Federal officials halt development on TxDOT's $7 billion rebuild of I-45 (Houston: apartment, mover)

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by WRM20

ExxonMobil built their campus to consolidate all of the different offices they had all over town. They wanted a mid rise form, which is impossible downtown, and so built the campus in Spring, where they could get enough land to hold the necessary buildings. I also suspect that security had something to do with the location, since it's a long way from a public road to a building, making truck bombs far less likely to do significant damage, and making it far more difficult for entities like Greenpeace to take over a building.

HPE is building in the suburbs, just like predecessor Compaq did.



Removal of the pierce Elevated(a bad idea in my opinion) is not dependent on the rest of the project.

It really is though. They are not going forward with removing the Pierce elevated until they have the extra capacity provided by the I-45 rebuild ready to go. A halt in the I-45 project does halt the removal of the Pierce.

Out of curiosity why do you think removing the Pierce elevated is a bad idea. Most post, even by those opposed to the I-45 expansion, I have read think it's a great idea.

[verybadgnome]

Originally Posted by WRM20

Why should residents of neighborhoods along the freeway suffer just to provide faster commutes to people driving in from The Woodlands and Spring?

I live in Central Austin about 10 blocks from IH-35 which I use for local trips to the north and south parts of the city and long distance trips to places like San Antonio and Dallas. When I'm on IH-35 I see Capital Metro buses and 18 wheelers delivering food to my local HEB. All that and it's toll-free unlike all of the other new highways in the Austin area. There are emissions from vehicles, but they are much improved over the situation when I moved here in the 90s. In summary having access to an Interstate highway in an urban area is a positive thing if done correctly. Preliminary plans are to bury IH-35 in Central Austin and put public spaces on top of them which I see that as a good compromise going forward.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by verybadgnome

I live in Central Austin about 10 blocks from IH-35 which I use for local trips to the north and south parts of the city and long distance trips to places like San Antonio and Dallas. When I'm on IH-35 I see Capital Metro buses and 18 wheelers delivering food to my local HEB. All that and it's toll-free unlike all of the other new highways in the Austin area. There are emissions from vehicles, but they are much improved over the situation when I moved here in the 90s. In summary having access to an Interstate highway in an urban area is a positive thing if done correctly. Preliminary plans are to bury IH-35 in Central Austin and put public spaces on top of them which I see that as a good compromise going forward.

There is going to be a lot of that (burying the freeway,) on the I-45 project as well, with green spaces covering the dig paid for by local funds. They are doing similar things in Dallas as well, were any of those projects stopped ?

Houston has managed once again to put itself third in the urban reimagination of Texas...

[DabOnEm]

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

There is going to be a lot of that (burying the freeway,) on the I-45 project as well, with green spaces covering the dig paid for by local funds. They are doing similar things in Dallas as well, were any of those projects stopped ?

Houston has managed once again to put itself third in the urban reimagination of Texas...

Opponents to the 45N expansion don't mention things like this because it goes against the narrative. I hope Houston doesn't shoot itself again when it comes to progress. This will also make the freeway itself safer and add better flood control. Positives all around but people act like this is 288 being built brand new back in the day through Third Ward, ripping the neighborhood in half. If anything these deck parks over 45 would better connect the neighborhoods up there again.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

It really is though. They are not going forward with removing the Pierce elevated until they have the extra capacity provided by the I-45 rebuild ready to go. A halt in the I-45 project does halt the removal of the Pierce.

Out of curiosity why do you think removing the Pierce elevated is a bad idea. Most post, even by those opposed to the I-45 expansion, I have read think it's a great idea.

The Pierce Elevated already exists and takes up relatively minimal space. The plan to remove the Pierce involves removing a couple of streets worth of buildings East of Downtown to bury a combined 59/45 right of way. The removed streets contain apartments, restaurants, clubs, and other businesses. The new RoW will probably destroy all of the businesses on Live Oak. Further South, the number of crossings over the new trench will be limited, making East/West travel on surface streets difficult.

Lots of folks think removing the Pierce will provide a seamless transition between Downtown and Midtown, making thousands flock to the area to live. I don't think that's going to happen, because there would already be lots of development in the area. But there's no demand for all that space, heck, they can't even find something to do with the old Holiday/Days Inn building that's been an eyesore for a few decades.

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

There is going to be a lot of that (burying the freeway,) on the I-45 project as well, with green spaces covering the dig paid for by local funds. They are doing similar things in Dallas as well, were any of those projects stopped ?

Houston has managed once again to put itself third in the urban reimagination of Texas...

