I-45 Rebuild (North Houston Highway Improvement Project)

[Montrose1100]

1 hour ago, IronTiger said:

How would any of these ordinances be enforced? The speed limit rarely is.

Maybe it might help to put up blinking lights at I-45 S to tell all through trucks to take I-10 E to 610 S, though.

Good Question. I do see police all the time, but maybe we need to look at this from a technology stand point. Warning signs that unmarked U-hauls & 18-Wheelers must avoid the left lanes or face a fine. Same with speed, increase the minimum speed as the lanes get closer to the "center". That might open a can of worms for speeders though, but in an updated world, we could have more transtrar cameras catching License Plate numbers and sending a ticket. Like driving through an EZ Tag without one.

I know a lot of people would be against this, as it seems Fahrenheit 451, but after struggling to pass slow trucks/cars, the freeway clears up significantly. Would also be a good way to catch people who don't get their oil changed. Even with the inside air button on, if you're stuck behind one of them it sucks.

1 hour ago, samagon said:

Off topic would be refreshing compared to the skewed views of h-town man. I'm not sure whether I should laugh, or just be disgusted with his way of thinking.

regarding better flow management, wouldn't keeping the pierce elevated as max lanes, or even as variable cost tolls allow for better flow management than to simply redirect traffic down a different ROW?

Or that you need to pull off the road and drink that much more beer at the closest bar until traffic clears.

His views aren't skewed, just a different perspective. I can agree with you we do need more lanes, but in very select locations. Like the 45 bridge over 610.

It seems that most of our current exchanges are outdated and need to be streamlined. Why should people get away with cutting the line last minute to grind a slow moving lane to complete stop and go? They're wasting everyone's time and fuel. Not to mention the other lane going the opposite direction or continuing on the freeway will also slow down. Dominoes.

And why should traffic slow down for an accident on the opposite side? Makes no sense. Unfortunately the masses cannot be educated to correct this, so we need a divider high enough to block the views. So, along with a few tweaks/updates we can easily manage rush hour traffic. With a majority of our current lane volume. The spaghetti junctions are another topic.

The current proposal needs something else. There has to be another way to get the traffic around Downtown. I propose an elevated alternative on top of the 610 East Loop, From 45 to 45. It would only add +3 miles to the journey from 45 @ 610 North to 45 @ 610 South. Thoughts?

Could be easily marked "Downtown" or "Galveston/Dallas". 45 could then become a smaller spur on both sides.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Montrose1100
Added two more sentences.

[H-Town Man]

13 hours ago, IronTiger said:

Slimming down the connector doesn't make removing the Pierce necessary. The TxDOT plan DID straighten out a few freeways, and that was an improvement. Secondly, while TxDOT is not going to do the "prettying up" of the Pierce Elevated, they certainly aren't going to fund a deck park over 59/45, and the former will be substantially less expensive either way. Thirdly, I'm pretty sure the "net amount of pavement" is going to increase substantially with the TxDOT plan. 

For what it's worth, even Slick "Freeways are the Devil" Vik admitted that overpasses (and by extension, underpasses) make less of an impact by how wide or narrow they are. Would you be under a two-track railroad viaduct or an 8-lane freeway? Does a canyon nearly the size of the Katy Freeway separating EaDo and Downtown not matter (especially given there will be more limited road access) or does it not matter since it's an underpass?

Even if "impact" is that much of a matter, the amount of space "freed up" will be parking lots for the next 15-20 years, if we take the removal of the Central Freeway in San Francisco as an example. As for Clayton Homes, there's 296 units and given the Houston "affordable housing" situation, I would wager that all or most of them are full (calculating for spouses and children, that's probably at least 700 people affected). Hardly "a couple of dozen residents" you're claiming. So adding another 125 units from the Lofts at the Ballpark building (the full complex has about 375 units), you've got all that, some 19 businesses and restaurants (that's just from "things from Google Maps that are in the direct pathway" and thus a very conservative estimate), a soup kitchen, and a plastic fabrication company, not to mention the whole impact it will have on that entire neighborhood, all so you don't have to look at a freeway on your morning walk. 

Too many desperate straw man arguments here:

1. "Slimming down the connector doesn't make removing the Pierce necessary." Whaaaa?? Did I say that the one made the other necessary? Removing the Pierce doesn't need anything else to make it necessary.

2. "They certainly aren't going to fund a deck park over 59/45." Did I say that they were? Although still, assuming the city would have to fund either the deck park or the Pierce beautification, deck parks over freeways are much more successful at minimizing their impact (see Klyde Warren Park in Dallas) than any beautification of an elevated that I have ever seen or heard of.

3. Did I ever say that the width of a freeway was not a factor in how much impact it made? No, what I said was "when you run a freeway through a neighborhood, a certain psychological impact exists that only varies slightly with the number of blocks the freeway takes up." So it's a secondary factor, but still a factor.

4. You do make a good point about the total size of Clayton Homes, I did not realize that the whole thing would have to be moved. But I think the argument is specious; I doubt your choice of freeway plans is really based on your concern for the struggling, hard-working residents of Clayton Homes. Sounds like soapbox grandstanding to me.

5. "all so you don't have to look at a freeway on your morning walk." My morning walk? I don't even live in Houston. Where do you get this stuff?

Edited March 29, 2016 by H-Town Man

[H-Town Man]

1 hour ago, samagon said:

Off topic would be refreshing compared to the skewed views of h-town man. I'm not sure whether I should laugh, or just be disgusted with his way of thinking.

Why the need for ad hominem attacks? What have I said that's disgusting? I suppose I could say that your rant about wanting more, more pavement disgusts me, but I'm trying to keep this on an adult level.

Still interested in hearing when I supposedly said that TxDOT would pay for the 59 trench to be covered.

[H-Town Man]

18 hours ago, samagon said:

No one is even talking about the low income housing that is just plowed into the ground for this to become a reality.

As you walk down the bayou trails, will you even think once about the people of Clayton Homes who had to be removed from their houses so you could enjoy a walk down the bayou with a downtown connector that has a slimmer, lighter, less noisy impact over the bayou? 

And as you cruise down the six managed lanes of the future Pierce Elevated, will you even think once about the people of Allen Parkway Village who have waited lo these many years to have the freeway removed that belches smog into their playgrounds and living rooms, only to see their dreams almost realized before being forever crushed by rich people's insatiable need for more toll lanes? WHAT ABOUT THEIR STRUGGLE?

[samagon]

 

26 minutes ago, Montrose1100 said:

His views aren't skewed, just a different perspective. I can agree with you we do need more lanes, but in very select locations. Like the 45 bridge over 610.

It seems that most of our current exchanges are outdated and need to be streamlined. Why should people get away with cutting the line last minute to grind a slow moving lane to complete stop and go? They're wasting everyone's time and fuel. Not to mention the other lane going the opposite direction or continuing on the freeway will also slow down. Dominoes.

And why should traffic slow down for an accident on the opposite side? Makes no sense. Unfortunately the masses cannot be educated to correct this, so we need a divider high enough to block the views. So, along with a few tweaks/updates we can easily manage rush hour traffic. With a majority of our current lane volume. The spaghetti junctions are another topic.

The current proposal needs something else. There has to be another way to get the traffic around Downtown. I propose an elevated alternative on top of the 610 East Loop, From 45 to 45. It would only add +3 miles to the journey from 45 @ 610 North to 45 @ 610 South. Thoughts?

Could be easily marked "Downtown" or "Galveston/Dallas". 45 could then become a smaller spur on both sides.

See his response at the bottom. That isn't just a different perspective, that is skewed. There is no mathematical system that exists on our planet where hundreds can be construed as 'a couple of dozen'.

and calling what downtown is right now 'strangling' is very much hyperbole.

to your other points, I completely agree, I've thought from the beginning that expanding 610 on the east side of town (whether with elevated, or just added lanes) is a terrific addition. even going so far as to recommend through traffic take that route.

