Houston Freeway corridor color?

[JLWM8609]

I remember seeing a map which showed Houston's freeway corridors each outlined in a color according to the direction in which they leave town. 45 north and 59 north were outlined in green, 45 south was outlined in blue, 249 was outlined in maroon and other freeways were outlined in other colors which I can't remember right now. I forgot the rationale for outlining the freeways in those colors on the map, but it was also stated that those colors would be implemented on the artchitectural details of the freeways as they become widened and updated. I've noticed it myself, 45 up through Conroe, the north loop, and 59 up almost to Cleveland all have green paint on the guardrails and a new addition, the overpass columns have a texture to them emulating trees. Then, parts of 45 south and 288 have blue paint, and parts of 249 have a maroon theme painted on it because I believe it's expected to be part of a yet uncompleted freeway route to Bryan/College Station. Does anybody recall this map or page? I searched TxDOT but couldn't find anything.

[JLWM8609]

I eventually found my answer over at the 290 website of all places, http://www.my290.com/green-ribbon-project-p3.

Turns out it's part of TxDOT's Green Ribbon Program. What TxDOT has done is they've divided the Houston District into three regional zones, the northern zone (includes most freeways north of I-10 including the entire North Loop and freeways north of 290 past the West Loop), the southern zone (which includes the eastern portion of the district and includes most freeways east of 288 and south of I-10) and the western zone (includes freeways wast of 288 and south of 290). Projects in the northern zone are marked by the Vertical Scheme, which includes tree like forms on the columns and vertical accoutrements to reflect the piney woods of the northern region of the area. You can see examples of this on 610 from Ella to I-10 East, the US 90 Crosby Freeway from 610 to BW8, I-45 from the San Jacinto River up to the Walker County line, US 59 from the Woodlands up to about Splendora, and 290 will reflect this design after the widening takes place. The southern zone is marked by the Wave Scheme, which as the name suggests features wave like patterns to suggest a nautical theme as you approach the coast. An example of this is the NASA 1 bypass freeway, various overpasses between Houston and Galveston over I-45, and the Galveston Causeway. The western zone is marked by the Horizontal Scheme which reflects open grassland west of Houston. The best example of this is the Katy Freeway between Katy Mills and Washington Ave. Since about 2003-ish, TxDOT has been reliably following the pattern on most new construction. The only exceptions seem to be portions of US 90A and the Southwest Freeway in Sugar Land, and the ramps to the Crosby Freeway from I-10 and 610. Those ramps are done up in a horizontal scheme typical of the western zone, although they're located at the confluence of the southern and northern zones.

This may be boring to some of you, but I thought it was interesting that our region's highways are getting small architectural touches.

Edited May 10, 2012 by JLWM8609

[baracus]

Cool, always thought they had something to do with noise reduction.

[mfastx]

EDIT: found it by searching the website, but never saw the map you were talking about.

Edited May 11, 2012 by mfastx