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On Account Of The Railroad


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www.OfftheKuff.com reports that:

Knowledge Is Good in the Reality-Based Community

March 31, 2005

Good news on the tollway front

The proposed toll road that would have cut through Oak Forest appears to be dead.

A proposed toll road that would slice through the Oak Forest subdivision in north Houston is no longer an immediate threat to residents, who opposed the project at a Tuesday town hall meeting at Scarborough High School.

Alan Clark, transportation planning director for the Houston-Galveston Area Council, announced that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad will not relinquish right of way for the proposed 20-mile Northwest Corridor Toll Road to span from the Grand Parkway in Tomball to Loop 610.

Clark was there to present H-GAC's Regional Transportation Plan for 2025

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Fearing plans for a toll road will resurface in the future, Ryden said residents of established neighborhoods "should not be penalized to address the needs of commuters who choose to live outside the city."

This quote sums it up nicely. Road-building agencies such as TxDOT or, more likely, HCTRA, are going to run into this type of opposition whenever they propose a new freeway or tollway that cuts through an established neighborhood, especially when said freeway or tollway is perceived to benefit exurban commuters at the expense of closer-in development.

It's kind of ironic that, as the urban area continues to sprawl and new rings of exurbia are built, areas that might have once been considered "suburban" and been the beneficiaries of freeway construction - in this case, an Oak Forest subdivision which gained easy access to a freeway when 610 was built - are now finding themselves the possible victims.

If something has to be put in the Tomball/249 BNSF corridor, let it be commuter rail. Between Harris County and METRO, the possibility of commuter rail on this line has been studied at least three times in the past dozen years. Nobody seems to want to take the next step.

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The next step in the rail for the BNSF corridor and 249 are taken.

It just not a high priorty corridor for rail like the two lines that are attempting to connect the airports to downtown.

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  • The title was changed to On Account Of The Railroad

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