I-45 Rebuild (North Houston Highway Improvement Project)

[IronTiger]

I think a combination of some of the things suggested could work wonders for the Pierce: a more inviting exterior, better lighting, a night market, and a reworking of the exits/on-ramps.

[cloud713]

ok, since my last/more radical idea of rerouting the freeways didnt go over so well.. this one keeps the highway layout the exact same. not much new is proposed here, except a few things youll notice in the East End/EaDo.

the main focus here would be getting more of the downtown destinationers to use the "downtown connectors" like Allen Parkway, Memorial Drive, Elysian, and now.. Buffalo Parkway. Franklin Parkway? or whatever my proposed Allen/Memorial-esque parkway south of the bayou through the East End would be called. its still up in the air. heh.

the Hardy Downtown Connector will hopefully have an exit that spills off into the 59 downtown connector ramps (at Jackson/Chanevert/Hamilton) or direct non stop path into downtown, and not just stop at/dump people out onto i10 in a free for all trying to battle traffic into downtown.

there would also be serious reworking of the 288/59/45 interchange, as well as some of the other suggested ideas like closing off certain onramps/exits that have funky merges that screw up the flow of traffic.

i also trenched .8 miles of the Pierce from the Allen Garage to Caroline, and trenched .5 miles of 59 from the north side of GRB to Commerce, to eliminate part of the visual blight and allow for pedestrian bridges and potential deck parks built over the freeways.

here is the right up about the trenching of US59 through Montrose. some of the dates are off, but ive seen the same cost listed elsewhere for the construction (not including bridges).. 71 million dollars for 1.75 miles in 2004 dollars. why cant TXDOT afford to trench parts of 45/59 around downtown again? we just need to fight it like they did for Montrose.

http://reconnectaustin.com/precedents/us-59/





here is Franklin Street, which already doesnt have a stop light where St Emanuel hits it, and is trenched under the rail road tracks, so its already got a parkway like feel for a few blocks as it turns into Navigation.
-side note: the "new Navigation" would follow the path of a widened Runnels St, so Navigation stays running East/West without any funky turn to the south. that would continue past the end of the current Runnels at McKee, and go all the way to San Jacinto.
now Franklin (following the path of the south leg of old Navigation/Jensen) would be trenched under Canal, and Navigation, before turning east at Kennedy St, which would be where the parkway finally starts to parallel the bayou, all the way to 90A and Clinton, where the road will split each direction for people headed towards i10, and people headed towards 610E. the parkway utilizes vacant land, desolate streets, and abandoned rail road/utility ROWs.
it would be a decent alternate route into downtown from ~5 miles out, especially if there is bad traffic, a wreck, or construction on i10, 45, or even 59 (traffic there can back up around downtown and effect the other highways too), and you want to avoid traffic/need to get to downtown. the only reason i say decent and not absolutely fantastic is because the East End obviously gets industrial once you get out towards the end of the new segment of this parkway/where it would turn into a more parkwayified 90A and Clinton at the turning basin, so theres not nearly as much demand out that way for a parkway leading to downtown, like there is on the west side with Allen and Memorial. but again, it would be a great way to avoid slow moving traffic on 10 and 45 trying to head into or out of downtown from/towards the East.

(green trenched[the southern most one already exists], red elevated)

[IronTiger]

I can't say whether I think that would be a great idea or not (adding another highway seems iffy at this point and probably diminishing returns at this point) but I really like the thought you put into it.

[lithiumaneurysm]

I really like some of those ideas. Particularly the East End parkway and the trenching of the Pierce Elevated. I think a parkway would be particularly effective at opening up the oft-neglected southern bank of the Bayou east of Downtown to development. Connectivity to those huge chunks of land along the Bayou isn't very good right now since it was all industrial until recently.

 

The 45/59/288 interchange definitely needs redesigning. In addition to being a really awkward mix of the three freeways – with poor transfer ramps between each of them – it's also a scar on the cityscape that presents a formidable boundary between Midtown and the Third Ward. When it does get reconstructed there needs to be a serious aesthetic overhaul.

 

I've always thought that the Downtown freeway complex needs to be "de-spaghettified". It's nice that the freeway planners of yesteryear wanted to provide as many entrance and exit ramps as possible, but constructs like the spaghetti bowl on 45 over the Bayou only end up impeding traffic flow in favor of a few underused and unsafe ramps. As cloud713 said, the future renovation should seek to focus Downtown commuters on a set of dedicated entrances to the district. That sort of planning would make it a lot easier to manage traffic in the area (as well as decrease the probability of people getting lost).