19 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

Why the need for ad hominem attacks? What have I said that's disgusting? I suppose I could say that your rant about wanting more, more pavement disgusts me, but I'm trying to keep this on an adult level.

Still interested in hearing when I supposedly said that TxDOT would pay for the 59 trench to be covered.

see what you said below. not an ad hominem attack. truth.

you're minimizing the human impact of this plan, just pick up entire communities and move them and you'll not care. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you actually said, if so, please enlighten me, but as it is written, I am unsure whether to laugh or be disgusted.

Regarding the trench cover, I must have confused you with others, and for that I apologize. 

So how about we start over, what is gained for the city of Houston, as a whole, by the txdot planned realignment of 45?

16 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

Strangling is a metaphor, not a hyperbole. I addressed the issue of the number of blocks above, and would also add that a below grade freeway is less impacting than an above grade.

And no, moving a couple of dozen residents to a different affordable housing site did not factor into my views on the path of freeways through downtown Houston for the next half century.

 

Edited March 29, 2016 by samagon

[H-Town Man]

21 minutes ago, samagon said:

 

See his response at the bottom. That isn't just a different perspective, that is skewed. There is no mathematical system that exists on our planet where hundreds can be construed as 'a couple of dozen'.

and calling what downtown is right now 'strangling' is very much hyperbole.

to your other points, I completely agree, I've thought from the beginning that expanding 610 on the east side of town (whether with elevated, or just added lanes) is a terrific addition. even going so far as to recommend through traffic take that route.

see what you said below. not an ad hominem attack. truth.

you're minimizing the human impact of this plan, just pick up entire communities and move them and you'll not care. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you actually said, if so, please enlighten me, but as it is written, I am unsure whether to laugh or be disgusted.

Regarding the trench cover, I must have confused you with others, and for that I apologize. 

So how about we start over, what is gained for the city of Houston, as a whole, by the txdot planned realignment of 45?

 

Samagon, I actually acknowledged to IronTiger above that I did not realize that the entire Clayton Homes community would have to move. You've got to read the posts.

But that being said, no, I don't think that the decision of how freeways are routed through central Houston should come down to the effects on one community, be it rich or poor, owned or rented or subsidized. It can be one of several factors, but pretty much every freeway inside the loop required hundreds of people to move when it was built. And I think that this relentless use of Clayton Homes in your and IT's arguments sounds suspiciously like grandstanding.

[samagon]

45 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

Samagon, I actually acknowledged to IronTiger above that I did not realize that the entire Clayton Homes community would have to move. You've got to read the posts.

But that being said, no, I don't think that the decision of how freeways are routed through central Houston should come down to the effects on one community, be it rich or poor, owned or rented or subsidized. It can be one of several factors, but pretty much every freeway inside the loop required hundreds of people to move when it was built. And I think that this relentless use of Clayton Homes in your and IT's arguments sounds suspiciously like grandstanding.

So, I'll ask again, what is gained for the entirety of the city of Houston by realigning 45 through downtown?

[H-Town Man]

45 minutes ago, samagon said:

So, I'll ask again, what is gained for the entirety of the city of Houston by realigning 45 through downtown?

Great question. To me, I think that if you remove the freeway going over Buffalo Bayou and replace it with something small and preferably at grade, this becomes the most desirable part of Houston to live in, play in, be in. Everyone in the city who ever comes downtown will benefit from this. You have the Buffalo Bayou park converging with the most photographed side of downtown. This becomes the city's front lawn, in a way that Discovery Green could only dream of being. Already most photos of Houston that you see are of this area, but the area is severely compromised by the massive freeway running through it.

It's sort of like, imagine if a freeway had been built between downtown Austin and Town Lake, and it turned and headed north along Lamar Street. You'd still have a nice lake with joggers and you'd still have a nice downtown, but neither would be nearly as great as they are together, synergistically, where people downtown can casually walk along or across the lake, and lake-goers can head into downtown for a drink or a bite.

And as for downtown's connection with Midtown, you go from having a sort of stigmatized zone that divides and reduces the two, to an area where development can be unbridled, and you can have a gradual leveling off of the business district into vibrant residential areas, the way you have on the west side of downtown Austin, the south and west sides of downtown Boston, or the north side of downtown Chicago.

All-in-all, I would go as far as to say that Houston's one best chance to someday evolve into a tourist city is to put all the freeways on one side of downtown and let the other side take off in a way that it never has before. The logical sides for this, based on geography and existing layout, would be the north side or the west side, so if the west side is possible, I think we need to do it.

Thanks for reading.

 

Edited March 29, 2016 by H-Town Man

[ADCS]

31 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

Great question. To me, I think that if you remove the freeway going over Buffalo Bayou and replace it with something small and preferably at grade, this becomes the most desirable part of Houston to live in, play in, be in. Everyone in the city who ever comes downtown will benefit from this. You have the Buffalo Bayou park converging with the most photographed side of downtown. This becomes the city's front lawn, in a way that Discovery Green could only dream of being. Already most photos of Houston that you see are of this area, but the area is severely compromised by the massive freeway running through it.

It's sort of like, imagine if a freeway had been built between downtown Austin and Town Lake, and it turned and headed north along Lamar Street. You'd still have a nice lake with joggers and you'd still have a nice downtown, but neither would be nearly as great as they are together, synergistically, where people downtown can casually walk along or across the lake, and lake-goers can head into downtown for a drink or a bite.

And as for downtown's connection with Midtown, you go from having a sort of stigmatized zone that divides and reduces the two, to an area where development can be unbridled, and you can have a gradual leveling off of the business district into vibrant residential areas, the way you have on the west side of downtown Austin, the south and west sides of downtown Boston, or the north side of downtown Chicago.

All-in-all, I would go as far as to say that Houston's one best chance to someday evolve into a tourist city is to put all the freeways on one side of downtown and let the other side take off in a way that it never has before. The logical sides for this, based on geography and existing layout, would be the north side or the west side, so if the west side is possible, I think we need to do it.

Thanks for reading.

 

It's also tilling the soil for greater integration of the east side with Downtown. In the short term, it would be disruptive, but far less in the long term than maintaining an elevated freeway there.

I just don't understand how anyone who has seen the positive effects of depressing 59 beneath Graustark and Montrose can be opposed to granting the same benefits to East Downtown. It certainly comes with a cost, but one that will pay dividends for future generations.

[samagon]

43 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

Great question. To me, I think that if you remove the freeway going over Buffalo Bayou and replace it with something small and preferably at grade, this becomes the most desirable part of Houston to live in, play in, be in. Everyone in the city who ever comes downtown will benefit from this. You have the Buffalo Bayou park converging with the most photographed side of downtown. This becomes the city's front lawn, in a way that Discovery Green could only dream of being. Already most photos of Houston that you see are of this area, but the area is severely compromised by the massive freeway running through it.

It's sort of like, imagine if a freeway had been built between downtown Austin and Town Lake, and it turned and headed north along Lamar Street. You'd still have a nice lake with joggers and you'd still have a nice downtown, but neither would be nearly as great as they are together, synergistically, where people downtown can casually walk along or across the lake, and lake-goers can head into downtown for a drink or a bite.

And as for downtown's connection with Midtown, you go from having a sort of stigmatized zone that divides and reduces the two, to an area where development can be unbridled, and you can have a gradual leveling off of the business district into vibrant residential areas, the way you have on the west side of downtown Austin, the south and west sides of downtown Boston, or the north side of downtown Chicago.

