How Houston can silence those ear-blasting cars and trucks!
This week the Houston Chronicle published my op-ed calling for noise cameras in Houston (thank you shout out to Evan and Lisa!). I would also like to post it here for posterity. As a resident of Midtown I can't tell you how often I hear cars driving down Bagby with their stereos so loud they rattle windows, even at 2am in the morning! 😠 I really hope the City (as well as Midtown and other TIRZs) strongly consider these noise cameras being used in other parts of the country. The fine revenue will more than cover the cost of the cameras! Please pass along to any officials you know - thank you.
How Houston can silence those ear-blasting cars and trucks
Noise cameras would give police — and residents — a tool to fight back
Anyone living in Midtown or along the Washington Corridor knows the sound. It’s the nightly, window-rattling roar of illegally modified exhausts, blasting stereos, and aggressively revved engines. This isn’t the ambient hum of a vibrant city. It’s an assault on our quality of life, a degradation of our property, and a symptom of growing public disorder.
Or, as Mayor John Whitmire succinctly put it in a recent New York Times article: “Too loud, too loud, too loud!”
The problem is not just anecdotal. It’s a quantifiable crisis. A recent study ranked Houston as the second-loudest city in America (after only Los Angeles). Between September 2022 and May 2025, Houstonians filed over 100,000 noise complaints with the Houston Police Department. HPD’s Central Division, which covers Midtown, saw over 11,000 of those calls, making it one of the city’s worst hotspots.
Our current enforcement model is a demonstrable failure. Residents call 311 or the HPD non-emergency line, but by the time an overstretched officer can respond, the offender is long gone. The result is an enforcement gap where our laws are rendered meaningless. Houston’s Code of Ordinances already prohibits excessively noisy vehicles, but without an effective tool, the ordinance is just ink on paper.
It’s time for a pragmatic, technological solution: automated noise enforcement. As a recent Wall Street Journal report detailed, cities like New York and Newport are successfully deploying “noise cameras.” These devices use a certified microphone paired with a high-definition camera. When a vehicle violates a set decibel limit, the system automatically records the sound level and captures an image of the license plate, allowing the city to mail a citation to the owner.
This is a surgical tool, not a surveillance dragnet. It’s a force multiplier for HPD, allowing officers to focus on more serious crime instead of chasing sonic ghosts.
Critics will inevitably cry foul, mistakenly claiming that Texas banned all automated cameras. This is legally false. The Legislature’s prohibitions are narrowly and precisely written, and only apply to cameras that work in conjunction with traffic-control signals — such as cameras that catch red-light runners — or cameras that enforce the speed limit.
Neither prohibition applies to noise cameras.
A noise camera citation would be for violating Houston’s Chapter 30 noise code — a local quality-of-life issue — not a moving violation under the state’s transportation code. This is a crucial distinction that places noise enforcement squarely within the city’s home-rule authority.
The path forward is the Houston way: a limited, data-driven pilot program. Let’s deploy a handful of these cameras in the worst-offending areas, like Midtown. We can follow New York City’s model, which established a clear noise threshold — 85 decibels, roughly the threshold for safe exposure — and a steep civil penalty structure that starts at $800 to create a real deterrent. The revenue should be dedicated to public safety and traffic-calming infrastructure to prove the goal is peace, not profit.
Restoring tranquility to our urban neighborhoods isn’t an anti-car policy — it’s a pro-Houston policy. It protects the property values of homeowners and the investments of small businesses. It makes our streets more attractive for pedestrians, outdoor dining, and residential life, creating a virtuous cycle of vitality. We have a serious problem and a proven, legal solution. It’s time for City Hall to act.
Labels: quality of place
Houston METRO Ridership Update
This week we have yet another excellent analytical blog post from Oscar Slotboom (he's on a roll!)
Metro's 2025 fiscal year ended at the end of September. Bill King has some good commentary about Metro's ridership in his most recent blog post, especially on the topics of light rail and Uptown BRT.
Metro's annual financial report becomes available in early April, which is when I do the comprehensive analysis of Metro's performance. Metro recently posted its September ridership data, so now is a good time for an updated monthly ridership plot. September and October are the highest ridership months of the year, so September looks good compared to the 12-month pre-Covid average (which includes low-ridership months).
