I-45 Rebuild (North Houston Highway Improvement Project)

[Danny1022]

2 minutes ago, Fitch said:

Oh. My. God. Is the way you type how your brain actually processes the English language? 

 

 

There's not a single rational point made in the entire collection of posts. The closest thing to a coherent opinion that doesn't flip flop every other line is "big ass highways aren't ugly, mmkay... 

 

Let's just clarify a few things:

• The project is moving forward. 
• Nothing shy of a collapse of the Texas economy will stop that.
• It will be beneficial for the City - yes some areas stand to benefit more than others - that's been true since the dawn of time. 
• The Pierce Elevated needs to be entirely wrecked down.
• Highways are going to always be ugly pieces of necessary infrastructure.
• The best decision TXDOT has made is trying to hide as much of the roadway as possible to blend downtown and the East End into one contiguous urban grid. 

For those who care to talk about actual project details - I found it interesting that the land under the interchange at 59/69/45/10 and Buffalo Bayou will be a set of detention basins. With that type of space right on the bayou I would imagine that the Buffalo Bayou Partnership will be able to program a green space or park to connect the west and east park systems. Also interesting that they're planning for possibly two bayou bypasses. 

 

 

 

 

Okay fine I'll delete my post... i assume you're talking to me.

Beneficial haha I've never heard a funnier joke.

Yes i write what i think and i can't even soeak English it seems. Whatever... English will never be beneficial in my life.

At least explain a readon why those craps should need to be demolished. I'm totally againsy tbay unless there's a reasonable reason.

That crap will be flooded easily anyway no matter how muchyou do there's no way...

Ughh I'm stopping talking...

I never win vos you're damn ignorant so i stip talking. Bye.

Btw i despise this city i don't even kniw why i try to make it better and not ruin it withthat project....

I despise all of this. And thos project isn't the exception.

Bye

[tigereye]

On 5/11/2017 at 1:12 PM, Houston19514 said:

 

Probably because these will be new bridges, not the already established bridges.

 

 

Instead of decorative bridges over 59/288, I'd rather TXDOT use those funds to make the Downtown Connector over Buffalo Bayou into a signature bridge. It probably won't fund the entire span but that's one of this city's most photogenic spots and a well designed signature span over the bayou could add to an already gorgeous skyline.

 

There's an old redevelopment renderings that shows a signature bridge over Buffalo Bayou. 

 

See page 2 

https://www.downtownhouston.org/site_media/uploads/attachments/2010-04-07/2B-Framework_pg_1-18.pdf

[dguet]

On 5/11/2017 at 1:42 PM, samagon said:

 

It is even more nonsensical to pretend that this is the best solution to alleviate traffic flow.

No one said it is the best solution, whatever that might be.

 

However, it's a solution available after study and compromise between opposing demands, but it still needs input from citizens to determine what improvements should be made.

[Nate99]

On ‎5‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 11:06 AM, Fitch said:

 

For those who care to talk about actual project details - I found it interesting that the land under the interchange at 59/69/45/10 and Buffalo Bayou will be a set of detention basins. With that type of space right on the bayou I would imagine that the Buffalo Bayou Partnership will be able to program a green space or park to connect the west and east park systems. Also interesting that they're planning for possibly two bayou bypasses. 

 

 

 

 

 

This is different than the plan that was floating around some time ago that re-directed the bayou and created an island around the county jail area, right?

[Fitch]

It appears to take that original plan, which included a White Oak Bayou bypass north of the county jail, and adds another bypass through where Clayton Homes is. The original plan is a proposal from Harris County Flood Control. This augmented proposal adds TXDOT right-of-way for the additional bypass. 

[Nate99]

11 hours ago, Fitch said:

It appears to take that original plan, which included a White Oak Bayou bypass north of the county jail, and adds another bypass through where Clayton Homes is. The original plan is a proposal from Harris County Flood Control. This augmented proposal adds TXDOT right-of-way for the additional bypass. 

 

That's it. I had my bearings off on where that north canal was in the picture. I always liked the "Little Rikers" idea for the jail, though in a flooding event, that could get kind of hairy.

