North Fwy Expansion

[wxman]

This can't be. It would be way too good to be true. The North Frwy needs to be like 10 lanes on each side plus the service road. It's a disaster. What used to be a 25 or 30 min. commute into Downtown or out of Downtown to The Woodlands now takes over an hour sometimes. Ridiculous.

from myfoxhouston.com:

Talks of widening I-45 could rip up some historic neighborhoods.

Since 1998 the Texas Department of Transportation has been exploring ways to reconstruct I-45. The project stalled in 2005, but now plans are being revived with the announcement of two public meetings.

A TxDOT spokeswoman says the state is looking at a number of options but declined to release details until the meetings, which will mark the start of environmental impact studies.

Commuters say something has to give since drive times on 45 are some of the worst in the country. Just about everyone has an I-45 horror story.

"45 just has too much traffic. It's always like a parking lot, stop and go," said Edward Harris.

"Sometimes it'll take me 20 minutes just to get on the ramp to get through the exit," said Kim Harder.

TxDOT has proposed building four managed lanes between downtown Houston and Beltway 8.

Expansion of the road could come at a cost to homeowners, specifically in neighborhoods between Loop 610 and I-10 including the Heights, 6th Ward and Lindale Park.

"We don't want another I-10 here. We don't have room for I-10," said Jim Weston.

Weston has spent years fixing up his 1912 home in Woodland Heights. He fears it'll be swallowed up or perhaps face the feeder road if TxDOT increases I-45's footprint.

"It's difficult to estimate how many homes would be lost because we don't know where they're going to put the lanes," said Weston.

Weston is president of the I-45 Coalition, a grass roots movement that formed years ago to monitor the state's plans.

"We're not opposed to improving congestion, but any freeway will take ten years to build. Ten years from now any improvement they do will be filled, and we will need it again. Where do you stop? Eventually there will be all freeways and no homes," said Weston.

Weston would like TxDOT to investigate other means of transportation, such as a tunnel.

Raquelle Lewis, spokeswoman for TxDOT, says the state is looking at alternatives.

"Our goal is always to minimize right of way impact," said Lewis.

TxDOT has launched a website for the project they're calling the North Houston Highway Improvement Project: www.ih45northandmore.com

Commuters say whatever the project will cover, it's long overdue.

"Houston is growing, so that's just part of expansion. Like they always say, you've got to suffer for your beauty," said Harris.

Weston hopes neighborhoods can somehow avoid a hit.

"It's very important for people involved in this, not just people in our neighborhood, but anyone concerned with quality of life issues to attend these meetings," said Weston.

The public meetings scheduled:

Tuesday, November 15, 6pm-8pm, Jeff Davis High School, 1101 Quitman St.

Thursday, November 17, 6pm-8pm, Aldine High School, 11101 Airline Drive

[Montrose1100]

Tunnel? Ha! Just double decker it. The top can be express, and the bottom local. I45 is not that bad. Only when there is an accident, construction or rush hour. If you dont like the traffic, move closer to your job. Eventually every freeway will look like I10, until people realize how silly they feel spending +1 hour in traffic everyday.

[wxman]

First of all, there are a LOT of suburb haters on this forum. I live in the burbs and I like it there. No amount of stats will convince me to live inside the loop. Now that that's over with, the City of Houston does not have adequate transportation for a city its size. The North Frwy is as narrow as 3 lanes going into downtown as you cross over the loop. What gives? The fact of the matter is, the majority of growth in this area is the northern burbs and areas out west and northwest. It's one thing to live an hour and a half out of town when traffic is moving at 70 mph. It's another to take an hour (yes, 1 hour) to go from Beechnut to the north loop at 45. The freeways must be expanded to allow for continued growth. The growth is not going to stop and the issue of I-45 being a parking lot is only going to be compounded as time goes and and the city goes from its 6 million in the metro to over 9 million by 2030.

[Montrose1100]

First of all, there are a LOT of suburb haters on this forum. I live in the burbs and I like it there. No amount of stats will convince me to live inside the loop. Now that that's over with, the City of Houston does not have adequate transportation for a city its size. The North Frwy is as narrow as 3 lanes going into downtown as you cross over the loop. What gives? The fact of the matter is, the majority of growth in this area is the northern burbs and areas out west and northwest. It's one thing to live an hour and a half out of town when traffic is moving at 70 mph. It's another to take an hour (yes, 1 hour) to go from Beechnut to the north loop at 45. The freeways must be expanded to allow for continued growth. The growth is not going to stop and the issue of I-45 being a parking lot is only going to be compounded as time goes and and the city goes from its 6 million in the metro to over 9 million by 2030.

While they're at it, they might as well construct 249 as a freeway to I45. I dont hate the suburbs, I just hate people who live in them and commute in town. (just kidding).

[IronTiger]

Only have gone north on Interstate 45 one time (north in mid-day: the airport to Conroe), wasn't bad.

So, in the mornings and evenings, is it like 290 every morning?

I think double decking would be an effective solution, I suppose.

[Montrose1100]

Only have gone north on Interstate 45 one time (north in mid-day: the airport to Conroe), wasn't bad.

So, in the mornings and evenings, is it like 290 every morning?

I think double decking would be an effective solution, I suppose.

The mornings are not that bad, but evening rush hour is clogged. Random fender benders are a big problem. For some reason rubber necking is 10xs worse on 45. Not only does the other side of the freeway slow, but the HOV too!

[IronTiger]

Doesn't Interstate 45 roughly parallel the railroad? Couldn't traffic be (in theory) alleviated by a commuter train running from Conroe to downtown, with a stop downtown roughly where "the Katy" connected to the main?

http://g.co/maps/7yb5z

[Ross]

The rail line is next to the Hardy Toll Road, not I-45. Metro's incompetent buffoons will tell you that you can't have commuter rail from the suburbs until the light rail in town is all built, which will happen sometime after I'm dead and after the expenditure of many billions of dollars.

[kennyc05]

Is gallery furniture going away lol

[LarryDierker]

Rail makes too much sense. It will never happen.

[IronTiger]

The rail line is next to the Hardy Toll Road, not I-45.

Hence the phrase "roughly parallel", as in, it doesn't really skew away from Interstate 45 until Huntsville. It's not directly paralleling the highway like US-290, or how I-10 west used to be, but it's close enough to it to work as an alternate for the northern suburbs.

[ricco67]

I would have liked to have attended the meetings to this, but I hope they do consider double or triple stacking this freeway, with a dedicated area for mass transit/HOV and Express lanes. I just don't see how insanely expensive it is going to be just buying up the land on both sides. They can almost do the same amount of work for the money if they simply stacked it.

Either way, this probably won't be completed in my lifetime.

[JLWM8609]

I would have liked to have attended the meetings to this, but I hope they do consider double or triple stacking this freeway, with a dedicated area for mass transit/HOV and Express lanes. I just don't see how insanely expensive it is going to be just buying up the land on both sides. They can almost do the same amount of work for the money if they simply stacked it.

Either way, this probably won't be completed in my lifetime.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I saw a proposal which showed part of the feeder lanes cantilevered over the outside shoulder of the freeway in the depressed section where N. Main is, similar to portions of the North Central Expressway in Dallas. That way, they can expand that portion without buying up as much land.

[kennyc05]

Any updates?

[plumber2]

My grandmother told me that her parent's house was taken in by the North Freeway when it was built. (of couse her parents were both dead by then). The house was somewhere near were Quitman crosses over 45. (I've never quite got to pinpoint it on a map).  Now if the freeway is expanded again, my great grand parents might  just actually get displaced this time for they are both buried in Hollywood Cemetery up near the feeder. How ironic.