As usual, I focus on weekday boardings. Overall weekday boardings of 260,782 in September is a post-Covid high, 14.0% below September 2019 and 8.2% below the 12-month pre-Covid average. Metro ridership continues to outperform the national average, which has been about 20% below 2019 in recent months.
Bus ridership of 197,494 is 2.8% below September 2019 and 3.7% above the 12-month pre-Covid average. If the current trend continues, we should see bus ridership reach the pre-Covid corresponding monthly values as soon as 2026.
MetroRail continues to perform poorly. September was 32.0% below September 2019, 3.3% below September 2024 and 27.5% below the 12-month pre-Covid average. While bus ridership has had continuous improvement, light rail ridership has been flat for the last three years.
Park and ride service continues its slow, incremental improvement from its near-total collapse in 2020. September was 45.9% below September 2019 and 41.2% below the 12-month pre-Covid average.
Labels: Metro, transit
Highways: costs are way up, funding is in decline. What's the Impact on Houston?
This week we have another excellent analytical blog post from Oscar Slotboom.
An
agenda item for the October 24 H-GAC
Transportation Policy Council meeting includes a spate of delays to projects in the Transportation Improvement Plan.
18 projects and 18 right-of-way acquisition programs are being delayed.
Delayed projects include the items listed below. The new project year for most projects is listed as 2029, but realistically we can expect more delays since most are not included in TxDOT's 2029
information dashboard (see section below "Planned Contracts in the Next 4 Years").
|
Updated project year |
| Connecting the SH 35 freeway extension to Loop 610 |
2029 |
| Widening the Gulf Freeway to 8 lanes on Galveston Island, including direct connections at 61st Street |
2029 |
| Interstate 10 Widening from Katy to Brookshire |
2029 |
| Direct connectors at the Gulf Freeway and Grand Parkway segment B |
2028 |
| SH 249 inside Beltway 8 (West Mount Houston Road), widen to 8 lanes |
2029 |
| US 290 in Waller County, widen to 6 main lanes |
2033 |
| Inner Katy BRT (Metro) |
2033 |
| SH 6 at FM 529 |
2029 |
|
Updated project year |
| NHHIP 3C-2 (I-69 at I-10) |
2028 |
| NHHIP 2A (I-10 to Loop 610) |
2031 |
| NHHIP 2B (Loop 610 interchange) |
2034 |
| NHHIP Segment 1 (Loop 610 to BW 8) |
2034-35 |
| I-10 East San Jacinto Bridge |
2030 |
This HGAC action is no surprise to anyone who closely watches TxDOT
letting schedules (which includes me), since there is a reduction in non-tolled contracts in fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal year 2025. The H-GAC document revision is an administrative confirmation of the funding reality for Houston projects.
Project delivery gets a double punch: dramatically increased costs and lower funding
We've seen this story before, especially in the mid 1970s (
page 31). The post-Covid spate of inflation has increased Texas
construction costs 67% since August 2021. Nationally,
costs are up about 65% between Q1 2021 and Q1 2025 (the most recent data online). With flat revenue, this results in a 40% reduction in the amount of projects which can be awarded.
TxDOT's
bank balance was nearly $10 billion as of January 2024, but was $3.5 billion as of May 2025 and is projected to be around zero by March 2026. This drawdown allowed a surge of project spending in 2024. The TxDOT chart says "Negative balances, if any, will be avoided through the issuance of short-term borrowing and other cash management strategies." If I were the TxDOT financial controller, I would reduce contract awards to avoid the risk of an empty bank account and the costs associated with short-term borrowing.
Contract awards for non-tolled projects statewide were generally $1 billion per month in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 (which ended in August), with an average of $1.01 billion per month in FY 2025. In fiscal year 2026 (now in progress) the average for non-toll projects is $824 million. In the screenshot for FY 2026, the spike in June is due to the $1.9 billion tolled Grand Parkway segment B, which will issue bonds for funding. Including toll funding, the monthly average is $980 million.
