projects, likely with different timelines.
Metro’s bus lanes, for example, already are funded via the transit agency’s capital budget and money controlled by the Houston-Galveston Area Council, which distributes some federal highway funding. Provided Metro is ready to proceed, construction of the $227.5 million bus lane project is set to begin in 2023 and open in 2025, according to H-GAC’s five-year plan.
TxDOT’s managed lanes are not included in upcoming spending plans, with officials saying the current timeline would be to start construction in 2027. The goal, Koch said, is for TxDOT to have some idea of what people prefer so the Metro bus lanes can be built without interfering with what the state constructs in the future.
Still, transit cannot meet everyone’s travel needs, officials said. Demand during peak congestion periods already exceeds I-10’s capacity at times, based on pre-COVID levels. Predicted population growth in the area will only make that worse
In 2019, officials said 297,000 vehicles used I-10 daily around Shepherd Drive. By 2045, daily traffic is expected to rise 26 percent to 374,000.
Where TxDOT and critics differ is how to meet that demand. Highway officials opt to build for it, but in a different way.
“Looking at it from a pure highway project, we would be looking at adding up to three lanes (in each direction),” Koch said. “That’s off the table. There is not much room here to work with, so we have to come up with better solutions.”
The transit lanes have a chance to radically improve the quality of bus rides in the corridor and the region, said Christof Spieler, an urban planner and former Metro board member.
Relative to past freeway discussions, he said, TxDOT is part of a larger conversation about how various projects are coming together, ultimately to determine how Houston grows.
“There are signs in there of TxDOT being more creative than in the past,” Spieler said.
Dan Bell, 55, who commutes along I-10, just wants some assurance his daily drive from Katy to downtown will not get worse. Bell said he was supportive of anything that “did what people want, not what elected officials want people to do.
“I’m all for buses and trains, if that’s what people want,” Bell said. “I know a lot of people want to drive.”
Three concepts
The broad question TxDOT is asking the public now is where to put the managed lanes. Designers have come up with three concepts.
One places the managed lanes in the center of I-10, virtually the same way the Katy Managed Lanes flow outside Loop 610 along the freeway.
That proposal has sparked alarm among residents, notably in Rice Military near Memorial Park and in the Heights, where homeowners worry that a wider freeway would carve a bigger gash in the neighborhoods. Designers estimate that widening the freeway that way could mean acquiring up to 115 feet north of the existing freeway in some places, which would eliminate some homes and businesses.
The second and third options likely would require less property — about 45 feet at most — but also have raised concerns among neighbors because they rely on elevating the managed lanes next to either Metro’s busway or the opposite side of the freeway.
“No one wants to live next to a giant freeway, with an overpass outside their window,” said Rachel Green, 36, who lives between Washington Avenue and I-10 near Patterson. “I would expect many people would just move, move far away.”
Area neighborhood groups said they are aware of the proposals but have not finalized their responses.
Meanwhile, TxDOT also needs to address flooding issues in the corridor that it created. When the state depressed I-10 from Shepherd to Loop 610 — at the behest of the neighborhood that opposed an elevated freeway — it created its own drainage channel. Though TxDOT built a massive runoff system and pump stations, it has failed to keep I-10 open in major storms. Notably, during Hurricane Harvey, the freeway turned into a pond that took days to recede.
To correct it, officials are planning new detention basins close to Loop 610, north of I-10, on existing railroad property.
Region relevance
While all of the projects in the corridor are being studied, the ultimate decisions in many ways will affect the entire western half of the Houston area.
The managed lanes under consideration are tied to the most contentious transportation project in the region — the $7 billion rebuild of I-45 north of downtown.
Anything along the Inner Katy Corridor would connect directly into plans to reroute I-45 to follow I-10 and then I-69 north and east of the Central Business District, Koch said, in an effort to expand transit and managed-lane options around the region.
Plans for I-45, however, have divided state transportation officials and Houston and Harris County officials, to some degree because of the same issues raised by critics related to I-10: wider freeways that threaten to further divide prospering urban neighborhoods.
Ehardt, who has been active opposing I-45 at various public meetings, said those same concerns are likely to follow to I-10.
The question is whether it makes a difference.
“I struggle to think that getting in early is what it going to get TxDOT to change its approach to urban freeways,” he said. “I think they have been pretty clear.”