All-in-all, I would go as far as to say that Houston's one best chance to someday evolve into a tourist city is to put all the freeways on one side of downtown and let the other side take off in a way that it never has before. The logical sides for this, based on geography and existing layout, would be the north side or the west side, so if the west side is possible, I think we need to do it.

Thanks for reading.

thanks

I 100% agree. Remove the freeway, maybe have some at grade crossings, you could really transform the bayou into the front lawn of downtown as you envision. The possibility for this area to transform Houston itself would be great, even if it would be at the expense of the east end of downtown, it might just be worth it.

The reality though is far from what you envision. The freeway will not be going away. The crossings of the bayou will not be all at grade. I will happily concede that there will be fewer cars, however, as they will be traveling at a higher rate of speed, they will produce more road noise, so that should be considered a wash.

Let's look at the facts of the situation though, rather than what you think would be nice to have.

There are currently 18 lanes of traffic on 9 bridges over the western portion of the bayou (nearest sabine street).

There will be 18 lanes of traffic on 9 bridges over the western portion of the bayou (nearest sabine street).

There are currently 11 lanes of traffic on 2 bridges over the eastern portion of the bayou (the part of the freeway over memorial, capitol and rusk).

There will be 9 lanes of traffic on 4 bridges over the eastern portion of the bayou (the part of the freeway over memorial, capitol and rusk). I call it 4 bridges because where one entrance ramp ends, another begins.

I counted the changes to at grade to add a connection from/to Houston from/to Allen Parkway, and the rusk to Houston connection too (none of it currently exists and is being added as part of the project, so that's why I counted it). other street level crossings remain unchanged (memorial, capitol, rusk).

Please don't take my word for it though.

This is the most recent PDF of the txdot plan. http://www.ih45northandmore.com/docs5/20150922_NHHIP_Seg3_Updates.pdf

This is the current google map of the area. https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7624804,-95.3713885,257m/data=!3m1!1e3

I don't see any possible way that the new will in any way create what you envision. It will still be a freeway, there will still be plenty of bridges, and plenty of lanes of traffic. It won't be less imposing.

So what else did you have?

Edited March 29, 2016 by samagon

[H-Town Man]

1 hour ago, samagon said:

thanks

I 100% agree. Remove the freeway, maybe have some at grade crossings, you could really transform the bayou into the front lawn of downtown as you envision. The possibility for this area to transform Houston itself would be great, even if it would be at the expense of the east end of downtown, it might just be worth it.

The reality though is far from what you envision. The freeway will not be going away. The crossings of the bayou will not be all at grade. I will happily concede that there will be fewer cars, however, as they will be traveling at a higher rate of speed, they will produce more road noise, so that should be considered a wash.

Let's look at the facts of the situation though, rather than what you think would be nice to have.

There are currently 18 lanes of traffic on 9 bridges over the western portion of the bayou (nearest sabine street).

There will be 18 lanes of traffic on 9 bridges over the western portion of the bayou (nearest sabine street).

There are currently 11 lanes of traffic on 2 bridges over the eastern portion of the bayou (the part of the freeway over memorial, capitol and rusk).

There will be 9 lanes of traffic on 4 bridges over the eastern portion of the bayou (the part of the freeway over memorial, capitol and rusk). I call it 4 bridges because where one entrance ramp ends, another begins.

I counted the changes to at grade to add a connection from/to Houston from/to Allen Parkway, and the rusk to Houston connection too (none of it currently exists and is being added as part of the project, so that's why I counted it). other street level crossings remain unchanged (memorial, capitol, rusk).

Please don't take my word for it though.

This is the most recent PDF of the txdot plan. http://www.ih45northandmore.com/docs5/20150922_NHHIP_Seg3_Updates.pdf

This is the current google map of the area. https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7624804,-95.3713885,257m/data=!3m1!1e3

I don't see any possible way that the new will in any way create what you envision. It will still be a freeway, there will still be plenty of bridges, and plenty of lanes of traffic. It won't be less imposing.

So what else did you have?

Looks like the amount of roadway going over the bayou has increased since the original TxDOT plan. Not sure why that happened, although I suspect that a bunch of people screamed at the thought of their favorite ramp going away. I think if it is still subject to change, it needs to be argued back.

Even so, traffic volume and noise won't be nearly as high since it is no longer I-45 and all the trucks are having to go the other way around downtown. Such traffic as remains will be more comparable to what you have on Allen Parkway or Memorial. And it will be slowing down on its way to at-grade intersections up ahead.

As long as it's not I-45, just local traffic going to Midtown and west downtown, it's flexible and can be tamed.

[kennyc05]

I there won't be any good views from the freeway coming into downtown anymore

[samagon]

17 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

Looks like the amount of roadway going over the bayou has increased since the original TxDOT plan. Not sure why that happened, although I suspect that a bunch of people screamed at the thought of their favorite ramp going away. I think if it is still subject to change, it needs to be argued back.

Even so, traffic volume and noise won't be nearly as high since it is no longer I-45 and all the trucks are having to go the other way around downtown. Such traffic as remains will be more comparable to what you have on Allen Parkway or Memorial. And it will be slowing down on its way to at-grade intersections up ahead.

As long as it's not I-45, just local traffic going to Midtown and west downtown, it's flexible and can be tamed.

So here is everything that in my estimation is a negative about the system:

• taking 19 blocks of east downtown (over 10% of the localized area).
  • which includes a very nice apartment complex
  • the best Vietnamese restaurant in town
  • many small businesses
  • a very young, yet vibrant nightlife area
  • homeless aid centers
• displacing an entire low income community (clayton homes).
• removing one major arterial road for the east end that currently crosses 59 (signifies a reduction in connectivity of over 10%, and only 1 of 4 major arterial roads that crosses 59)
• St. Emanuel is turned into a feeder road which will encourage high speed driving.
• There is so much connectivity removed between the 527 spur and 288. 4 streets of the 10 will be removed:
  • Caroline
  • Crawford
  • Cleburne
  • Eagle 

These are all absolutely going to happen, and all bad. Taking land, displacing people, reducing connectivity. It's never good.

For the record, I think on the north side along I-10 it doesn't matter as much, and it isn't all that bad, I mean the area is already at odds with railroads, bayous, and all other contrivances to disconnect the area (and it was already so disconnected anyway with all the above), what is adding a few more freeway lanes and such? They are adding more land to the south of I-10, which will be good for that specific area. I think this area hinges more on how the hardy yards is developed than how the freeway system is adjusted.

Don't get me wrong, I see the good in it. They're straightening the freeways. Adding a lane or two here and there, implementing plans that are based on many years worth of experience observing traffic patterns and how to make it safer. Good stuff.

Once you get beyond that you're into a realm of we just don't know, and we hope it has this affect.

We hope it bridges midtown and downtown in a way that is more than just a way for people who are already insanely rich to get even richer. We hope it makes the area along the bayou more inviting. We hope it doesn't remove the gains from east downtown and take 20+ years after completion for east downtown to recover. We hope it doesn't remove the small gains that have been seen between midtown and the museum district.

You may disagree, but I see a lot more absolute negative, and I see a lot more potential negative. All this while we have a freeway that is very under utilized right now (go to google maps and turn on traffic at any time during the day, 610 on the east and north of the city is empty). Most of the traffic created on the pierce elevated is from through travel, people not going to downtown, but going through it. Encourage them to take 610, as someone mentioned, it only adds 3 miles (12 miles vs 15 miles) but it saves you up to 5 minutes in rush hour.

It's my estimation that txdot is wasting our money and needlessly ripping up fragile neighborhoods if they do this when there is a cheaper alternative in educating drivers. Make 45 through town a 'business 45' and make 610 on the east side of town 'i-45'. How much does signage cost, update the ramps? How hard would it be? All for an alternative that will better utilize existing freeways and not have the negative psychological impact on a majority of residents.