[cloud713]

I can't say whether I think that would be a great idea or not (adding another highway seems iffy at this point and probably diminishing returns at this point) but I really like the thought you put into it.

Thanks, though no new highways were added (unless you could the Hardy downtown connector).. The new east end parkway is more of a fuchsia but it sort of looks red like the highways. The east end route is a 4 lane parkway, based off of Allen, Memorial, and TC Jester to an extent (not going to lie.. I was partially inspired to scheme up an east end parkway after you started the parkway thread)

I really like some of those ideas. Particularly the East End parkway and the trenching of the Pierce Elevated. I think a parkway would be particularly effective at opening up the oft-neglected southern bank of the Bayou east of Downtown to development. Connectivity to those huge chunks of land along the Bayou isn't very good right now since it was all industrial until recently.

The 45/59/288 interchange definitely needs redesigning. In addition to being a really awkward mix of the three freeways – with poor transfer ramps between each of them – it's also a scar on the cityscape that presents a formidable boundary between Midtown and the Third Ward. When it does get reconstructed there needs to be a serious aesthetic overhaul.

I've always thought that the Downtown freeway complex needs to be "de-spaghettified". It's nice that the freeway planners of yesteryear wanted to provide as many entrance and exit ramps as possible, but constructs like the spaghetti bowl on 45 over the Bayou only end up impeding traffic flow in favor of a few underused and unsafe ramps. As cloud713 said, the future renovation should seek to focus Downtown commuters on a set of dedicated entrances to the district. That sort of planning would make it a lot easier to manage traffic in the area (as well as decrease the probability of people getting lost).

Thank you as well. I don't understand why portions of the Pierce and 59 can't be trenched like Montrose was able to get TxDot to do with 59. Doesn't seen too expensive minus the bridges.. But there are 8-9 different bridges over 45 so that could get a little expensive.. Lol.

Great points about it opening up the bayou to development. I too noticed there weren't many connections out there (part of why it made for a prime parkway route.. Not much to bisect), though I had envisioned this to be more of a thoroughfare, with connections at the major cross roads like York and Lockwood, though I suppose there could be access spawning off the parkway at certain spots to spur development in those locations.

It will be interesting to come up with ways to hide the 288/59/45 interchange unless they get creative like Westpark at Beltway 8 with trenched exit/entrance(?) lanes crossing underneath the main lanes.

Edited August 9, 2014 by cloud713

[IronTiger]

What the Downtown area really needs is a rework of the exits/entrances and get out of the antiquated 1960s ways that they were set up.

 

Now, I hate comparisons to another city, but there is a project that they're doing that would be beneficial here (Houston) as well. Asterisks have been used to hide references, but the point still remains.

 

Originally designed in the 1950's, the [local] freeways were constructed between 1958 and 1962 [not the actual dates]. At that time, downtown Dallas was the primary destination of the majority of local freeway travelers. So much so, that the adjacent freeway system was designed accordingly. Planners and designers must now attempt to solve the demands of current-day travel patterns, the least of which entails the fact that 4 out of every 5 travelers now remain on the freeways [also not a statistic that we use] and bypass downtown ******.

No significant improvements to roadway capacity have been made since the freeways were originally constructed. Minor improvements such as converting the inside shoulders to travel lanes were made, but are considered interim improvements until a long-term solution can be provided.

The design standards for freeways and Interstate Highways have changed since the roadways were originally constructed. In many locations, ramps do not have adequate acceleration or deceleration lengths, interchanges and ramps are too close together, bridges have limited vertical and horizontal clearances, and the freeway has poor sight distances.

Traffic problems are made worse by the layout of main lanes, service roads, ramps, and surface streets in the area, which do not properly provide for the major traffic demand routes and destinations. Forced lane changes, abrupt and unexpected merges, short weaves and quick exits compound the problems.

The goals for the project include:

Maximizing the traffic carrying capacity of the freeway system by integrating high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), Transportation Systems Management (TSM), and TDM elements into the design;

Minimizing the need for additional right-of-way;

Providing more reliable transportation facilities by decreasing congestion and travel times;

Improving interregional connections to existing and proposed roadways and transit facilities;

Enhancing travel and accessibility to downtown ******, major employment areas and activity centers within the corridor;

Enhancing bicycle and pedestrian access across the facilities;

Integrating urban design elements to reflect the character and location of the surrounding communities;

Developing a technically and financially feasible solution.