[H-Town Man]

Not sure how much this has been discussed over the 48 pages, but what is the argument for adding so much capacity to I-45 North inside the loop? You have 4 lanes on each side currently. With this, there will be 5 free lanes plus 2 toll lanes on each side. So, from 4 to 7 lanes on each side. Does it really need that much more capacity? And the interchange with 610 looks like one of the giant Beltway 8 interchanges.

 

Also, I agree with Montrose1100 above about the needless I-10 Max lanes through downtown, which helps push that stack of concrete to a monstrous height, to the detriment of the developing Warehouse District area. I feel like the squeaky wheel on all this so far has been the Tory Gattis/Erik Slotboom types who want to have Max Lanes and direct connectors for every stretch of road that they might ever possibly travel on, and this wheel has gotten too much grease.

 

[cspwal]

The north freeway is always packed right now - and it's bound to get worse, with commuting from Houston to the Woodlands for Exxon and other offices

 

I would agree about the through Max lanes - how much through traffic is there on I-10 that is local traffic still?  I mean through traffic that isn't a truck going from San Antonio to New Orleans?

[H-Town Man]

2 hours ago, cspwal said:

The north freeway is always packed right now - and it's bound to get worse, with commuting from Houston to the Woodlands for Exxon and other offices

 

I would agree about the through Max lanes - how much through traffic is there on I-10 that is local traffic still?  I mean through traffic that isn't a truck going from San Antonio to New Orleans?

 

I visit Houston infrequently but in my experience the traffic on I-45N is always either downtown or north of 610, except maybe at rush hour. Inside the loop north of downtown it usually moves fairly smoothly. Doesn't seem to be a reason for a 75% increase in capacity there.

 

EDIT: Right now at lunch hour the traffic on I-45N between I-10 and North Loop is absolutely green, with a little yellow at the I-45/I-10 merge. North of 610 there is some yellow and orange headed up to Little York. No reason to turn this into something rivaling the Katy Freeway.

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by H-Town Man

[arisegundo]

17 hours ago, Fitch said:

It appears to take that original plan, which included a White Oak Bayou bypass north of the county jail, and adds another bypass through where Clayton Homes is. The original plan is a proposal from Harris County Flood Control. This augmented proposal adds TXDOT right-of-way for the additional bypass. 

 

The South Canal is back, baby! Below is how it was envisioned to snake around the street and freeway grid in 2002. I never get tired of referring back to this old thing.

 

 

[bobruss]

4 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

I visit Houston infrequently but in my experience the traffic on I-45N is always either downtown or north of 610, except maybe at rush hour. Inside the loop north of downtown it usually moves fairly smoothly. Doesn't seem to be a reason for a 75% increase in capacity there.

 

EDIT: Right now at lunch hour the traffic on I-45N between I-10 and North Loop is absolutely green, with a little yellow at the I-45/I-10 merge. North of 610 there is some yellow and orange headed up to Little York. No reason to turn this into something rivaling the Katy Freeway.

 

I love it. Is this a new service of HAIF? Live updates on freeway conditions.

Green with a little yellow. Almost sounds official.

Edited May 16, 2017 by bobruss

[H-Town Man]

8 minutes ago, bobruss said:

I love it. Is this a new service of HAIF? Live updates on freeway conditions.

Green with a little yellow. Almost sounds official.

 

Some anectodal evidence to counter the point that the North Freeway is "always packed" and therefore needs widening. Inside the loop, I am not even sure it needs widening at all. Almost 3 PM and still solid green. Maybe one additional lane?

 

[bobruss]

I understood what you were doing. I was just making light of your official sounding update on current freeway conditions.

I think the perfect example of freeway widening and its results is the I-10 John Culberson freeway. 

Obviously it helped for a short time relatively speaking, but just like any freeway you could widen them every year add a lane and they

would still be at a standstill during rush hour.

Until Houston learns to use mass transit for commutes be it bus or car share you can build 100 lanes and they will fill up.

With so many work centers spread around town I don't know if trains will be that affective for commutes. So many going so many different directions.