And here's where we get all Spacely Sprockets: We're doing all of this for a mode of travel that is going to dramatically change in the next 20 years. Driverless cars aren't a pipe dream like flying cars of the 60s, they're real, they're taking over now. Tesla has their 'autopilot'. By 2022 every major manufacturer will have autonomous emergency braking as standard on pretty much every vehicle (http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/17/11253656/nhtsa-iihs-automatic-emergency-braking-agreement-2022). There is rigorous testing being done in every environment against fully autonomous vehicles. Yeah, we're probably about 3-5 years from seeing fully autonomous vehicles for purchase (but then, we're probably 3-5 years, maybe more, from this project turning dirt), but within 20 years they will be as common as the cell phone is now. And the cell phone is a good example of the type of paradigm shift, and the time it will take to make that shift. Think back to the late 80s, you knew a few people who would pay a few hundred dollars a month for 30 minutes of talk time. by the 00s, everyone had a cell phone. They were widespread enough to have made a shift to where payphones were a thing of legend in Houston. Driverless cars are coming, they will change our lives in ways we can't imagine. It's a potential that pierce elevated, 59 and i10 could become useless and demolished around downtown as a result of driverless vehicles and how habits shift with that. Driverless vehicles is a fascinating subject and may not be absolutely related, but as this change to the inner workings of all freeways for the next 50 years, shouldn't we talk about the coming uses and technology that will be used on those freeways, and how they will impact travel as well as the immediate impact?

Edited March 30, 2016 by samagon

[cspwal]

What if you got rid of the pierce elevated downtown and replaced it with...nothing.  You could dual sign East loop as I45, and anyone who wants to take a shortcut through downtown will either be on 59/288 or on surface streets.  I'd say demolish the Pierce starting in east downtown on the east side, and have all of the mainlanes demolished south of the Allen parkway exit.

You can still do something to straighten out 59 in East downtown, move I-10 north of downtown, etc - but Samagon your right the best thing to do is have thru traffic bypass downtown.

The potential issue I could see is this could put even more pressure on West loop to handle traffic from those going up the SW freeway and then going up 45.  This would probably require dual stacked west loop to accomplish, and many people would be upset by that

[ADCS]

2 minutes ago, samagon said:

So here is everything that in my estimation is a negative about the system:

• taking 19 blocks of east downtown (over 10% of the localized area).
  • which includes a very nice apartment complex
  • the best Vietnamese restaurant in town
  • many small businesses
  • a very young, yet vibrant nightlife area
  • homeless aid centers
• displacing an entire low income community (clayton homes).
• removing one major arterial road for the east end that currently crosses 59 (signifies a reduction in connectivity of over 10%, and only 1 of 4 major arterial roads that crosses 59)
• St. Emanuel is turned into a feeder road which will encourage high speed driving.
• There is so much connectivity removed between the 527 spur and 288. 4 streets of the 10 will be removed:
  • Caroline
  • Crawford
  • Cleburne
  • Eagle 

These are all absolutely going to happen, and all bad. Taking land, displacing people, reducing connectivity. It's never good.

For the record, I think on the north side along I-10 it doesn't matter as much, and it isn't all that bad, I mean the area is already at odds with railroads, bayous, and all other contrivances to disconnect the area (and it was already so disconnected anyway with all the above), what is adding a few more freeway lanes and such? They are adding more land to the south of I-10, which will be good for that specific area. I think this area hinges more on how the hardy yards is developed than how the freeway system is adjusted.

Don't get me wrong, I see the good in it. They're straightening the freeways. Adding a lane or two here and there, implementing plans that are based on many years worth of experience observing traffic patterns and how to make it safer. Good stuff.

Once you get beyond that you're into a realm of we just don't know, and we hope it has this affect.

We hope it bridges midtown and downtown in a way that is more than just a way for people who are already insanely rich to get even richer. We hope it makes the area along the bayou more inviting. We hope it doesn't remove the gains from east downtown and take 20+ years after completion for east downtown to recover. We hope it doesn't remove the small gains that have been seen between midtown and the museum district.

You may disagree, but I see a lot more absolute negative, and I see a lot more potential negative. All this while we have a freeway that is very under utilized right now (go to google maps and turn on traffic at any time during the day, 610 on the east and north of the city is empty). Most of the traffic created on the pierce elevated is from through travel, people not going to downtown, but going through it. Encourage them to take 610, as someone mentioned, it only adds 3 miles (12 miles vs 15 miles) but it saves you up to 5 minutes in rush hour.

It's my estimation that txdot is wasting our money and needlessly ripping up fragile neighborhoods if they do this when there is a cheaper alternative in educating drivers. Make 45 through town a 'business 45' and make 610 on the east side of town 'i-45'. How much does signage cost, update the ramps? How hard would it be? All for an alternative that will better utilize existing freeways and not have the negative psychological impact on a majority of residents.

And here's where we get all Spacely Sprockets: We're doing all of this for a mode of travel that is going to dramatically change in the next 20 years. Driverless cars aren't a pipe dream like flying cars of the 60s, they're real, they're taking over now. You can buy cars right now that drive for you in traffic and in a steady state on the freeway. There is rigorous testing being done in other environments. Yeah, we're probably about 3-5 years from seeing fully autonomous vehicles for purchase (but then, we're probably 3-5 years, maybe more, from this project turning dirt), but within 20 years they will be as common as the cell phone. The cell phone is a good example of the type of paradigm shift, and the time it will take to make that shift. Think back to the late 80s, you knew a few people who would pay a few hundred dollars a month for 30 minutes of talk time. by the 00s, everyone had a cell phone. They were widespread enough to have made a shift to where payphones were a thing of legend in Houston. Driverless cars are coming, they will change our lives in ways we can't imagine. It's a potential that pierce elevated, 59 and i10 could become useless and demolished around downtown as a result of driverless vehicles and how habits shift with that. Driverless vehicles is a fascinating subject and may not be directly related, but as this change to the inner workings of all freeways for the next 50 years, shouldn't we talk about the coming uses and technology that will be used on those freeways as well as the immediate impact?

There are a few things to dispute about this characterization:

1. The Lofts at the Ballpark will be 20-25 years old by the time construction starts, and 25-30 years old by the time the demolition ball comes around. It's not going to be considered a "very nice" apartment complex at that point, more one that's targeted toward budget-minded professionals. However, given the current state of oversupply that we have, there will be several buildings in that market segment at that time. It's not a critical loss.

2. Businesses can move, even if it involves temporary difficulty. Nightlife invariably does move - and the current urban integration problems of EaDo (namely, the 59 elevated) ensure that its time as a hotspot will stay temporary. I say this as someone who prefers to go to EaDo when I'm going out.

3. The demolition of Clayton Homes, as planned, suggests that HHA does not want to maintain the facility anymore. 

4. The reduced connectivity is temporary, and will be relieved once the park cap is constructed. I regularly walk through that area, and traffic on Polk isn't particularly heavy. Regardless, I am sure that TxDOT engineers have looked at traffic studies to see if removal is feasible, and found that it is so.

5. St. Emanuel does not have to be a high-speed feeder road. It all depends on the street design. If it gets built out like Bagby currently is, then design will induce slower speeds.

6. Is that connectivity around 59/288 really utilized nowadays? I see streets that do not serve an arterial purpose, nor do they have any walkable integration. Those possibilities are mitigated by the existing elevated freeway.

I do agree about rerouting 45 around the East Loop - but I think it should be done in conjunction with this project, not in place of it.

Finally, we're going to have to agree to disagree about driverless cars. I see them more as a social problem than a technical problem, one that will take 50-70 years to work out effectively. We will still need manual infrastructure in the interim.