Those are all very good goals, and what's not feasible is trying to trench the Pierce Elevated (part of the reason why the 59 trenching worked was relatively few bridges, trenching the Pierce would involve closing off roads), rebuild substantially parts of the system underground (friendly reminder: the Big Dig was NOT an example to do things), or removing the Pierce and replacing it with a surface grade road.

Rebuilding exits and interchanges to modern design standards will work wonders for congestion.

For starters, the exit to 59W from the Pierce makes no sense since that's really an exit to 288S, so you'll need to make an exit (left hand) to 59W. That's why the exit that currently terminates at Pierce/Bagby (at a five way intersection, no less) needs to be the main exit to 59W.

Meanwhile, 45S to 59E is ALSO an inner entrance. If that exit was replaced with one that entered on the outside and not merging with 59E until AFTER the Chartres exit, that's another problem solved. The way that it's set up now is that you can't exit Chartres if you were coming from 45S anyway.

The 59W to 45N (Pierce Elevated exit) needs to be widened and reformatted so that part of that traffic IS the 288S exit as well, which would prevent confusion over at the other end. Since 288S is formed by the southern exits of 45N and 45S, and expecting drivers to make their way over to 59W, the logical solution would be to add in real ramps from the two on-ramps that actually lead to 59W and not 288 serving as some sort of collecting exit. Coming in from 45S means you have to jog a few lanes over to get to the 59W exit in time, which was one of the big problems of 610/US-290.

A lot of this problem stems from the creation of 288, which didn't actually open until 1980, and the design wasn't done until about the rest of freeways were already opened. As a result, it doesn't flow as well as the other freeways, which were done in the 1960s but at least make sense as far as design conventions. Extending 225 would've also made the freeways more complicated, and arguably really not that necessary in the long run since it was designed to supplant the Gulf Freeway, which was widened in the 1980s (in that portion, prior to that, it was a dated and inadequate pre-Interstate highway).

[IronTiger]

Forgot to copy-check that paragraph (so much for my city neutrality plan), but if you followed any of what I wrote regarding the exits, you deserve a prize if you weren't looking at a map to get what I was talking about.

 

I would hope that with the Hardy Toll Road extension and replacement of the Elysian Street Viaduct, some other ramp re-dos may be warranted.

 

But seriously--the whole 59/45/288 interchange needs to be rebuilt.

[JLWM8609]

Here are my top gripes about the 288/59/45 interchange.

1. The ramp from 59NB to 288NB merges 2 lanes with a 3 lane highway. The resulting merge should be a 5 lane highway, right? Nope. The inside lane of the ramp and the outside lane of 288 merge into one. It's an antiquated design. There was a similar problem with the ramp from 288NB to US59NB that was fixed by restriping one of the lanes into a shoulder lane.

2. The ramp from 288NB to 45NB. Prior to the reconstruction of the Pierce Elevated in 1997, you had a similar situation as above. The outside lane of the ramp from 288NB would merge with the left lane of 45NB. TxDOT restriped the ramp so the lanes would merge into 1 before merging with 45, but that causes the ramp to back up to 59 on some days. Better lane balancing by turning the ramp back into a 2 lane ramp and making the Pierce Elevated 4 lanes from that point on would fix that problem.

3. The onramp from 288 from Hamilton is terrible. There's hardly any acceleration lane, and before it merges with 288, another ramp from Chenevert at Berry merges with the Hamilton onramp. A solution would be to shift the 288 SB mainlines slightly so there's a longer acceleration lane and maybe close the onramp from Chenevert at Berry since I don't see it being heavily utilized. The left shoulder is wide enough to accommodate the shift.

4. The onramp from Jackson St. to 288 SB is the same way. It looks like there's enough room to shift the lanes over to make the acceleration lane longer.

5. The ramp from 59NB to 288SB. This problem comes more from people who don't know how to merge since there's more than ample space to accelerate, but I think traffic would flow better if that ramp turned into an auxiliary lane that would terminate as an "EXIT ONLY" lane at Southmore.