Planned Contracts in the Next 4 Years
TxDOT lists the projects expected to be let for construction in the next four fiscal years. This data is accurate for the current year (above the thick border line) and is subject to frequent change beyond the current year. This list has large Houston projects (over $100 million, or on freeways/tollways) currently scheduled. As this shows, the only major contracts in the Houston region in this fiscal year are based on toll revenue. NHHIP projects, with
yellow background, appear to have priority over other projects but are delayed compared to the
online schedule. The next big NHHIP projects are two years away, scheduled for letting in June 2027, October 2027 and March 2028.
| Scheduled |
Amount |
|
| Feb 2026 |
$77 million |
US 290 new underpass as Skinner Road |
| Apr 2026 |
$166 million (Toll) |
SH 99 (Grand Parkway), widen to 6 lanes between I-10 and West Road |
| Jun 2026 |
$1.876 billion (Toll) |
SH 99 (Grand Parkway) segment B, build new toll road from Gulf Freeway to SH 35 |
| Feb 2027 |
$113 million |
FM 521 (Almeda Road), widen south of Highway 6 |
| May 2027 |
$114 million (Toll) |
SH 99, widen to 6 lanes west of I-45 (North Freeway) |
| Jun 2027 |
$273 million |
NHHIP 3C-3 (I-10 in UH-downtown area) |
| Oct 2027 |
$866 million |
NHHIP 3A (I-69 from Spur 527 to SH 288) |
| Dec 2027 |
$52 million (Toll) |
SH 99 (Grand Parkway), widen to 6 lanes from Kuykendahl to Holzwarth |
| Feb 2028 |
$253 million |
connections between SH 99 segment B and Gulf Freeway |
| Mar 2028 |
$180 million |
NHHIP 3C-1 (I-10 Gregg to Waco St) |
| Mar 2028 |
$1.78 billion |
NHHIP 3C-2 (Interchange at I-69 and I-10) |
| Sep 2028 |
$672 million |
NHHIP 3C-4 (I-10/I-45 interchange northwest of downtown) |
| Oct 2028 |
$324 million |
I-10 Katy Freeway, Mason Rd to Pin Oak Rd |
| Oct 2028 |
$78.5 million (Toll) |
SH 99 Grand Parkway west of SH 249, widen from 4 to 6 lanes |
| Dec 2028 |
$270 million |
widen I-10 in Brookshire, FM 359 to Igloo Road |
| Mar 2029 |
$159 million |
SH 288 widen to 8 lanes Loop 610 to Sims Bayou |
Projects Most Affected By Delays
The only projects which are minimally affected by the funding shortfall are the toll projects, Grand Parkway Segment B and widening of the Grand Parkway between the Katy Freeway and North Freeway. The projects below are most affected and are delayed into the 2030s.
- NHHIP downtown projects not listed above, and all projects north of downtown facing possible years of delays.
- Inner Katy managed lanes and BRT
- I-10 Katy Freeway, Katy to Brookshire
- I-10 East Freeway San Jacinto River Bridge
- SH 35 connection to Loop 610
No Help From HCTRA to Fill the Gap
HCTRA has historically stepped up to expand the toll road system to meet Houston's needs, and also contributed to projects like the Katy Freeway and US 290. But not anymore.
As I have
reported previously, HCTRA has drastically curtailed its construction program in spite of near-record revenue in recent years. "Surplus" revenue has been diverted out of HCTRA, and the only large project to be awarded since 2019 is for
four direct connectors at SH 225.
Outlook
The current Federal transportation funding act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, expires on September 20, 2026. A big
question is whether or not current federal funding levels can be maintained with the deteriorating financial status of the federal government. Much of the funding in IIJA was provided by debt, not by traditional gasoline tax revenue.
A significant component of state-generated TxDOT funding is
proposition 1, which relies on oil & gas severance tax revenue and contributed $2.74 billion in 2025. Funding from this source is probably going to be lower in the near future due to lower energy prices.
Labels: infrastructure, transportation plan
A new seal for the City of Houston
The Chronicle asked the public for updated alternatives to the old City of Houston seal, which is definitely looking a bit dated at this point:
So I submitted this with a little help from AI, which they published!
Tory Gattis, Harris County: This concept features a modern and stylized representation of a bridge, symbolizing a pathway to success and a connection to the community. The clean lines and vibrant colors reflect an energetic and forward-looking city. This logo is optimistic and welcoming, embodying the spirit of "The Opportunity City." It would also be super-cool to integrate the "Be Someone" bridge into the logo, although that would require the city to protect it going forward.