[cspwal]

I wonder if you could make a train network that takes advantage of that.  In the traditional commuter model of suburbs -> downtown, you get a bunch of trains into the downtown station, and then they sit until afternoon rush.  With all the work centers spread out, you could conceivably have the trains go from suburb -> work center -> work center -> suburb

[Nate99]

Not sure where you draw the line between planning for growth versus investing in diminishing marginal returns. As with the I-10 widening, you just end up making the more distant locations manageable and the overall traffic annoyance level reaches a new equilibrium.  Traffic is a limiting factor that mass transit doesn't really cure, it just makes it physically possible to move more people, which enables greater density farther out from employment centers.  Where you break even between freeway lanes and rail lines is going to be a matter of opinion, but "all of the above" seems reasonable for a city of this size.

[H-Town Man]

1 hour ago, Nate99 said:

Not sure where you draw the line between planning for growth versus investing in diminishing marginal returns. As with the I-10 widening, you just end up making the more distant locations manageable and the overall traffic annoyance level reaches a new equilibrium.  Traffic is a limiting factor that mass transit doesn't really cure, it just makes it physically possible to move more people, which enables greater density farther out from employment centers.  Where you break even between freeway lanes and rail lines is going to be a matter of opinion, but "all of the above" seems reasonable for a city of this size.

 

Good points. I never fully bought the "induced demand" argument against road expansion. Yes, you will still have traffic again, but now you are accommodating 300,000 cars per day instead of 200,000 with the same traffic, allowing your city to grow. And in Houston, of course, we're in the business of growth. It's really the only bragging point that people of influence here seem to care about, trumping any aesthetic or quality of life factor.

 

[Sparrow]

My issue with the expansion of 45 north of 610 is adding more capacity here, while local thoroughfares still lack continuity and while other roadways could be improved to take pressure off of the North Freeway.

 

Why has 249 not been made a controlled access freeway all the way from the Beltway to 45? Seems like this would provide a more reasonable alternative for much traffic eventually headed west of 45 further north if folks didn't have to sit through so many stop lights. Maybe even extend 249 eastward to the Hardy Toll Road or even 59/69--give drivers a reasonable alternative to find another route into town.

 

How about completing the missing segments of local thoroughfares such as West Gulf Bank, Richey, Ella, TC Jester, West Road, Fallbrook, Gessner, Greens, and Hollister?

 

If I still have weeds growing in my lawn after giving it water and fertilizer and so much other care maybe my problem isn't my lawn needing more attention, perhaps it is my neighbor's lawn that is overgrown with weeds three feet high. Treat the problem, not the symptoms.

[H-Town Man]

2 minutes ago, Sparrow said:

My issue with the expansion of 45 north of 610 is adding more capacity here, while local thoroughfares still lack continuity and while other roadways could be improved to take pressure off of the North Freeway.

 

Why has 249 not been made a controlled access freeway all the way from the Beltway to 45? Seems like this would provide a more reasonable alternative for much traffic eventually headed west of 45 further north if folks didn't have to sit through so many stop lights. Maybe even extend 249 eastward to the Hardy Toll Road or even 59/69--give drivers a reasonable alternative to find another route into town.

 

How about completing the missing segments of local thoroughfares such as West Gulf Bank, Richey, Ella, TC Jester, West Road, Fallbrook, Gessner, Greens, and Hollister?

 

If I still have weeds growing in my lawn after giving it water and fertilizer and so much other care maybe my problem isn't my lawn needing more attention, perhaps it is my neighbor's lawn that is overgrown with weeds three feet high. Treat the problem, not the symptoms.

 

This is a valid point. When I was looking at traffic conditions yesterday, I noticed that virtually every artery east or west of I-45N had worse traffic than I-45N (inside the loop). As to 249, the plan that has been bandied about in the past is to extend it southward along railroad ROW through the Oak Forest area to the North Loop, and perhaps I-10.

 

[H-Town Man]

19 hours ago, bobruss said:

I understood what you were doing. I was just making light of your official sounding update on current freeway conditions.

 

Fair enough. But I am not sure whether the people who do the "official" updates are looking at anything more sophisticated or informative than what I am looking at.

 

[bobruss]

You're probably right but you need to understand that some of us would like to see less cars and more transit.

So by building more lanes you can handle more cars but that also means more pollution, more wrecks, more fatalities, and more delays, and eventually gridlock again.

If we could just get more people to commute with others and cut down on the number of cars we wouldn't have to keep pouring more concrete.

At some point we will become a solid mass of concrete.

I wasn't making fun of you. I just thought it would be nice to cut the heated discussion with a little humor but evidently you didn't see it that way.