Edited August 10, 2014 by JLWM8609

[tigereye]

ok, since my last/more radical idea of rerouting the freeways didnt go over so well.. this one keeps the highway layout the exact same. not much new is proposed here, except a few things youll notice in the East End/EaDo.

the main focus here would be getting more of the downtown destinationers to use the "downtown connectors" like Allen Parkway, Memorial Drive, Elysian, and now.. Buffalo Parkway. Franklin Parkway? or whatever my proposed Allen/Memorial-esque parkway south of the bayou through the East End would be called. its still up in the air. heh.

the Hardy Downtown Connector will hopefully have an exit that spills off into the 59 downtown connector ramps (at Jackson/Chanevert/Hamilton) or direct non stop path into downtown, and not just stop at/dump people out onto i10 in a free for all trying to battle traffic into downtown.

there would also be serious reworking of the 288/59/45 interchange, as well as some of the other suggested ideas like closing off certain onramps/exits that have funky merges that screw up the flow of traffic.

i also trenched .8 miles of the Pierce from the Allen Garage to Caroline, and trenched .5 miles of 59 from the north side of GRB to Commerce, to eliminate part of the visual blight and allow for pedestrian bridges and potential deck parks built over the freeways.

here is the right up about the trenching of US59 through Montrose. some of the dates are off, but ive seen the same cost listed elsewhere for the construction (not including bridges).. 71 million dollars for 1.75 miles in 2004 dollars. why cant TXDOT afford to trench parts of 45/59 around downtown again? we just need to fight it like they did for Montrose.

http://reconnectaustin.com/precedents/us-59/

here is Franklin Street, which already doesnt have a stop light where St Emanuel hits it, and is trenched under the rail road tracks, so its already got a parkway like feel for a few blocks as it turns into Navigation.

-side note: the "new Navigation" would follow the path of a widened Runnels St, so Navigation stays running East/West without any funky turn to the south. that would continue past the end of the current Runnels at McKee, and go all the way to San Jacinto.

now Franklin (following the path of the south leg of old Navigation/Jensen) would be trenched under Canal, and Navigation, before turning east at Kennedy St, which would be where the parkway finally starts to parallel the bayou, all the way to 90A and Clinton, where the road will split each direction for people headed towards i10, and people headed towards 610E. the parkway utilizes vacant land, desolate streets, and abandoned rail road/utility ROWs.

it would be a decent alternate route into downtown from ~5 miles out, especially if there is bad traffic, a wreck, or construction on i10, 45, or even 59 (traffic there can back up around downtown and effect the other highways too), and you want to avoid traffic/need to get to downtown. the only reason i say decent and not absolutely fantastic is because the East End obviously gets industrial once you get out towards the end of the new segment of this parkway/where it would turn into a more parkwayified 90A and Clinton at the turning basin, so theres not nearly as much demand out that way for a parkway leading to downtown, like there is on the west side with Allen and Memorial. but again, it would be a great way to avoid slow moving traffic on 10 and 45 trying to head into or out of downtown from/towards the East.

(green trenched[the southern most one already exists], red elevated)

In a prior discussion on the Post Office site thread, an old Downtown redevelopment rendering showed a connection between Washington Ave and Navigation Blvd, which could make a useful east-west artery paralleling I-10. In the rendering, Franklin St bridge over Buffalo Bayou is eliminated and traffic is rerouted over some of the Post Office site, then through the middle of North Canal Island to an eventual connection to Runnels/Navigation. Considering the revitalization efforts on both Washington Ave & Navigation Blvd, I'd love if this were to happen and they be connected.

Edited August 10, 2014 by tigereye

[IronTiger]

While poking around on Google Maps Street View, looking at the Mobil (now Exxon) on the corner and trying to figure out when it had a KFC, I noticed that the Pierce Elevated on-ramps (to 288) were of now-rather-dated steel structures which haven't been used for building ramps and highways in decades.

I know the Pierce starts backing up every day, but where do the bottlenecks tend to start?

[mollusk]

Northbound, it seems to be the traffic trying to come on from the Brazos/St. Joseph/Pease/Walker collector (many of whom want to make the left exit to the Katy just a bit up the road) duking it out with people trying to get on 10 eastbound or just to continue north.

 

Southbound, the first squeeze is the Houston/Memorial collector from the right at the same time that the Allen Parkway ramp is doing the Merge of Death on the left.  Neither ramp has an adequate acceleration lane, and the Allen Parkway ramp also has terrible sight lines.  The weaving for 59/288 at the other end of the Pierce doesn't help much, either.