Some of the other submissions were also quite good and had great elements to them. But a lot of them also use elements that are not timeless and will run into the same issues as the current aging seal, like the downtown skyline or oil rigs or rockets. It’s hard to make something timeless, which mine kinda does (accidentally). I also just noticed the two sides of the bridge in mine are red and blue coming together, a nice subtle political reference. Houston has always done best when it operates in a working together ‘purple’ manner.
Honestly, I doubt the City will really consider undergoing a revamp, as it would create a ton of political interests weighing in and end up as some bland compromise-by-committee monstrosity 🙄
Let me know what you think in the comments!
Labels: history, identity
The Gulfton Fallacy: Don't Let Zoning's 'Perfect' Be the Enemy of Houston's Good
The Houston Chronicle just published a shorter version of this as a Letter to the Editor, but here is the full version.
---
The recent call to use the Gulfton neighborhood as a poster
child for imposing city-wide zoning (“I'm an urban planning expert from
Houston. It's time we talk about zoning again.” Houston Chronicle 8/1/25) is
the latest verse in a seductive but dangerous song. Words like “planning” and
“zoning” poll well because they offer a vague cure-all for the complexities of
a dynamic city. It’s an understandable impulse, but it’s a trap—a classic case
of the “grass is always greener” fallacy, where a theoretical, perfect version
of zoning is imagined, while the grim reality of its failures elsewhere is
ignored.
Before we consider dismantling the very system that has made
Houston a beacon of opportunity, we must take an honest account of what that
system delivers. Houston’s status as one of America’s most affordable and
dynamic major cities is the direct result of our unique light regulatory touch.
Our ability to build new housing at a rate reportedly up to 14 times that of
our zoned peers is the core of our success. This is why Houston largely avoided
the catastrophic housing bubbles that devastated other regions and why our home
price-to-income ratio remains the envy of the nation.
The contrast with heavily zoned cities is stark. While Texas has
approximately 90 homeless individuals per 100,000 residents, California’s rate
is nearly five times higher, fueled by a regulatory crisis that can push the
cost of a single “affordable” housing unit to over $500,000. Houston
prioritizes building, which results in a higher standard of living for those
with resources and more humane options for those without.
A critical part of our success has been smart, inner-loop
densification, unleashed by pragmatic lot-size reforms. The resulting townhome
boom created tens of thousands of new homes, the very “missing middle” housing
that has effectively become illegal to build in most American cities. On
expensive urban land that, under a restrictive zoning regime, would either
become a massive McMansion or remain blighted, Houston gets thousands of new
homes affordable to middle-income families.
The city-wide zoning now being contemplated, using Gulfton as an
example, is a recipe for exclusion. It would hand a powerful tool to NIMBYs all
over the city to kill development and force stagnation. This isn’t a guess;
it’s the lived reality of every major zoned city, where restrictions choke
supply, drive up prices, and displace the very people they claim to protect.
Furthermore, this push, like the recent attempt to create so-called
“conservation districts,” is an undemocratic end-run around the City Charter
and the will of Houston voters, who have decisively rejected zoning three
separate times.
The choice is not between chaos and zoning. Houston is not
“unplanned”; it is largely privately planned through a robust system of
voluntary deed restrictions. This provides the best of both worlds: neighbors
who want zoning-like protections can have them, while the city as a whole can
grow and adapt. For specific conflicts, we use surgical tools like buffering
ordinances, not a sledgehammer.
Cities across America are now desperately trying to liberalize
their land-use rules to achieve a fraction of the affordability and dynamism we
take for granted. For Houston to voluntarily inflict this self-destructive
disease upon itself would be a historic tragedy. We are the model other cities
are trying to emulate. Let’s not break what works.
Tory Gattis is the editor of the Houston Strategies blog and a Founding Senior Fellow with the Urban Reform Institute.
Labels: affordability, home affordability, land-use regulation, zoning
The Original Three Sections of the Sam Houston Tollway Pay for Themselves Every 3 Years
This week we have another excellent analytical guest post from Oscar Slotboom:
In the recent legislative session
Representative Shaheen, representing the North Dallas suburbs, introduced a
bill to end perpetual tolling. The bill required that a tollway becomes a freeway after all construction costs are paid, with the facility transferred to either TxDOT or the county for free operation.
