I thought they stopped doing this- Houston communities may lose homes due to freeway

[Trae]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and all of those where built back in the bad old days of the 50s/60s. we haven't eminent-domained for expressway construction/expansion in this city for decades.

What has Chicago recently eminently domained people for?

Originally Posted by mhays

Seattle's SR99 freeway tunnel and boulevard are a 1:1 capacity replacement. The replacement was due to the potential for the elevated section to collapse. The tunnel was to get through-traffic and the structure out of the way.

So in other words, design/structural flaws made worse due to age. Again exactly like 45N in Houston.

I heard the parts about transit and growth rates. But that doesn't change the point that you could accommodate most growth with transit and density if you wanted to.

Like the classic saying goes, you (in general) may have heard but you aren't listening. Growth plays a huge part and transit has and continues to be expanded.

It wouldn't be simple or easy of course. Limiting outward growth, eliminating or reducing parking requirements, and other factors would play in. But it's a cultural choice, not a mathematical one.

There's ALWAYS a no-build option. Cities do it all the time all over the world, some with Houston-like growth rates. People adapt. Those who prioritize free-flowing freeways might not choose your city.

In the end it's still Houston being Houston because it wants to be. Just don't expect praise here.

There are pros and cons to everything though. Eliminating/lessening parking requirements is an easy one Houston has already done in the denser parts of town. Limiting outward growth would be very tricky. We'd run into the issue of creating more leap-frog sprawl AND increasing the price of housing within those boundaries. Houston is very affordable for the middle class and one of the few remaining large metros where middle class salaries can still comfortably afford a house in a nice neighborhood within a good school district (as in don't need magnets or charters) not far from employment.

Even without this expansion, the northern Houston metro has been booming for decades, anchored by The Woodlands-Conroe. It's the piney woods/rolling terrain side of the region, so it'll be popular with or without a freeway rebuild 15-20 miles away.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Nite

If removing the choke point cause more people to use the expressway

that's doubtful.

the crush load at peak rush hour will still be what it will be, and it won't be pretty. that's the just the nature of the beast with chicago's generally undersized expressway infrastructure for a metro area of 9.5 million. rush hour will never be "solved" here. people have a shit-ton of train options to get downtown, but if they'd rather sit in one of our linear parking lots every morning that's on them. alternatives exist.

what the new configuration will allow for is a consistent 3 general use lanes each way, the whole way, and then 1 HOT 3+ lane than can only be used by vehicles with 3+ occupants or those willing to pay a hefty toll to bypass the traffic. instead of the current arrangement where 4 lanes become 3 lanes and then 4 lanes again for really no good reason.

you can actually look at the project as taking away a general use lane and replacing it with a HOT 3+ lane in each direction.

i can totally live with that very reasonable compromise, as i imagine the vast majority of reasonable people can.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

There is a no build option for cities adding millions people per decade, and I would imagine it's not a very good option.

"No build" doesn't mean what should happen. It simply states that it's possible to build nothing.

You see this studied in any EIS, as you see it in action in many cities around the world that in fact don't build infrastructure of whatever type, due to preference or lack of resources. That includes the US.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Trae

So in other words, design/structural flaws made worse due to age. Again exactly like 45N in Houston.

Like the classic saying goes, you (in general) may have heard but you aren't listening. Growth plays a huge part and transit has and continues to be expanded.

There are pros and cons to everything though. Eliminating/lessening parking requirements is an easy one Houston has already done in the denser parts of town. Limiting outward growth would be very tricky. We'd run into the issue of creating more leap-frog sprawl AND increasing the price of housing within those boundaries. Houston is very affordable for the middle class and one of the few remaining large metros where middle class salaries can still comfortably afford a house in a nice neighborhood within a good school district (as in don't need magnets or charters) not far from employment.

A 1:1 replacement is nothing like a widening project.

Outward growth is tough to limit, but it's done in all West Coast states and some others, with legislated limits. All Western cities have topographic barriers but all have saved easy land too. It's a matter of culture and will. Houston and Texas have chosen the other direction.