[ADCS]

On a separate note, does anyone have a sense of why 45 on the west side of downtown was insisted upon? I checked Houston Freeways, but it didn't delve too deeply into this beyond a mention of "slum clearance". Seems to me that cutting off the east end of Freedmen's Town to be redeveloped into Houston Center might have been a major purpose of that section's construction.

 

[samagon]

1 hour ago, ADCS said:

There are a few things to dispute about this characterization:

1. The Lofts at the Ballpark will be 20-25 years old by the time construction starts, and 25-30 years old by the time the demolition ball comes around. It's not going to be considered a "very nice" apartment complex at that point, more one that's targeted toward budget-minded professionals. However, given the current state of oversupply that we have, there will be several buildings in that market segment at that time. It's not a critical loss.

2. Businesses can move, even if it involves temporary difficulty. Nightlife invariably does move - and the current urban integration problems of EaDo (namely, the 59 elevated) ensure that its time as a hotspot will stay temporary. I say this as someone who prefers to go to EaDo when I'm going out.

3. The demolition of Clayton Homes, as planned, suggests that HHA does not want to maintain the facility anymore. 

4. The reduced connectivity is temporary, and will be relieved once the park cap is constructed. I regularly walk through that area, and traffic on Polk isn't particularly heavy. Regardless, I am sure that TxDOT engineers have looked at traffic studies to see if removal is feasible, and found that it is so.

5. St. Emanuel does not have to be a high-speed feeder road. It all depends on the street design. If it gets built out like Bagby currently is, then design will induce slower speeds.

6. Is that connectivity around 59/288 really utilized nowadays? I see streets that do not serve an arterial purpose, nor do they have any walkable integration. Those possibilities are mitigated by the existing elevated freeway.

I do agree about rerouting 45 around the East Loop - but I think it should be done in conjunction with this project, not in place of it.

Finally, we're going to have to agree to disagree about driverless cars. I see them more as a social problem than a technical problem, one that will take 50-70 years to work out effectively. We will still need manual infrastructure in the interim.

fair enough points.

1. while the lofts are older (are they really that old??) that's a good thing for the area, all the apartments up, or going up in midtown, and downtown area are all very high end, if this isn't high end due to age it provides for living for people who aren't executives, or wanting to live like executives. I haven't looked, but I assume the new apartments (the circuit?) are more affordable as well.
2. fair enough, I just hope Huynh's survives. I don't kid when I say best in Houston. It's certainly the best Vietnamese I've had in Houston. I'll say that.
3. whether they want to maintain the facility any longer or not, does that matter? Where will be people move? Will there be a comparable place nearby that they can be relocated to? Condemn it with no where for the people to go, that's no good.
4. I commute from telephone/45 to the chase building every day (It's a rough commute). Traffic in the morning and afternoon is surprisingly heavy. I mean, it's not at the levels of west alabama, but relative to the rest of the area, it's a lot of cars. More consideration is needed before they are just tossed. Especially considering the changes to the area farther out with the railroad QZ. How the light rail that has been open for less than a year has changed traffic patterns. How traffic patterns will adjust as the area grows in population. Regarding the cap, it's far from a guarantee, and considering the state of the cities finances, someone is probably going to have to donate, or it will have to come from the local TIRZ. the funding is far from secured, and who knows how long it will take. I assume the worst, which is a gaping maw of noise surrounded by chain-link fence for the foreseeable future.
5. Fair enough, they could do this for sure, but will they, or will it be Chartres, just a block over. speed limit on Chartres is 30, but that doesn't bother drivers who routinely go at least 40.
6. There are other areas of town that have higher connectivity, and sure Eagle and Cleburne probably aren't great examples of a road that will be missed. Crawford and Caroline though, I'd say are used (relative to other roads in the area) at a high enough rate to be more considerate to how the flow will travel in the area after they are removed.

The human factor is going to be a huge factor in the driverless car and how long it takes for it to be accepted. The technology will be ready before people are. I fully agree. However, there is a lot of hope on the horizon that people will gain confidence in the idea, and be comfortable with them sooner rather than later.

There are people alive today who will not remember a world where there weren't autonomous cars already on the road and in the news regularly. There are people being born now who will never know what it is like to see a car without some level of autonomy. there are kids who will be born in the next few years who will never remember a time before at least one or two people in their neighborhood owned a driverless car. They will never know a world where long haul trucks aren't autonomous on the freeway with a person behind the wheel monitoring and being there because the teamsters union is still really strong.

absolutely, there are people alive today who are going to be completely against the thought of a self driving car. In 20 years time, those people are going to be looking at retirement and people who are 5 today are going to be going to a dealership to buy their first car on their own, you don't think they'll want a self driving car? People who are 30 now hate driving anyway, as soon as they can, they'll buy one. 

No, if 75-80% of all vehicles on the road aren't self driving in 20 years, I'll be absolutely shocked. 

Two fun youtube videos to check out:

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by samagon

[Sparrow]

Can we get a adjustment to the name of this thread? "I-59" is inaccurate. Just saying.

[IronTiger]

I've been working and unable to respond recently.

I don't even live in Houston. Where do you get this stuff?

I don't know, man, but your avatar is of a Houston tower in a Houston forum talking about a freeway in Houston, and your username is "H-Town Man". Where, indeed.

All-in-all, I would go as far as to say that Houston's one best chance to someday evolve into a tourist city is to put all the freeways on one side of downtown and let the other side take off in a way that it never has before.

Are you kidding me?? I'm not sure if I can find a downtown set-up <i>exactly</i> like Houston's, but New Orleans, San Jose, and San Antonio's downtowns are clustered closer to where the freeways meet up. If anything, existing development patterns suggest that "walkable"/"touristy" downtown clusters around the freeways encircling the most inner area, not apart from it. This is one of those things of why it's a bit difficult to take your posts seriously.

[...] WHAT ABOUT THEIR STRUGGLE?

Yeah, I know you're using hyperbole, but if we go with the popular theory that removing the Pierce will cause land values in the area to skyrocket, then it probably won't be APV for much longer. 

I just don't understand how anyone who has seen the positive effects of depressing 59 beneath Graustark and Montrose can be opposed to granting the same benefits to East Downtown.

Well, no, it's not exactly the same thing. 

For starters, the depressed freeway will be twice as wide as that part of 59 (at least). If 59 was widened to Katy Freeway-style widths and required demolition on one or both sides of the freeway, I guarantee you that it would not be nearly as beneficial to the area or as well-liked.

On 3/29/2016 at 3:29 PM, H-Town Man said:

Looks like the amount of roadway going over the bayou has increased since the original TxDOT plan. Not sure why that happened, although I suspect that a bunch of people screamed at the thought of their favorite ramp going away. I think if it is still subject to change, it needs to be argued back.

Even so, traffic volume and noise won't be nearly as high since it is no longer I-45 and all the trucks are having to go the other way around downtown. Such traffic as remains will be more comparable to what you have on Allen Parkway or Memorial.

But in many ways, the "new" Pierce will have less traffic if they turn it into HOT lanes, which will cut down traffic considerably. If the Katy Freeway is any indication, it doesn't even need to be three lanes, as the third lane could be converted to inner shoulders. 

8 hours ago, ADCS said:

On a separate note, does anyone have a sense of why 45 on the west side of downtown was insisted upon? I checked Houston Freeways, but it didn't delve too deeply into this beyond a mention of "slum clearance". Seems to me that cutting off the east end of Freedmen's Town to be redeveloped into Houston Center might have been a major purpose of that section's construction.

 

Actually, the Pierce Elevated seems to have been built to avoid downtown (this crying about Pierce Elevated "cutting through" the area is highly overstated), and was built as an elevated to allow traffic to continue unabated underneath (highway planning at the time considered elevated to be the least disruptive style of highway.