The bill didn't make it out of committee, but it did remind me that I and hundreds of thousands of toll payers are victims of the most flagrant instance of perpetual tolling in Texas: the original three sections of the Sam Houston Tollway.
Construction cost with interest: around $978 million
The approval of the Harris Country Tollway Authority (HCTRA) by voters in 1983 with $900 million bond funding authorized the construction of the original three sections of the Sam Houston Tollway and the Hardy Toll Road. Section 1 from US 59 (Southwest Freeway) to I-10 (Katy Freeway) opened in June 1988, section 2 from I-10 to US 290 opened in June 1989 and section 3 from US 290 to I-45 (North Freeway) opened in July 1990. One lane in each direction was added in the early 2000s.
| Original cost, 1980s, millions* |
$420 |
| Interest, estimated 5% for 30 years |
$400 |
|
|
| Widening, early 2000s** |
81.1 |
| Interest, estimated 5% for 30 years |
77.2 |
| Estimated Total Cost |
$978 million |
Three-year revenue: $1.04 billion
Looking at the three most recent HCTRA
financial statements for 12-month periods (there was a transitional 7-month fiscal year in 2022), these three sections of the Sam Houston Tollway generated $1.038 billion in revenue.
| 2021 (millions) |
$351.45 |
| 2023 |
$342.39 |
| 2024 |
$344.25 |
| Total Revuene |
$1.038 billion |
HCTRA data for the original three sections is available back to 2001. Since 2001, these three sections have generated $5.95 billion in revenue, which is $7.97 billion in today's dollars.
Of course, there are operation and maintenance expenses. If this expense is $10 million per year, it is only 3% of annual revenue. Other improvement costs were also incurred, such as connection ramps to the SH 249 Tomball Parkway and Westpark Tollway, ramp modifications, toll plaza modifications and miscellanous work like lighting. This
HCTRA document shows they are all small costs over the last 25 years, adding up to less than one year of current toll revenue.
A previous
blog post reported on the huge diversions of toll revenue to the Harris County budget, which has amounted to $1.486 billion in the last 5 annual reports, averaging $297 million per year.
With tolls in place 35 to 37 years, high toll rates and heavy traffic, the typical toll payer on the original three sections of the Sam Houston Tollway is surely thinking that the toll road paid for its construction cost long ago. Yes, this is correct. Now the tolls are being used to finance diversions of toll revenue to Harris County.
Should tolling at high rates continue perpetually?
If you are a toll payer, the answer is almost surely no. If you are a government official distributing "surplus" toll money or an entity receiving the money from toll payers, you surely want tolling to continue.
Of course, work-from-home employees can avoid tolls. These workers are usually higher-paid professionals. Lower paid service workers don't have the option to work from home, such as those working in warehousing, education, health care, construction, industrial and Bush airport operations. These lower-paid folks are paying the price for perpetual tolling on the original three sections of the Sam Houston Tollway.
Labels: governance, government transparency, toll roads
Texas Just Launched a Four-Pronged Attack on the Housing Crisis
This legislative session has culminated in a landmark victory for property rights and housing affordability in Texas. Thanks to the tireless work of advocacy groups like Texans for Reasonable Solutions, which championed this entire suite of bills, Governor Abbott has now signed four powerful pieces of legislation that represent the most significant pro-housing reform the state has seen in decades. This isn't a single, timid step; it's a coordinated, multi-front assault on the regulatory red tape that has driven up housing costs and limited options for Texas families.
For years, we've watched major Texas metros grapple with an affordability crisis born not of scarcity of land or lack of demand, but of an ever-growing thicket of municipal ordinances. These four new laws—HB 24, SB 840, SB 2477, and the capstone bill, SB 15—take direct aim at the root of the problem: artificial constraints on supply. Let's break down each of these strategic wins.