Houston's transit has grown, but from bad to less bad. I'd suggest you expand it vastly more. Double the buses and make sure a bunch of trunk routes have bus lanes.

I acknowledge some movement on transit and density, but a massive widening is 1970s thinking no matter how you tart it up.

Just gonna leave this here and GTFO. Enjoy.

Why the Concept of Induced Demand Is a Hard Sell

Both the public and policymakers have trouble understanding why building more roads and highways does not reduce congestion.

https://www.governing.com/now/why-th...is-a-hard-sell


Aerial image of the I10 Katy Tollway Houston Texas. At one point, the highway is 26 lanes wide, making it the world's widest road. (Felix Mizioznikov - stock.adobe)

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's the just the nature of the beast with chicago's generally undersized expressway infrastructure for a metro area of 9.5 million.

You're right. If Chicago would have gone on a freeway building spree in the 1950s like LA and Detroit (i.e. the 3rd and 4th largest metros at the time), it would probably have a north-south freeway roughly parallel to Cicero Ave. or maybe even closer, like Western Ave. Good thing it didn't do that!

Was anything like this contemplated? Is cross-town traffic (N-S) not that big a deal in Chicago? It feels like you have to go pretty far west to cross the region north-south without driving on the Kennedy Expwy, and then you have to do so on toll roads. What's also funny is how the 294 and 355 are fairly close to one another, but then there's no north-south highway further west, even though the region sprawls for many miles that way.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Was anything like this contemplated?.

yes, a "crosstown expressway" roughly paralleling cicero ave. was considered a forgone conclusion back in the heady days of unbridled expressway enthusiasm.

but it never came to pass, and now that the new expressway ship has sailed, i can't see it ever becoming a thing given the monumental pushback such a project would now bring.

i remember king richard II resurrected the idea briefly during his reign, proposing a hybrid truck-only/BRT kinda thing along that route, but it never went anywhere.

[Trae]

Originally Posted by mhays

A 1:1 replacement is nothing like a widening project.

Outward growth is tough to limit, but it's done in all West Coast states and some others, with legislated limits. All Western cities have topographic barriers but all have saved easy land too. It's a matter of culture and will. Houston and Texas have chosen the other direction.

But it was still replaced in large part due to safety issues. A key point people keep looking over, as if the current accident rate on an outdated freeway is okay.

As far as limiting outward growth it's much easier to do when there are natural boundaries already. There are pros and cons to both ways. One is not inherently better than the other, especially since sprawl will still happen with a growth boundary but instead just further out.

Houston's transit has grown, but from bad to less bad. I'd suggest you expand it vastly more. Double the buses and make sure a bunch of trunk routes have bus lanes.

I acknowledge some movement on transit and density, but a massive widening is 1970s thinking no matter how you tart it up.

All that matters is it has grown and residents have continued to vote for its expansion. You're probably not even aware of the system changes and expansions done recently. I bet most speaking against this freeway expansion were unaware there's a light rail line within walking distance. Why can't growth be more concentrated there versus along a freeway? I mean that's literally what is happening.

Expanding a freeway is not "1970s thinking". That's like saying riding rails is 1880s thinking. Now if they proposed building an entirely new freeway through the middle of a neighborhood, then you all would have a point. But that's not what's happening. Instead this takes scraps from a current neighborhood's periphery, removes flood prone property, adds new parks, new pedestrian paths, adds new HOV lanes, better lighting/signage, eliminates an elevated freeway eyesore downtown, and most importantly the freeway itself becomes safer to drive on. Pros outweigh the cons by far.

Now in a perfect world if I had designed Houston, I would have had all the freeways stop at 610 and you'd either have to drive through on boulevards if you wanted to go into the city center or take the (now wider) 610 loop around to catch the other end of your freeway if passing through.