The Lofts at the Ballpark will be 20-25 years old by the time construction starts, and 25-30 years old by the time the demolition ball comes around. It's not going to be considered a "very nice" apartment complex at that point, more one that's targeted toward budget-minded professionals. However, given the current state of oversupply that we have, there will be several buildings in that market segment at that time. It's not a critical loss.

You bring up a good point, admittedly...as apartments get older, the neighborhoods usually change too. What if Midtown is no longer (or less) trendy and EaDo is the place to be, as build-up makes it politically impossible? What if developers wanted 59 to be redirected around the north and west parts of town, and a giant canyon separated Midtown and Downtown so the elevated portion of 59 could be removed?

[H-Town Man]

11 hours ago, IronTiger said:

I've been working and unable to respond recently.

 

 

I don't know, man, but your avatar is of a Houston tower in a Houston forum talking about a freeway in Houston, and your username is "H-Town Man". Where, indeed.

 

Are you kidding me?? I'm not sure if I can find a downtown set-up <i>exactly</i> like Houston's, but New Orleans, San Jose, and San Antonio's downtowns are clustered closer to where the freeways meet up. If anything, existing development patterns suggest that "walkable"/"touristy" downtown clusters around the freeways encircling the most inner area, not apart from it. This is one of those things of why it's a bit difficult to take your posts seriously.

 

 

Yeah, I know you're using hyperbole, but if we go with the popular theory that removing the Pierce will cause land values in the area to skyrocket, then it probably won't be APV for much longer. 

 

 

Well, no, it's not exactly the same thing. 

For starters, the depressed freeway will be twice as wide as that part of 59 (at least). If 59 was widened to Katy Freeway-style widths and required demolition on one or both sides of the freeway, I guarantee you that it would not be nearly as beneficial to the area or as well-liked.

But in many ways, the "new" Pierce will have less traffic if they turn it into HOT lanes, which will cut down traffic considerably. If the Katy Freeway is any indication, it doesn't even need to be three lanes, as the third lane could be converted to inner shoulders. 

Actually, the Pierce Elevated seems to have been built to avoid downtown (this crying about Pierce Elevated "cutting through" the area is highly overstated), and was built as an elevated to allow traffic to continue unabated underneath (highway planning at the time considered elevated to be the least disruptive style of highway.

 

You bring up a good point, admittedly...as apartments get older, the neighborhoods usually change too. What if Midtown is no longer (or less) trendy and EaDo is the place to be, as build-up makes it politically impossible? What if developers wanted 59 to be redirected around the north and west parts of town, and a giant canyon separated Midtown and Downtown so the elevated portion of 59 could be removed?

You assumed that I only wanted to remove the Pierce so I could enjoy my morning walk. Hence my comment, "Where do you get this stuff?" You did not get that from my having the name H-Town Man. You just made it up.

As I've explained above, downtowns are more successful when not surrounded on all sides by freeway. None of your counter examples dispute this. 

APV is government land and does not pay taxes, so it will not have to leave. 

[ADCS]

13 hours ago, IronTiger said:

Well, no, it's not exactly the same thing. 

For starters, the depressed freeway will be twice as wide as that part of 59 (at least). If 59 was widened to Katy Freeway-style widths and required demolition on one or both sides of the freeway, I guarantee you that it would not be nearly as beneficial to the area or as well-liked.

Actually, the Pierce Elevated seems to have been built to avoid downtown (this crying about Pierce Elevated "cutting through" the area is highly overstated), and was built as an elevated to allow traffic to continue unabated underneath (highway planning at the time considered elevated to be the least disruptive style of highway.

 

You bring up a good point, admittedly...as apartments get older, the neighborhoods usually change too. What if Midtown is no longer (or less) trendy and EaDo is the place to be, as build-up makes it politically impossible? What if developers wanted 59 to be redirected around the north and west parts of town, and a giant canyon separated Midtown and Downtown so the elevated portion of 59 could be removed?

1. It might be a little more than 1.5 times as wide. I maintain that 59 would have still been as liked, even if it were unnecessarily wider - because it got rid of an unsightly, elevated freeway that impacted land values.

2. I'm not talking about the Pierce Elevated specifically - I'm talking about why 45 was forced through the park areas of western Downtown, and then splitting off a quarter of Freedmen's Town from the rest of the neighborhood. In the context of late Jim Crow-era Houston, I can't help but think there was just a tinge of urban renewal and population dispersal taken into mind.

3. This argument is a bit specious, as it is taken into account both by depressing 59/45 through EaDo, and having a park cap included in the master plan. It's even possible with the right kind of capital investment for property to be built on top of the depressed 59/45, such as with the I-95 towers in north Manhattan.

[samagon]

3 hours ago, ADCS said:

1. It might be a little more than 1.5 times as wide. I maintain that 59 would have still been as liked, even if it were unnecessarily wider - because it got rid of an unsightly, elevated freeway that impacted land values.

2. I'm not talking about the Pierce Elevated specifically - I'm talking about why 45 was forced through the park areas of western Downtown, and then splitting off a quarter of Freedmen's Town from the rest of the neighborhood. In the context of late Jim Crow-era Houston, I can't help but think there was just a tinge of urban renewal and population dispersal taken into mind.

3. This argument is a bit specious, as it is taken into account both by depressing 59/45 through EaDo, and having a park cap included in the master plan. It's even possible with the right kind of capital investment for property to be built on top of the depressed 59/45, such as with the I-95 towers in north Manhattan.

1. 59 from Shepherd to the spur has always been a depressed freeway. if you are talking about the changes to the freeway so that it has different overpasses, the area was already mended and on a nice upswing when the new bridges went in. In fact, the cynic in me believes the bridges wouldn't have looked as nice if the area surrounding it was as crappy as it was in the years up until the mid 90s.

2. that area wasn't parks when 45 was 'forced' to go that way. that area was unused bayou.

3. I agree, it's way too much what if. But it's an interesting question. if the east end was as built up as midtown is now, what would the discussion be? obviously, when 45 was built, no one said, what will the use of this bayou be in 50 years? If they had, they may have reconsidered putting a freeway there and built out the park immediately. The question we should be asking now is how will we be using freeways in 50 years and does this make sense?

Edited March 31, 2016 by samagon

[H-Town Man]

39 minutes ago, samagon said:

1. 59 from Shepherd to the spur has always been a depressed freeway. if you are talking about the changes to the freeway so that it has different overpasses, the area was already mended and on a nice upswing when the new bridges went in. In fact, the cynic in me believes the bridges wouldn't have looked as nice if the area surrounding it was as crappy as it was in the years up until the mid 90s.

Only Hazard to Mandell. Shepherd was elevated and so were Montrose and Graustark. It was a big upgrade to get that freeway put below grade.

 

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, samagon said:

1. 59 from Shepherd to the spur has always been a depressed freeway. if you are talking about the changes to the freeway so that it has different overpasses, the area was already mended and on a nice upswing when the new bridges went in. In fact, the cynic in me believes the bridges wouldn't have looked as nice if the area surrounding it was as crappy as it was in the years up until the mid 90s.

No.  No it has not.  That is a completely false statement. Until the rebuild in the early 2000s, 59 in that stretch was elevated. 

Southwest Freeway expansion

The Southwest Freeway expansion from Shepherd to Spur 527 was a landmark of a different kind: the first Houston freeway to be rebuilt to reduce its neighborhood impact. After intense lobbying by neighborhoods alarmed by a proposed second level of freeway, a mile of elevated freeway was depressed into a trench.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Houston19514

[cspwal]

I hate to disagree with you Houston19514, but it seems that a good strech of it was originally built depressed

I found this photo in Houston's Freeways, by Erik Slotbom, page 172

The two constructed overpasses appear to be Shepherd and Greenbriar; the one under construction is Kirby.  You can see the westpark train line, and the Coke bottling plant.

