I-45 Rebuild (North Houston Highway Improvement Project)

[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.