[IronTiger]

The Allen Parkway ramp needs to be closed, first and foremost. I can't emphasize this enough. It does far from fixing the congestion and the other old ramps, but it will be a good start.

[DNAguy]

The Allen Parkway ramp needs to be closed, first and foremost. I can't emphasize this enough. It does far from fixing the congestion and the other old ramps, but it will be a good start.

 

I can't agree more.

 

People would just have to realize that to get to 45 north from west of downtown, you take Allen parkway... to get to 45 south, you take memorial. Simple and safety / congestion is improved.

[mollusk]

IDK about full on removal - there's a lot of traffic that gets on 45 from Allen Parkway.  Perhaps a realignment that would join it with the Memorial/Capitol/Houston collector, plus an additional lane on SB Pierce would be helpful.

 

The thing that gets me is that I used to be pretty calm about entering from that ramp in an air cooled VW with its screaming 50 HP (and a zero to 60 time best measured with a sundial), with traffic bearing down at 70 or so.  Now, flooring a 300+ HP performance car, I feel the need to cross myself or something.  Granted, we also used to be much more accustomed to slow cars merging, but surely there is some reason for today's anxiety other than maturity and the knowledge that half the traffic is distracted by their cell phone.

[IronTiger]

Full removal I am of course against, not unless you wanted to build new lanes along Interstate 10 and 59, and they don't need new lanes. What I am in favor of is a three pronged approach:

- Making the Pierce look better

- Reconfiguring/rebuilding exits and on ramps to relieve congestion

- Improving pedestrian/bicycle accessibility

[cloud713]

Full removal I am of course against, not unless you wanted to build new lanes along Interstate 10 and 59, and they don't need new lanes. What I am in favor of is a three pronged approach:

- Making the Pierce look better

- Reconfiguring/rebuilding exits and on ramps to relieve congestion

- Improving pedestrian/bicycle accessibility

You're not down with trenching a few sections of the existing highways like the 59 Montrose trenching project a decade ago? You could even build a deck park or two linking the different districts, a la Phoenix's Margaret T Hance Park.

[JLWM8609]

Northbound, it seems to be the traffic trying to come on from the Brazos/St. Joseph/Pease/Walker collector (many of whom want to make the left exit to the Katy just a bit up the road) duking it out with people trying to get on 10 eastbound or just to continue north.

 

Southbound, the first squeeze is the Houston/Memorial collector from the right at the same time that the Allen Parkway ramp is doing the Merge of Death on the left.  Neither ramp has an adequate acceleration lane, and the Allen Parkway ramp also has terrible sight lines.  The weaving for 59/288 at the other end of the Pierce doesn't help much, either.

 

The ramp from Houston/Memorial isn't as bad as the Allen Parkway ramp. I drive that ramp often and the acceleration lane isn't that bad. The biggest problem is from people in the mainlanes who insist on tailgating the vehicle front of them so people on the ramp can't merge with the mainlanes easily.

[houstonartstudent]

Sketched up an idea for expanding the Pierce Elevated to utilize the space underneath for light rail/parking/retail/Pierce Street.  I'm sure I haven't thought of all of the logistics (i.e. freeway support column placement/setbacks from buildings...but would love to get feedback on how feasible this would be.)

Edited August 11, 2014 by houstonartstudent

[mollusk]

The ramp from Houston/Memorial isn't as bad as the Allen Parkway ramp. I drive that ramp often and the acceleration lane isn't that bad. The biggest problem is from people in the mainlanes who insist on tailgating the vehicle front of them so people on the ramp can't merge with the mainlanes easily.

 

Agreed.  I think the biggest difference between the two is that the Houston/Memorial ramp has much better sight lines than the Allen Parkway ramp.  The Memorial ramp is pretty much level with the freeway a good ways back, is a gentle curve, and has not even so much as a Jersey barrier blocking the view; OTOH the Allen Parkway ramp comes up from below, follows a relatively sharp tight turn that requires all your forward attention, and enters from the left, so your only prayer of being able to see diddly before you are right on top of the merge is if your convertible top is down in a car without head restraints or back seat passengers.

 

In theory, traffic coming from the left has the right of way.  In theory, I would always eat healthy food and exercise daily, too.

[IronTiger]

You're not down with trenching a few sections of the existing highways like the 59 Montrose trenching project a decade ago? You could even build a deck park or two linking the different districts, a la Phoenix's Margaret T Hance Park.