I was surprised - I thought it had been elevated before too

 

Edit:

After reading ahead a few more pages, the highway was originally elevated over Montrose and the replacement project depressed it below Montrose.

Edited March 31, 2016 by cspwal

[samagon]

32 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

Only Hazard to Mandell. Shepherd was elevated and so were Montrose and Graustark. It was a big upgrade to get that freeway put below grade.

 

You're right, sorry, I misremembered, and it wasn't my intention to misdirect. Thanks for correcting me.

My point was, and is unchanged, the area was already well beyond recovering from the initial freeway being built by that point. if the area wasn't built up, txdot would have gone forward with their initial plan which was to elevate the entire freeway (as Houston19514 mentions).

The huge difference between 59 through montrose and 59 through downtown is there was minimal land taken, certainly they did not need an additional 19 city blocks worth of land to put that section of freeway below grade.

If all that Txdot was proposing was to depress 59 and not take 19 city blocks, and cut off more than 10% of east to west access between 45 and i10, I'd be as happy about the idea as the residents of montrose were 10 years ago.

to be clear, it's the taking of land, the taking of people's homes, and the further disrupting of connection between downtown and the east end that bothers me. In a day and age when it's known specifically how bad it is to do exactly this to an area, this is what is suggested be done. 

 

CSPwal, no they're right, you can count 4 bridges there, Hazard through Mandell, after mandell, it was above ground, not below.

Edited March 31, 2016 by samagon

[cspwal]

Yeah just edited my post I didn't read the whole section on SW freeway before posting

My bad 

[ADCS]

1 hour ago, samagon said:

2. that area wasn't parks when 45 was 'forced' to go that way. that area was unused bayou.

3. I agree, it's way too much what if. But it's an interesting question. if the east end was as built up as midtown is now, what would the discussion be? obviously, when 45 was built, no one said, what will the use of this bayou be in 50 years? If they had, they may have reconsidered putting a freeway there and built out the park immediately. The question we should be asking now is how will we be using freeways in 50 years and does this make sense?

2. From Houston Freeways:

Another possible roadblock to freeway construction was the parkland along Buffalo Bayou just west of downtown, adjacent to the Houston Civic Center. A web of elevated structures and connection ramps was envisioned for IH 45 through that section of downtown. In a 1979 interview, Ralph Ellifrit remarked that “there was considerable discussion” about building a freeway at that location, but “there was just no way” to build the downtown freeway system without routing the freeway there.

There was enough parkland in that area to be worthy of consideration during route planning.

3. The question we need to be asking now is what we want our city to look like in 50 years. Do we want it to be dominated by freeway structures as it currently is, or do we want our freeways to seamlessly reintegrate with the urban fabric?

This has the ability to be as significant to Houston as Haussmann's renovations were to Paris. 

[cspwal]

New completely unfeasible idea - double decker freeway completely depressed below grade in the current location of 59

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, cspwal said:

I hate to disagree with you Houston19514, but it seems that a good strech of it was originally built depressed

I found this photo in Houston's Freeways, by Erik Slotbom, page 172

The two constructed overpasses appear to be Shepherd and Greenbriar; the one under construction is Kirby.  You can see the westpark train line, and the Coke bottling plant.

I was surprised - I thought it had been elevated before too

Edit:

After reading ahead a few more pages, the highway was originally elevated over Montrose and the replacement project depressed it below Montrose.

Good catch.  Yeah, I can absolutely guarantee, from my own very clear memory, that Southwest Freeway was elevated at Montrose.  I remember parking in the shadow of the freeway.  And it is simply not true to say that Southwest Freeway has always been depressed from Shepherd to the Spur.  It appears to have been elevated at Shepherd, and then went on a downhill run so that it was depressed under Hazard, Woodhead, Dunlavy, and Mandell; then came back out of the ground near Graustark, to be elevated before Montrose.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Houston19514

[samagon]

splitting hairs, but buffalo bayou west of where 45 is currently is not what was referenced. 

adjacent to the Houston Civic Center

It's the park known as Sam Houston Park that was referenced, not Buffalo Bayou Park. Yes, the area we now know as BBP was parkland, but in no where near the condition we know it today, it was overgrown forest. Check out historic aerials, they have photos from 1953 and you can see that yes, it was land set aside (or maybe just ignored), but it wasn't a park. Sam Houston Park was indeed a park.

[samagon]

25 minutes ago, cspwal said:

New completely unfeasible idea - double decker freeway completely depressed below grade in the current location of 59

If we're going to do this, the location matters not. Grab one of the drills used to make the english channel tunnel. Just drill far enough down so you can create a anthill of a freeway exchange underneath downtown Houston to accommodate.

[cspwal]

And then basement parking garages can exit directly onto the freeway, and won't almost hit so many pedestrians on the sidewalk of Travis!

Are there any underground freeway exchanges?  I know there are freeways in tunnels, but I'm wondering about like a 4 level stack underground

[cspwal]

I found an interchange underground in Brisbane, Australia

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brisbane+QLD,+Australia/@-27.4164611,153.0370008,16.99z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x6b91579aac93d233:0x402a35af3deaf40

That freeway seems to be a pretty long run of tunnel, and this was the only interchange where there were a lot of ramps tunneling up.  But they still go to the surface.

Most of the google results were for doing this in Cities Skylines, where it is extraordinarily expensive, but of course you don't have to face elections in that game so spending a bunch of money on a freeway is easy

[IronTiger]

So Saturday I took the Pierce as part of a commute from Pearland to the Heights. 

The first thing I noticed is that the 59/288 area is very, very wide. The final product will certainly make an impact in a negative way. There seems to be a limit to how wide sunken highways can be before they're serious impacts (as if a highway itself wasn't an impact already). US-59 near Montrose, Beltway 8 near CityCentre, and the Dallas North Tollway have less of an impact.

The second thing I noticed that sinking all the highways will completely hide downtown from most angles. I'm not sure what you're going for, because the skyline as the sun hit it in the late afternoon was stunning, giving all buildings a golden tinge, and it was more or less a complete view marred only by the McDonald's sign at Main. Personally, if I was concerned about height and urban blight, I would try to get that McDonald's sign, which is higher than the Pierce, removed. Otherwise, I don't see the obsession with depressing all the highways. Is the downtown skyline anything to be ashamed of?

The third thing is that while the Pierce Elevated did feel dated (not having an inner shoulder didn't help the impression), it did feel a bit futuristic, as zooming through a downtown area at 60+ mph feels like a science fiction movie. As I finished up my whirlwind tour of the Pierce and tried to navigate toward I-10W, it struck me. Elevated highways make things more urban, not less. Things like parks make things more suburban-feeling. This isn't a criticism on urbanism or suburbanism, it just feels strange...and the most urban places on earth tend to have elevated highways. Take any given city in Japan and you'll see what I mean. And yet, the highway blends in thanks to space utilization and space beautification to the urban fabric. Not liking elevated freeways is understandable, of course, but it's just as "urban" as the rest of the area, if not moreso.

[BigFootsSocks]

10 hours ago, IronTiger said:

Elevated highways make things more urban, not less. Things like parks make things more suburban-feeling.

Ummm...I'm not gonna get into this argument here, and I understand your position IT, but that makes no sense (to me at least). There's a lot of "elevated" highway stretches throughout suburbia (interchanges b/w major highway's, overpasses that stretch into elevated portions of freeway), and parks are neither suburban or urban. They're parks. The can be suburban parks, or urban parks, but when I see Discovery Green or Hermann Park I see a much different park than the many trails/parks in Cypress. When I see Central Park in New York, I definitely do not see "suburban" anywhere. 

[kennyc05]

What about the skyline views!