 

[H-Town Man]

2 minutes ago, bobruss said:

You're probably right but you need to understand that some of us would like to see less cars and more transit.

So by building more lanes you can handle more cars but that also means more pollution, more wrecks, more fatalities, and more delays, and eventually gridlock again.

If we could just get more people to commute with others and cut down on the number of cars we wouldn't have to keep pouring more concrete.

At some point we will become a solid mass of concrete.

I wasn't making fun of you. I just thought it would be nice to cut the heated discussion with a little humor but evidently you didn't see it that way.

 

 

No worries, I know you weren't. I too would like to see more transit. Unfortunately for us, TXDOT has a voter mandate to build as many roads as they possibly can.

 

[Montrose1100]

What could easily solve many problems would be placing barriers, concrete or plastic toll plaza poles.

 

They must be placed near all interchanges. The people that "cut" can easily slow down several lanes. Maybe we could place their heads on the plastic spikes as a warning for others.

 

A majority in the exiting lane will then idle as close as possible to the car in front of them, to not allow people to cut. Which then the clever commuter jerk can bring their lane, and the next one over, to a complete hault. It's a lose/lose situation.

 

Capacity increases are not always the answer, we just need better herd management.

 

Also a 12-15ft wall in between each freeway. Darn you rubberneckers! Makes me shake my fist towards the sky!

 

Also a friendly reminder to be friendly towards others. Not only on this forum but on the road. If someone has their indicater on, let them in for crying out loud. If lanes or entrance/exits are merging, it's a 1 turn each thing. Get off your phone and pay attention to the death trap/s around you.

 

Unless you cut at interchanges, then please, only look at your phone while driving. 

 

Edit: Why are they cutting canals? I thought we learned the winding natural flow is better at flood management and erosion?

[samagon]

40 minutes ago, Montrose1100 said:

Edit: Why are they cutting canals? I thought we learned the winding natural flow is better at flood management and erosion?

 

My understanding is that by cutting canals they move the problem downstream. So logically, they'd rather flood out the ship channel than buffalo bayou park?

 

Just like every other aspect of this project as it pertains specifically to the central business district, it makes tons of sense to me.

[Sparrow]

1 hour ago, Montrose1100 said:

Edit: Why are they cutting canals? I thought we learned the winding natural flow is better at flood management and erosion?

I would think one of the main concerns is reducing the 100-year/500-year flood plain in the northern section of Downtown. They've had quite a few events over just the past 20 years.

 

[kennyc05]

What's gonna happen with the right away north of 610?

[ADCS]

On 5/17/2017 at 11:29 AM, H-Town Man said:

 

No worries, I know you weren't. I too would like to see more transit. Unfortunately for us, TXDOT has a voter mandate to build as many roads as they possibly can.

 

Truth is, outside of the very center of cities, people tend to see transit as inherently un-Texan. Wide open spaces, every man with his own horse, all that. Figuring out how to change that is the tricky part.

[BeerNut]

38 minutes ago, ADCS said:

Truth is, outside of the very center of cities, people tend to see transit as inherently un-Texan. Wide open spaces, every man with his own horse, all that. Figuring out how to change that is the tricky part.

good luck with that because for some people trains = socialism which is practically communism... 

[H-Town Man]

2 hours ago, ADCS said:

Truth is, outside of the very center of cities, people tend to see transit as inherently un-Texan. Wide open spaces, every man with his own horse, all that. Figuring out how to change that is the tricky part.

 

True to a point, although plenty of people in the suburbs are open to it, it just doesn't work for their location and commute. The other trick is how to make it work in low-density areas.

 

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

trains don't work in low density areas, especially in a place like Houston where people live 8 directions from downtown and work in 6 areas spread away from downtown.

It's been said here before, and it's getting said again.

 

if you take everyone in the world an put them all in the same spot, if the population density is the same as NYC, they will all fit within the borders of Texas.
If you take everyone in the world an put them in the same spot with the same density as Houston, , it takes all the land west of the Appalachians to fit everyone.

[BeerNut]

Grade separated limited stop commuter rail that travels same route as westpark with connectors(bus/train) would be nice.  Stops East to West would be  Downtown >Greenway Plaza>Galleria>Chinatown>Energy Corridor>Grand Parkway.