Well, I did think of that, but there are a few problems, namely that while trenching sounds like a pretty good idea in theory, there's just too many roads underneath.

See, one of the things that are legitimate complaints about freeways is that they break the existing grid, but with the Pierce, the grid isn't broken. Every segment is drivable.

With a trenching project, you'll end up having way more bridges than 59 (and in a much shorter span) and every one of those (assuming that you have all of them; otherwise, you'll break the grid) will require interruptions. This means that the light rail will have interruptions or some sort of horrifically expensive rerouting scheme. Costs will go up into the billions just for that sort of thing alone (the Klyde Warren Park was also very expensive, but that had the advantage of having the trenching part ready-made). Since 288/59 is also sunken, the ramps will have to rise even more, which means that streets WILL get cut off either way and the blocks immediately west of 59/288 will still suffer from freeways.

Finally, if you don't decide to proceed with an even-more-expensive parks scheme, you'll get a wide canyon or a bunch of landscaped but vacant lots, with the net gain being 0.

Edited August 11, 2014 by IronTiger

[samagon]

true.. so even if you got air-rights to the railroad ROW and elevated a 4 lane freeway above the tracks, not taking up any additional ROW/tearing down structures/buying land/ect, you wouldnt be cool with it? what about a 610W traffic reliever 4 lane tollroad along side the rail line that goes through Memorial Park (and unfortunately Afton Oaks, so it would probably never happen), from 610 south to 610 north? even if it were trenched like the Dallas North Tollway is in the inner city? ive always thought that would be a semi-decent solution to avoiding 610W, logistics/political obstacles aside. only have connections/exits/onramps at 610S, Westpark/59, i10, and 610N.

 

agreed.. this interchange sucks and is the root of most of the problems i feel. it needs to be reworked badly if nothing else.

 

Expanding and updating existing freeways is a hard enough venture on the community. You read about small businesses being crunched by the rerouting of traffic, moving lanes, all of the things like this.If they manage to scrape by, they can consider themselves lucky, a lot of small businesses don't make it through that kind of ordeal. Yeah, the huge chains and conglomerates make it through by laying off workers when it gets lean and absorb the losses to come out clean on the other side, but in the meantime you have people who are going to lose their job, and you have businesses that are going to go under.

 

So during the process of building the freeway you're going to close roads, disrupt traffic, how exactly would it be built over the existing railroad without disrupting the railroad (even if they would agree to having a freeway on top of their tracks, getting them to agree to stop traffic for long enough to build the roadway would be impossible). Then there's the railway locomotive yard and some switching tracks that it would have to maneuver.

 

Not to mention the number of people who live within 25 feet of the railroad, let along 100 yards. They all signed up knowing that a train would sound the horn whenever it went by, maybe they're close enough to feel the train rumble past, maybe they hear the clickity clack of the rail cars passing. It happens maybe as frequent as 30 minutes, maybe not for a few hours. They signed up for that (and should at least) have known what they were getting into. They didn't sign up for all the pollution that comes with a freeway, tire noise, exhaust, lights, fluids, anything and everything that comes with it. 

 

Besides, even with a 4 lane freeway, it's not wide enough. According to USdot, 12' lanes minimum for freeway traffic, just for the lanes, we're at 48' then you add breakdown lanes, 10' on each side, 68', inside shoulder, 8' on each side, 84' wide freeway. then you have to think of safety barriers, let's just round it to 90'. Considering the proximity to people's residences you'd need to erect those pollution walls (only they'd have to be really tall and now you're blocking the sun from someone's backyard, which if you look at the ashby thingy, that's a big no-no), again, let's just say 100' for the whole width.

 

There are areas where it would fit in the existing ROW, but there are other areas it wouldn't fit, not without closing roads and making people move, or shutting down businesses.

 

In case you were wondering, I'm very much against the hardy extension that is being added inside the loop.

Edited August 19, 2014 by samagon

[Dakota79]

Even LA wants to cover their freeway with a park.

http://m.la.curbed.com/archives/2014/08/work_begins_to_put_huge_park_on_top_of_the_101_in_hollywood.php

The music in the video seems like it's from an old Hollywood cop show.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Dakota79

[DNAguy]

Even LA wants to cover their freeway with a park.

http://m.la.curbed.com/archives/2014/08/work_begins_to_put_huge_park_on_top_of_the_101_in_hollywood.php

The music in the video seems like it's from an old Hollywood cop show.