1. HB 24: Ending the "Tyrant's Veto"
One of the most pernicious, anti-growth mechanisms in Texas zoning has been the "protest-by-a-small-minority" rule, rightly dubbed the "tyrant's veto." Under the old law, if owners of just 20% of the land area near a proposed zoning change objected, it triggered a supermajority vote (three-fourths) of the city council for approval. This gave a handful of NIMBY ("Not In My Back Yard") neighbors disproportionate power to block new housing projects that a simple majority of elected officials, and likely the community at large, supported.
Championed by Rep. Dustin Burrows and Sen. Bryan Hughes, HB 24 fundamentally restores fairness to the process. The bill targets the most common use of the veto by raising the protest threshold for adjacent property owners to 60% and, crucially, removes the supermajority requirement for those protests.
The result: A small group of opponents can no longer single-handedly kill beneficial projects. This strengthens property rights for landowners who wish to develop housing and empowers city councils to make decisions for the good of the entire city, not just a vocal few.
2. SB 840: Turning Underused Commercial Strips into Homes
Drive through any major Texas city, and you'll see them: aging, half-empty strip malls, vast parking lots, and underutilized commercial corridors. This is what I call "greyfield" land—already developed and served by infrastructure, yet failing to meet its economic potential. SB 840, led by Sen. Bryan Hughes and Rep. Cole Hefner, provides a powerful tool for recycling this land into something far more valuable: housing.
The bill allows residential and mixed-use housing to be built by-right on land zoned for commercial or retail use in Texas's largest cities. This means developers can bypass the lengthy, expensive, and uncertain rezoning process to build multifamily or mixed-use projects. The law builds on the stunning success of similar reforms in Florida, which saw over 15,000 housing units approved in its first year.
The impact is threefold: It unlocks a massive supply of land for infill development, which reduces sprawl and conserves precious farmland. It puts downward pressure on rents by increasing the housing supply where it's needed most. And it revitalizes unproductive commercial areas, turning them into vibrant, walkable neighborhoods.
3. SB 2477: Unlocking Empty Offices for Housing
The post-pandemic world has left Texas cities with millions of square feet of vacant office space. Houston and Dallas have some of the highest office vacancy rates in the nation. This is not a cyclical dip; it's a structural shift. SB 2477, from Sen. Paul Bettencourt and Rep. Jared Patterson, offers a common-sense solution: let people live there.
Much like SB 840, this law legalizes the conversion of vacant office buildings into residential housing by-right. It streamlines the process by waiving costly and often unnecessary requirements like traffic impact analyses and new parking minimums that were designed for a commercial-use building, not a residential one. With polls showing 71% of Texans support this idea, it's a clear policy winner.
This is the definition of sustainable growth—recycling existing structures to meet a critical need without using an inch of open space.
4. SB 15: The Starter Home Revolution
The final and perhaps most crucial piece of the puzzle is SB 15. With an overwhelming 90% of Texans viewing housing costs as a problem, the need for more attainable options is undeniable. For decades, many cities have used large-lot zoning requirements as a tool to mandate low-density, high-cost housing, effectively outlawing the construction of more affordable "starter" homes.
SB 15 takes direct aim at this exclusionary practice. In Texas's largest cities (150K+ population in counties of 300K+), the law now limits a city's ability to impose a minimum lot size greater than 1,400 square feet in new subdivisions. It also reigns in excessive setback, height, and bulk rules for these smaller lots, giving builders the flexibility to provide a wider range of housing products.
We don't have to guess at the results. Houston’s pioneering 1998 reform provides a real-world case study, resulting in a boom in townhomes that in 2021 averaged just $310,000 compared to $545,000 for traditional single-family homes. Analysis shows the potential is enormous: Dallas could add over 120,000 starter homes and Fort Worth could add 26,000 on available land under the new rules. This is the kind of sustainable, market-driven solution that encourages infill development, conserves farmland, and boosts tax revenue per acre.
A New Era for Texas Housing
Individually, each of these bills is a significant victory. Together, they represent a paradigm shift. The Texas Legislature and Governor Abbott have sent a clear message: the state will no longer allow arcane local regulations to stand in the way of housing production. By neutralizing the NIMBY veto, unlocking underutilized properties for residential use, and allowing the market to build the smaller, more affordable homes that Texans clearly want, this legislative session has laid the foundation for a more prosperous and affordable future for our state.
Labels: affordability, development, governance, home affordability, land-use regulation, zoning