[pip]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the only one that egregiously bad is the dan ryan which runs straight through the southside, much of it in a 3/4/4/3 lane arrangement down to the skyway interchange where it becomes a 5/5. the skyway itself is mostly a 3/3. the dan ryan then splits into the bishop ford and I-57 on the far southside, both of those being 3/3.

as mentioned earlier, the eisenhower is mostly 4/4 except for that 5 mile stretch of 3/3 that they're planning to upgrade to a 3/1/1/3.

the stevenson is mostly a 3/3 and they wisely ran it through through the sanitary and ship canal industrial corridor, so it was the least destructive from an urbanism perspective.

the kennedy is mostly a 4/2/4 from downtown (where it's 5/5) up to the junction where it becomes a a 3/3 and splits with the edens, also a 3/3.

and LSD is mostly a 4/4, although it's not a full expressway as it has 7 signaled intersections through downtown.


and all of those where built back in the bad old days of the 50s/60s. we haven't eminent-domained for expressway construction/expansion in this city for decades.

Also Chicago area currently, as of 2012, couldn't have changed that much to now, has the least number of highways per capita.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2012/04/...-who-of-decay/

[Trae]

Originally Posted by pip

Also Chicago area currently, as of 2012, couldn't have changed that much to now, has the least number of highways per capita.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2012/04/...-who-of-decay/

Here's the source for the stats the article used, which gives a better view (data is actually from October 2008): https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinfor.../2007/hm72.cfm

[mhays]

If you control outward sprawl, most growth will shift to closer-in solutions. Some will choose to find more distant places that still have capacity. The volume over leapfrogging depends on the details -- road capacity to those places, whether the outer counties also have tight limits, whether you allow easy infill, etc.

I'm ok with replacing unrepairable freeways at the same capacity, or with bus lanes added. But this is also a general-purpose widening. As for accident safety, maybe they could cut the speed limit and increase enforcement.

We could talk all day and not agree. The mitigating circumstances aren't nothing, but they don't argue for a massive freeway expansion either.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by IWant2BeInSTL

Aerial image of the I10 Katy Tollway Houston Texas. At one point, the highway is 26 lanes wide, making it the world's widest road. (Felix Mizioznikov - stock.adobe)

For the sake of clarity, the Katy Tollway only consists of the 4 center lanes. The rest of it is the Katy Freeway.

[JManc]

The four center lanes were intended for commuter rail but Katy didn't want mass transit in their backyard. Hopefully, rail will be revisited when Katy stops thinking they are Beverly Hills.

[Trae]

Originally Posted by JManc

The four center lanes were intended for commuter rail but Katy didn't want mass transit in their backyard. Hopefully, rail will be revisited when Katy stops thinking they are Beverly Hills.

Not quite. There was an alternative plan to have light rail in the middle plus a sunkened freeway. This design was led by the Katy Coalition Corridor and deemed too expensive by TxDOT. As some "compromise" they built the overpass columns to be strong enough to support rail conversion but I dont believe that. Once again you can blame Culberson for there not being rail in the middle of the Katy Freeway.

[Bailey]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Completely going in the wrong direction. Doubling down on the most inefficient way to move volumes of people.

You're NOT listening to what Houstonians are telling you.

This move is a HUGE win for urbanists. It removes urban barriers (freeways) in west/south downtown and connects them with other "Urban" districts (midtown & Neartown). All THREE districts are booming and this move will provide a continuous WALKABLE urban connection.

NOW...we have to walk UNDER freeways to get from one district to another...not urban AT ALL.

THIS MOVE is a blessing for pro urban inner-loopers like ME!

[mhays]

We get that. There's localized benefit due to removal, but regionally the added capacity is bad planning.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by mhays

We get that. There's localized benefit due to removal, but regionally the added capacity is bad planning.

You are wrong. The above posters and I cannot stress this enough and explain any more. This is why people like you aren’t planning anywhere except in places where the land values are insane. Wanna know why the land values are insane? Because the access to jobs is artificially constrained by two factors: limited zoning and limited transportation options. Houston does not have limited zoning, so it is pursuing an all of the above approach to transportation planning. Highways are a piece of the puzzle. Induced demand doesn’t work the way you clearly think it does. And even if you don’t like the freeway, consider that it isn’t really ONE freeway, but essentially two running parallel in the same right of way. And the freeway project is only being done at all so that the city can do urbanist reunification by destroying other freeways altogether. And this MINOR freeway expansion is also removing the scar it created by sewing the adjacent neighborhoods together with a park. A REAL park. Same thing with downtown.

