Memorial Park upgrades spark push for safe access
Advocates think more is needed to make easy passage a reality for cyclists and runners
Cody Foster knows how tough it can be to cross Westcott on Blossom, just steps from Memorial Park.
Driving south on Westcott once, Foster recalls having to slam the brakes to avoid hitting a boy on a bicycle who darted in front of his car.
On Wednesday it was Foster, out on a run near his apartment, carefully looking both ways before venturing onto Westcott toward Memorial Park.
“This is the only entrance that is somewhat safe, but yeah, it could be better,” he said.
A $200 million-plus plan to improve the park is aimed at making it a signature destination for all Houstonians. With that success, though, will come the same challenges anything popular in Houston faces: How will people get there, where will they park and what can be done to give them an option other than driving?
A variety of projects are planned or proposed to offer safer or additional options, including new bike paths, wider sidewalks, even a possible Metropolitan Transit Authority hub to rapid buses. All of the ideas, however, are years away and still face some public scrutiny that could alter the plans.
Efforts to create or expand trails follow what has been the largest park investment in a generation — a $70 million land bridge that creates a hillside through which Memorial Drive passes, connecting the park’s north and south sides.
About 6,300 vehicles a
day use Memorial through the park, according to 2019 traffic counts by Houston Public Works.
As Memorial Park’s popularity swelled during the pandemic — notably to the new Eastern Glades area where running and walking trails abound for socially distanced exercise — competition for parking spaces has soared. After a few circles, unlucky folks such as Phillip Williams, 41, may find a spot along the street in the nearby neighborhood.
“I’d hate to see them put in more parking,” Williams said. “It’s a park, but this is Houston. … People are going to drive to the park.”
Remedying that depends on the development of options other than driving for those interested in running or biking, which means confronting the fact that many parts of the surrounding neighborhoods are hard to traverse on bike or on foot.
“We’re going to spend all this money — and I’m supportive, the park is great — but when it comes to getting a safe crossing, I keep hearing we cannot afford it or there haven’t been enough accidents yet,” said state Sen. John Whitmire, who lives near the park and has sought improvements at Blossom and Westcott. “That’s just not acceptable.”
Getting away from cars
One of the biggest challenges to improving access to Memorial is the big roads that border it: Loop 610 and Interstate 10. Running along the west and north edges of the park, the freeways are a barrier where the freeway intersections with Washington Avenue to the northeast and Memorial and Woodway to the west can be chaotic for cyclists and pedestrians.
“What we want is a safe, easy, biking solution,” said Bob Ethington, director of research and economic development for the Uptown Houston District.
Ethington said along Loop 610, officials are considering how best to get runners and cyclists as far away from cars as practical. Those plans include a connection from the south, parallel to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks as far south as San Felipe.
The trail skirts a rail line south of the park, in the River Oaks area dotted with some of the most expensive homes within Loop 610. Other projects could follow, taking the trail as far as Brays Bayou and creating what could become a freeway of sorts for bicyclists between two popular bayou routes.
The key connection to the heart of Uptown, on the other side of Loop 610, is a planned trail running near the top of Uptown Park Boulevard, where it curves into the southbound frontage road, that will follow Buffalo Bayou beneath the clatter of 16 lanes of traffic above.
That connection, which could include a new bridge strictly for the trail across the bayou, would eliminate a stress-inducing street crossing for cyclists and runners at Woodway.
“The corner is terrible and the (Loop 610) underpass is not great,” said Randy Odinet, vice president of capital projects and facilities for the Memorial Park Conservancy.
The Uptown work, which follows Briar Hollow in the neighborhood south of Buffalo Bayou, recently received a boost, when $4 million of the $5.3 million price tag was included in the House version of a federal infrastructure bill at the request of Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston, who represents the area.
For travelers headed to the park from the east, two planned projects could help. Construction is set to start in about 20 months on a new bike lane spliced through a narrow piece of public land on the south side of Interstate 10. The Texas Department of Transportation project would eliminate a broken link between the Heights and Shepherd corridors and Memorial Park, caused by I-10.
Now, cyclists can use the
Heights Hike and Bike Trail and White Oak Trail to access the Cottage Grove neighborhood north of I-10, then a pedestrian bridge atop I-10 at Cohn. About a halfmile from the park at the end of the Cohn crossing, however, is where the easy access stops. The Union Pacific Railroad tracks and nearby streets force runners back to TC Jester, which many avoid because of the heavy traffic and truck volumes and high speeds.
Bus route for park
Design of the TxDOT project is not finalized, but the work likely will include a trail along the south side of I-10 from Cohn to Washington, through a slice of stateowned right of way and beneath the UP tracks. At Washington, it is expected to cross at the intersection and into the park.
The project also will replace the Cohn bridge with a wider span and assorted street-level improvements north of I-10 along the frontage road.
Most Houston residents and travelers, however, cannot simply hop on a bike and get to the park. Current transit offerings are limited to three bus routes, two of which come every 30 minutes. The third, the Route 85 Antoine/ Washington that skirts the eastern edge of the park, is the only frequent route, coming every 15 minutes. More than a dozen bus routes pull into the Northwest Transit Center less than 2,500 feet away from the park, but those 2,500 feet are impassable because of the I-10 interchange with Loop 610.
A planned bus rapid transit route along I-10, however, could radically improve access if Metro were to include a stop at the park. Metro officials, while not committing, said they are considering a possible stop at Washington on the park’s boundary.
The idea of a Memorial Park station has drawn interest from transit riders and officials. Often, transit is built and discussed in terms of moving people solely to jobs and schools, Metro board member Sanjay Ramabhadran said.
“It is also about getting us to recreation facilities, parks,” Ramabhadran said.
Plans for the BRT line include an elevated busway along I-10 so large buses can move in their own lanes from the Northwest Transit Center to downtown Houston. Transit officials plan various public meetings before any station decision is made.
“You cannot order a BRT corridor on Amazon and have it delivered next week,” Ramabhadran said.
Various agencies and groups — the park conservancy, Uptown, TxDOT and city officials — also must cooperate. Because of existing boundaries and rules about where they can spend different piles of tax and donated dollars, none of the agencies can tackle the transportation landscape around the park alone.
“For us anticipating those access points is in our plan,” Odinet said of the conservancy. “Building them out is not part of our scope.”
The efforts, however, have not gone far enough for some nearby residents, runners and cyclists. Pedestrian crossings can be complex along Loop 610 where traffic is moving at frontage-road speeds and often not looking for people using crosswalks. East of the park, Westcott and Washington remain a barrier.
Many avoid the traffic circle where Washington and Westcott meet and nearby crossings, such as Schuler to the north and Blossom south of the roundabout, can be harrowing. Samantha Peters, 26, who runs to the park four or five days a week, said it often is hard to see cars and trucks approaching, and few drivers seem aware they should be looking for pedestrians.
Drivers and runners who use the street said it is easy to see that some sort of traffic signal or flashing signs and a painted crosswalk could do some good.
“A pedestrian light would be nice,” said Hung Cao, president of the Kung Fu Running Club, a group associated with a bar along Washington. “Anything that lets the drivers know.”
Odinet agreed several crossings along Westcott warrant improvement.
“Right now, none of them are ideal,” he said.
Houston officials, who are working to remedy decades of insufficient pedestrian access around the city, note they have a backlog of projects and are prioritizing locations where the most incidents have occurred and funding can be spread across the sprawling city.
“It just frustrates me to see what any reasonable person can forecast: We are going to have and already have life-threatening situations,” Whitmire said. “The word I get back is, there haven’t been enough accidents, which drives me crazy.”