I will be surprised if the trenched portion of the combined freeways gets covered at all, much less with parks and such. I just don't see the funding being available, or any real interest from anyone other than a small group who want cool stuff without paying for it.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by WRM20

The Pierce Elevated already exists and takes up relatively minimal space. The plan to remove the Pierce involves removing a couple of streets worth of buildings East of Downtown to bury a combined 59/45 right of way. The removed streets contain apartments, restaurants, clubs, and other businesses. The new RoW will probably destroy all of the businesses on Live Oak. Further South, the number of crossings over the new trench will be limited, making East/West travel on surface streets difficult.

Lots of folks think removing the Pierce will provide a seamless transition between Downtown and Midtown, making thousands flock to the area to live. I don't think that's going to happen, because there would already be lots of development in the area. But there's no demand for all that space, heck, they can't even find something to do with the old Holiday/Days Inn building that's been an eyesore for a few decades.





I will be surprised if the trenched portion of the combined freeways gets covered at all, much less with parks and such. I just don't see the funding being available, or any real interest from anyone other than a small group who want cool stuff without paying for it.

Yes this project will probably destroy these businesses in the area but they will reopen in another part of town if they are viable to begin with, but to hold a whole Metro hostage to one bar crawl area is ridiculous. The same goes for the trenches in DFW and Austin and somebody will fork over the funds for some of these deck parks. As far as crossings from east to west over the 45/69 reroute , here is a 3d video of the proposal and I count almost 20 streets crossing over the trench. Here is a link to the video you count them.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUFK6KcBbGA

[Jack Lance]

Mattres Mac is comming out against the I-45 expansion. Of couse this is totally altruistic and has nothing to do with any possible interruption of business to his location off I-45.

Wasn't he also opposed to the improvments the Uptown district did along Post Oak in the Galleria area ? Now that that project is done he can now focus on stopping progress for the rest of the Houston area.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ma...edgdhp&pc=U531

[jerbear30]

One of the issues with the 45 expansion is the displacement of businesses and people. No doubt that is a reasonable discussion to have, however you feel about the expansion itself. But another issue is more fundamentally related to how Houston envisions transportation itself. There are many people, some of them working on this problem right now for the city, who feel that Houston needs to have a stronger push toward a uniform public transportation system. In the case of the 45, we might allay a lot of traffic by building more light rail lines or elevated rail--something that would foster a stronger public transit infrastructure for commuters and random travelers alike. Mattress Mack would have a fit about this, too, of course but I think it would be a good direction for the city to go in. Sunbelt cities have a lot of advantages over northern cities right now, and that's bringing us population. In the future, those advantages are likely to fade, especially as regards transit.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by jerbear30

One of the issues with the 45 expansion is the displacement of businesses and people. No doubt that is a reasonable discussion to have, however you feel about the expansion itself. But another issue is more fundamentally related to how Houston envisions transportation itself. There are many people, some of them working on this problem right now for the city, who feel that Houston needs to have a stronger push toward a uniform public transportation system. In the case of the 45, we might allay a lot of traffic by building more light rail lines or elevated rail--something that would foster a stronger public transit infrastructure for commuters and random travelers alike. Mattress Mack would have a fit about this, too, of course but I think it would be a good direction for the city to go in. Sunbelt cities have a lot of advantages over northern cities right now, and that's bringing us population. In the future, those advantages are likely to fade, especially as regards transit.

These are Federal and State Highway funds being used for the 45 exspansion. I'm all for Metro building out light rail DBL with Metro funds. To suggest if we kill the I-45 project in order to divert those funds to mass transit is delusional. If the 7 billion in funds for the 45 exspansion is killed those funds disappear fronm the Houston area forever.

If you told me that those funds would definatly be diverted to Metro or even the dredging of the Houston Ship Channel or even the Ike Dyke I may have more sympathy for the opposition, but they wont, that 7 billion will just disappear and probably end up being used in other parts of the state or in case of the Federal funds some other region of the country altogether.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by jerbear30

One of the issues with the 45 expansion is the displacement of businesses and people. No doubt that is a reasonable discussion to have, however you feel about the expansion itself. But another issue is more fundamentally related to how Houston envisions transportation itself. There are many people, some of them working on this problem right now for the city, who feel that Houston needs to have a stronger push toward a uniform public transportation system. In the case of the 45, we might allay a lot of traffic by building more light rail lines or elevated rail--something that would foster a stronger public transit infrastructure for commuters and random travelers alike. Mattress Mack would have a fit about this, too, of course but I think it would be a good direction for the city to go in. Sunbelt cities have a lot of advantages over northern cities right now, and that's bringing us population. In the future, those advantages are likely to fade, especially as regards transit.

As if light rail won't involve disruptions to business due to construction. Talk to the (former) business owners that were bankrupted by the Main St / Fannin line. Light rail won't relieve 45 traffic by any significant amount. It will cost billions and won't increase capacity much if at all.