To summarize:

This is NOT a freeway project with parks components, this is a parks project with a necessary freeway component.

[JManc]

Houston is also highly decentralized with several major nodes. Most cities that are also decentralized (LA, DFW, etc.) are also freeway happy. They have a head start on transit compared to Houston but they are cities built around the car and freeways are part of the landscape. We are not talking Seattle or New York here

[mhays]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

You are wrong. The above posters and I cannot stress this enough and explain any more. This is why people like you aren’t planning anywhere except in places where the land values are insane. Wanna know why the land values are insane? Because the access to jobs is artificially constrained by two factors: limited zoning and limited transportation options. Houston does not have limited zoning, so it is pursuing an all of the above approach to transportation planning. Highways are a piece of the puzzle. Induced demand doesn’t work the way you clearly think it does. And even if you don’t like the freeway, consider that it isn’t really ONE freeway, but essentially two running parallel in the same right of way. And the freeway project is only being done at all so that the city can do urbanist reunification by destroying other freeways altogether. And this MINOR freeway expansion is also removing the scar it created by sewing the adjacent neighborhoods together with a park. A REAL park. Same thing with downtown.

To summarize:

This is NOT a freeway project with parks components, this is a parks project with a necessary freeway component.

We have very different outlooks. Simple as that. And I'm glad my region thinks more like I do.

[benp]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

You are wrong. The above posters and I cannot stress this enough and explain any more. This is why people like you aren’t planning anywhere except in places where the land values are insane. Wanna know why the land values are insane? Because the access to jobs is artificially constrained by two factors: limited zoning and limited transportation options. Houston does not have limited zoning, so it is pursuing an all of the above approach to transportation planning. Highways are a piece of the puzzle. Induced demand doesn’t work the way you clearly think it does. And even if you don’t like the freeway, consider that it isn’t really ONE freeway, but essentially two running parallel in the same right of way. And the freeway project is only being done at all so that the city can do urbanist reunification by destroying other freeways altogether. And this MINOR freeway expansion is also removing the scar it created by sewing the adjacent neighborhoods together with a park. A REAL park. Same thing with downtown.

To summarize:

This is NOT a freeway project with parks components, this is a parks project with a necessary freeway component.

Different portions of the project have different intentions. Removal of the Pierce Elevated (I-45 section along Pierce Avenue downtown) is the main intention, mainly because it cannot be expanded without removing adjacent blocks of downtown and Midtown, and the existing design is not considered adequate today. In all likelihood, the areas beneath the Pierce will be built out as part of the existing street grid, as my understanding is that the land will be sold. I would not expect this area to be parks with the removal of 45.

It is the removal of the Pierce - not parks, not capacity - that is driving all of the other changes. Parks came into play with proposals to sink and cover portions on the East Side of downtown between the Convention Center and Minute Maid Park. As far as I can tell, funding for the cover and park may not be part of the expansion project itself, but would have to be funded separately.

Interesting comments on the Houston architecture forum are that for all of the changes to traffic patterns and construction, there will be no added lanes of traffic on I-45 through downtown. Another set of comments concerns issues associated with building below grade - for those unaware, Houston floods quite often, and part of Houston road system design is that roads acts as detention ponds in order to protect adjacent properties. This includes freeways, which technically are not supposed to flood, but most of the freeways near downtown have flooded many times recently - 288 near Braes Bayou, 45 near White Oak, Little White Oak, and Buffalo Bayou, I-10 along White Oak Bayou, 59 through Montrose, Westpark Tollway near I-610 - all have had several feet of water with cars and trucks submerged at times.

Neighborhoods near the affected roads are also concerned that efforts to keep water out of the freeways means that local streets and homes will end up collecting more of the runoff.

Most of the redesigned freeways outside the loop are all elevated, although feeder roads often flood.

Oh, and the Mayor is opposed to the current plan.