 

 

Not just Dallas and/or LA:

 

 

http://gizmodo.com/five-cities-turning-ugly-overpasses-into-vibrant-parks-1259568561

[IronTiger]

LA's park idea is pretty crazy, since Klyde Warren Park cost about $471 per square foot (if what I read on another source was correct, dividing cost by square foot of park) and here they're talking about a 38 acre park, which if we multiply 1655280 square foot x $471, we're looking at $779,636,880 at the bare minimum. Due to earthquake retrofitting and other things (and why California costs more in general), we're easily looking at a billion, maybe more.

[Slick Vik]

Everything costs more in california

[IronTiger]

Everything costs more in california

Yeah, I meant "and those extra California costs", or something, to indicate that it would be way more expensive than $800M (not to mention costs of upkeep). I do wonder about these cap-and-cover freeway plans...they have a mission to "reconnect" the city, do they intend on rebuilding road connections cut off?

[JLWM8609]

Now, to at least one realistic idea.

 

They should re-arrange the exit ramps from 45 to 59 (northbound lanes) and from 59 to 45 (southbound lanes).

 

There's the exit right after telephone on the northbound section of 45 for the 'downtown exits and scott street' and the entrance from downtown destinations into the SB lanes of 45. these elevated sections were designed to ease the transition into the spur 5 runoff that now goes nowhere (was supposed to be part of the freeway down 35).

 

So, shut down the ramps from 45NB to 59 NB/SB and build them onto that spur section. same for from 59NB/SB onto 45SB. this would at least ease part of the interchange. it would eliminate people waiting until the last possible second from cutting over from 59sb exit back into 45nb traffic (which does cause quite a stir and often wrecks). It also eliminates people entering at scott who are trying to jog over to the other side of the freeway to get to the 59sb ramp. that's a really short distance to do that in and really slows things down as well. people who want to get from scott to 59sb could easily ride up to the entrance at gray street.

 

anyway, it would resolve the part of the problem with the pierce elevated, which is the horrible transitions from 59 to 45sb, and from 45nb to 59. the lanes on that elevated portion of freeway are horrible under utilized at all times of day.

I immediately thought about samagon's suggestion when I read article this this morning.

 

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/transportation/article/Project-aims-to-untie-I-45-northbound-traffic-knot-5736953.php?cmpid=twitter-premium&t=6220c6aed20519a485

[houstontexasjack]

I just drove that Allen Parkway ramp for the first time and it was borderline terrifying spiraling into the Freeway in my Jeep.

No objection closing that ramp. I like the proposal to reroute 45 along 59 and 10 and turn the Pierce into a Parkway. I'd really love a rail line that goes along such Parkway into Allen Parkway and then into Kirby...although that would take a shift in attitudes in this town.

[DNAguy]

I just drove that Allen Parkway ramp for the first time and it was borderline terrifying spiraling into the Freeway in my Jeep.

No objection closing that ramp. I like the proposal to reroute 45 along 59 and 10 and turn the Pierce into a Parkway. I'd really love a rail line that goes along such Parkway into Allen Parkway and then into Kirby...although that would take a shift in attitudes in this town.

 

If you thought the Afton Oaks opposition to the University line was bad, try and put a rail line through River Oaks. The streets would run red with the blood of MERTO officials. Ok maybe not, but it would be stopped faster than a hooker in sketchers. 

 

Even w/ a guarantee not to make a stop between Shephard and San Felipe or even all the way to Westheimer, RO would be opposed. Although, it would be an awesome route / ride.... especially during the azalea bloom in early spring and during the Christmas light season after Thanksgiving. 

[Montrose1100]

I just drove that Allen Parkway ramp for the first time and it was borderline terrifying spiraling into the Freeway in my Jeep.

No objection closing that ramp. I like the proposal to reroute 45 along 59 and 10 and turn the Pierce into a Parkway. I'd really love a rail line that goes along such Parkway into Allen Parkway and then into Kirby...although that would take a shift in attitudes in this town.

The Current ramp is severely outdated to days long past of lower speed limits, courteous drivers, and slower vehicles. However, it does serve it's purpose. It would need to be reworked somehow into the plan. I for one would be outraged if 45 didn't connect to Allen Parkway. Or for that matter has an exit to Memorial (which should be redone as well to not stop at Houston Street).

 

Maybe I'm selfish but these on/off ramps have served me and continue to serve me very well. Even more so when Google Maps finds me quicker alternatives to go home.