HOUSTON | Parks/Civic Spaces & Recreation Thread

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https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/transportation/2023/11/01/468388/uptown-houston-gets-grant-funding-for-pedestrian-pathway-across-loop-610-and-into-memorial-park/

Uptown Houston gets grant funding for pedestrian pathway across Loop 610 and into Memorial Park


The Texas Transportation Commission is allocating $18.5 million for a new hike-and-bike trail that would cross Buffalo Bayou and go underneath the West Loop in order to provide safe access between the Galleria area and Memorial Park.

ADAM ZUVANICH | POSTED ONNOVEMBER 1, 2023, 4:10 PM

Houston's biggest park is situated near one of its biggest and most bustling retail centers, and the two are separated by a big freeway often crowded with cars and trucks.

That makes it tricky and treacherous to walk or ride a bicycle from the Galleria area, which is immediately west of West Loop 610, to Memorial Park on the other side.

But a plan is in place to change that as the Uptown Houston District recently was awarded an $18.5 million grant by the Texas Transportation Commission to construct a dedicated pathway for cyclists and pedestrians that will start along Post Oak Boulevard and cross over Buffalo Bayou on a suspension bridge before meandering alongside the waterway and underneath the freeway and eventually connecting with Memorial Park a little to the northeast.

"It cannot be overstated what a significant barrier the West Loop is to the ease and safety of people west of the West Loop in accessing Memorial Park," said John Breeding, the president of Uptown Houston, a local taxing entity that focuses in part on infrastructure improvements, public safety and economic development in the area. "This is a thing where I can go ride (a bike), and I'm daring enough to perhaps try to go through an intersection, but if my grandkids or my wife's with me, it's scary. By building this facility, we'll be able to provide access to the near west side (of Houston) to the park in a safe and convenient and I think beautiful manner."

The forthcoming trail will cost a total of about $23 million to construct, according to Breeding, who said he hopes the project can be designed and bid out for construction by the end of 2024 and primarily built during 2025. The planned work brings into focus one of the visions outlined in the Memorial Park Conservancy's 10-year master plan, which calls for increased pedestrian and cyclist access from all sides of a central urban park that is currently difficult to get to without an automobile.

The federal grant money awarded to Uptown Houston was part of an overall $345 million allocation by the Texas Transportation Commission, which announced last week it is doling out funding to 12 initiatives in the Houston area and 83 across the state that add sidewalks, bike paths and other infrastructure with the goal of improving street safety and expanding multimodal access and mobility. Last year 830 pedestrians and 92 cyclists died on Texas roads, an increase of nearly 30 percent compared to five years earlier, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.

The second- and third-largest grant awards in the Houston area were more than $8.8 million for a multimodal path in Katy's Asia Town and nearly $7.5 million for a 5-mile hike-and-bike trail in The Woodlands.