[The Pragmatist]

Despite the logistical and expense nightmare associated with this idea, couldn't one trench or tunnel 59 and then build an elevated set of lanes for 45 directly above 59 to eliminate widening onto open blocks?

[ADCS]

12 hours ago, IronTiger said:

The second thing I noticed that sinking all the highways will completely hide downtown from most angles.

From the highways, maybe - from the city streets, they'll be just as visible as before, just without an elevated freeway in front of them.

[IronTiger]

.

Edited April 5, 2016 by IronTiger
double post

[IronTiger]

10 minutes ago, ADCS said:

From the highways, maybe - from the city streets, they'll be just as visible as before, just without an elevated freeway in front of them.

From my own experience on the streets, it's only a very narrow view of the world ahead of you, especially as you try to watch out for pedestrians and trains. Anyway. I was making observations, not trying to start fights.

For a "Tear down the Pierce Elevated at any cost" crowd, there's nothing I can say, postulate, or compare that would make them (you?) change your minds.

25 minutes ago, The Pragmatist said:

Despite the logistical and expense nightmare associated with this idea, couldn't one trench or tunnel 59 and then build an elevated set of lanes for 45 directly above 59 to eliminate widening onto open blocks?

I believe that's exactly what the Purple City plan does, only their's keeps the Pierce as express HOT lanes. 

[Montrose1100]

9 hours ago, IronTiger said:

From my own experience on the streets, it's only a very narrow view of the world ahead of you, especially as you try to watch out for pedestrians and trains. Anyway. I was making observations, not trying to start fights.

For a "Tear down the Pierce Elevated at any cost" crowd, there's nothing I can say, postulate, or compare that would make them (you?) change your minds.

I believe that's exactly what the Purple City plan does, only their's keeps the Pierce as express HOT lanes. 

To add to BigFoot's comments, the elevated freeways in Tokyo & surrounding metropolitan are depressing and gloomy.

While I do have an appreciation for concrete, commie/socialist, and brutalist structures, Houston is not quite the setting (for those Tokyo freeways).

We don't need more and more concrete. We need more integration with the surroundings. Which for the most part is trees with tiny pockets of high density. Not going to get into the urban/suburban comparison. Our landscape is made up of big green trees, not an endless sea of highrises like Tokyo.

To me at least it makes sense to bury the freeway. The I-45, I-10 & 59/I-69 sunken portions are surrounded by trees when they can be.

let's double decker the eastern 610 freeway over a majority industrial landscape to eliminate 45 and a way to get from north to south. It should be a spur to Downtown from both sides and woven into the grid.

59 is already sunken after the current 45 exchange, and should continue under the street. Can re-emerge after commerce street. Not sure what to do with Chartres though.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Montrose1100

[ADCS]

Ultimately, the Pierce was an interesting idea from the '50s that just didn't work out in the execution. No need to double down on it when we have a much better idea of what helps cities thrive, and what holds them back with 60+ years of freeway-era experience.

[samagon]

23 hours ago, IronTiger said:

So Saturday I took the Pierce as part of a commute from Pearland to the Heights. 

...zooming through a downtown area at 60+ mph...

Everything else aside, must have been really early in the morning, or really late at night if you were able to achieve those speeds on the pierce elevated.

I agree it is kind of cool to ride along over everything from that perspective, but it is very much a local blight. I'd love to see it gone. It just can't go, if it does go according to the current plan the price is way too high. so much land taken, so many people displaced, so much connectivity removed. 

1 hour ago, Montrose1100 said:

To add to BigFoot's comments, the elevated freeways in Tokyo & surrounding metropolitan are depressing and gloomy.

While I do have an appreciation for concrete, commie/socialist, and brutalist structures, Houston is not quite the setting (for those Tokyo freeways).

We don't need more and more concrete. We need more integration with the surroundings. Which for the most part is trees with tiny pockets of high density. Not going to get into the urban/suburban comparison. Our landscape is made up of big green trees, not an endless sea of highrises like Tokyo.

To me at least it makes sense to bury the freeway. The I-45, I-10 & 59/I-69 sunken portions are surrounded by trees when they can be.

let's double decker the eastern 610 freeway over a majority industrial landscape to eliminate 45 and a way to get from north to south. It should be a spur to Downtown from both sides and woven into the grid.

59 is already sunken after the current 45 exchange, and should continue under the street. Can re-emerge after commerce street. Not sure what to do with Chartres though.

 

I wish.

I do wonder about the cost of something like this. you're still able to sell the pierce elevated land. You're removing the cost to buy 19 blocks through eado (and all the other land they needed inside the loop besides). but then, you're adding a lot more concrete to the plan by adding 4-6 lanes on 610 from the gulf freeway to 45 north as a bypass. 

but this would be so perfect. remove the pierce elevated so now the developers who want to make tons of money on that land are happy, not displacing 500+ residents, so they are happy. not taking land from a fragile up and coming area, so they would be happy. my ex-gf can keep going to tout suite, she's happy. 

lots of happy people with this type of solution.

unfortunately though, there's land (especially when you get up towards eastex and 45N) that is residential, and really close to the freeway residential, some of that would probably be included in any expansion to include 4-6 lanes of freeway. but then, if it's all elevated lanes, it will have a minimal impact (hopefully).

 

[IronTiger]

 

Quote

 

Everything else aside, must have been really early in the morning, or really late at night if you were able to achieve those speeds on the pierce elevated.

I agree it is kind of cool to ride along over everything from that perspective, but it is very much a local blight. I'd love to see it gone. It just can't go, if it does go according to the current plan the price is way too high. so much land taken, so many people displaced, so much connectivity removed

 

 

OK, that was a bit of a lie, I rarely hit 60 mph that time, but the traffic was flowing remarkably smooth for the Final Four events.

Edited April 5, 2016 by IronTiger

[cspwal]

Unless traffic is horrible, the speed along Pierce is usually pretty good - it's the rest of 45 in downtown that is almost always at a standstill

[Montrose1100]

On 4/4/2016 at 9:13 AM, IronTiger said:

I'm stuck in Iron's Quote Box for some reason. I actually clicked to quote Sam. Anyways, let's pretend this is Iron talking.

Blah Blah Blah, I like old fast food highway signs 

[IronTiger]

You wouldn't believe how much trouble I had with quote boxes today, and even trying to "Remove quotes and keep content" didn't work.

I miss BBCode.

[The Pragmatist]

8 hours ago, IronTiger said:

 

OK, that was a bit of a lie, I rarely hit 60 mph that time, but the traffic was flowing remarkably smooth for the Final Four events.

You should've been on it 45 minutes ago. It took 25 minutes to get from I-45 @ Cullen to Heights Blvd @ I-10. You would've had all the time in the world to marvel at (or maybe even start to hate) the downtown skyline. The joy of Tuesday afternoon.

[samagon]

16 hours ago, Montrose1100 said:

On 4/4/2016 at 9:13 AM, IronTiger said:

I'm stuck in Iron's Quote Box for some reason. I actually clicked to quote Sam. Anyways, let's pretend this is Iron talking.

Blah Blah Blah, I like old fast food highway signs 

hahaha.

when you're in the quote box, if you can't click out of it, go to the very end of it and click so the cursor is at the end. just hit enter twice. the first time it will create a new line in the quoted text, the second it will kick you out of the box and create a new paragraph for you outside of the quote box.

if you have any text to the right of the cursor though, all you'll do is endlessly make the quoted text longer. so make sure you put the cursor after all text being quoted.

14 hours ago, IronTiger said:

You wouldn't believe how much trouble I had with quote boxes today, and even trying to "Remove quotes and keep content" didn't work.

I miss BBCode.

it took me about 45 minutes and about 12 edits in this very thread to figure out how to do the above.