Meetings a chance to steer traffic planning

Rather than sitting in Houston-area traffic, drivers are being asked by regional planners this month to shape it.

The Houston-Galveston Area Council, which doles out federal mobility money for the eightcounty Houston metropolitan area, is updating the 2045 Regional Transportation Plan, which sets out the highways, transit, bike lanes, sidewalks and streets local governments will build over the next 25 years.

As part of updating the plan, eight meetings are scheduled along with a virtual hearing. People also can leave comments or take a survey on the plans.

“We want to hear what the people of the region think,” said Kristina Michel, a senior writer for H-GAC’s communications team. “What do they want to see more of in their communities? Wider roads? More bike lanes and sidewalks? Safer road designs that slow traffic down? More connected streets? More transit? Commuter rail? How can we improve freight movement? How can we relieve congestion? Improve air quality and reduce emissions?”

If you ever have thought “why didn’t they do this 20 years ago,” it is because officials never put it in the plan or never found the will to move it from the plan to reality.

The plan changes every few years and is formally updated every five. Combined with the state’s unified transportation plan, it is the playbook of what will come in terms of new highways, toll roads, trains, buses and trails.

By 2045, demographers expect the region to be home to 10.7 million people — up from 7.1 million today — all with somewhere to go. To allow that travel to happen, planners expect the region to spend $147 billion, more than one-third of which will go simply to maintaining the area’s roads.

Meanwhile, $64 billion will be

spent widening or expanding roads or building new ones, with 2,900 more lane miles expected to be added to the area’s 42,000 lane miles today.

In the coming decades, transit — specifically high-capacity transit — is expected to cost $31 billion.

All of those projects, along with money for bike trails and freight corridors, start with the plan, and the public’s chance to comment is now even though the projects will take years to happen.