What Houston Could Lose Because of Harris County's Anti-NHHIP (IH-45N) Lawsuit
This week we have a guest post from Oscar Slotboom making a very compelling case for a long list of benefits from the I45N redevelopment project as well as the risks of cancellation or delay - a list which seems to be getting lost in all the controversy.
Despite the support of the HGAC Transportation Policy Council, Harris County recently filed a lawsuit to block the IH-45 North Houston Highway Improvement project. Let's review the extensive and transformative benefits the NNHIP will provide for Houston, starting at the south end and proceeding northward.
The NHHIP will
- Remove nearly a mile of elevated IH-69 freeway through Midtown and sink the freeway below ground level. This will be especially beneficial to the new innovation district hub and the Ion, which is adjacent to the freeway.
- Provide relief for the chronic congestion on northbound IH-69 at Spur 527
- Remove existing elevated ramps connecting into Chenevert Street
- Add new long-span arched bridges at Elgin, Tuam and McGowen, providing an attractive architectural enhancement to the area
- Retire the Pierce Elevated, providing the opportunity for redevelopment or creating one of the most distinctive urban parks in the country, Houston's version of NYC's High Line.
- Provide relief for the chronic back-ups which occur for traffic connecting to the northbound Pierce Elevated
- Remove a mile of elevated freeway through east downtown, sinking the freeway below ground level.
- Provide the opportunity for new parks over the freeway, seamlessly connecting to Eado with the potential to transform the area similar to Dallas' Klyde Warren Park.
- Provide all displaced residents of Clayton Homes the opportunity to relocate to public housing in the immediate area, or to receive vouchers
- Relocate IH-10 so it no longer goes through the middle of UH-Downtown
- Provide the opportunity to consolidate east-west railroads on the north side of downtown, removing the railroad from the UH-Downtown campus and improving development opportunities for the proposed North Canal project.
- Reduce the footprint of freeways on the west side of downtown and at West Dallas, opening up more space for parkland and recreation. Plans include a new pedestrian crossing at Andrews Street.
- Apply high-quality architectural standards to all the freeway structures, far better than the utilitarian and unattractive existing concrete structures from the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
- Improve pedestrian and bicycle accommodations at all freeway crossings
- At IH-45 and North Main, add a deck over the freeway, which substantially improves the situation as compared to the existing design.
- Reduce the risk of flooding on the flood-prone section at North Main by applying modern flood control design standards.
Flooding on IH-45 near North Main
- Provide four managed lanes on IH-45 north of downtown to Beltway 8, which will be an important part of a future interconnected managed lanes network for Houston to promote public transit, carpooling and technologies of the future. The managed lanes will provide the opportunity for two-way high-speed bus service to Bush Airport.
- Modernize the antiquated interchange at I-45 and Loop 610, which has seen only minimal improvements since its opening in 1962. These improvements will provide relief for the chronic backups on eastbound Loop 610 approaching the interchange.
- Provide the opportunity for new architectural enhancements and landscaping along the freeway from Loop 610 to Beltway 8, which is currently one of Houston's most unattractive freeways and unfortunately the first impression of Houston for many visitors arriving at Bush Airport.
- Remove 58 billboards, with most along the North Freeway (reference FEIS page ES-19)
- Between Loop 610 and Beltway 8, bring the frontage roads up to modern standards to facilitate safe and convenient access to businesses along the freeway.
- Improve job access for the segment 1 workforce (from Loop 610 to Beltway 8).
The City of Houston request, which is supported by Harris County, aims to make traffic congestion worse and force people into public transit that goes downtown. But when you think about it, this is entirely wrong for the corridor workforce. This workforce is generally not going to find a match for its job skills downtown. This workforce is far more likely to find a match for its skills at employment locations like Bush Airport, warehouses, industrial facilities, medical offices, factories and construction sites.The Hispanic workforce in particular is heavily represented in the trades, construction and landscape. This workforce goes to on-site work locations and is more heavily dependent on highways than other sectors of the workforce. Making traffic worse will impart disproportionately large cost and inconvenience to this workforce. - Provide congestion relief throughout the corridor. The NHHIP will improve freeway sections which currently are ranked among the most congested in Texas, with the following rankings: #3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17. Nine of the 17 worst congested freeways in Texas will be improved by this project, which is an amazing and remarkable amount of congestion relief for a single project.
As this list shows, this is not just a mobility project, but also a transformative urban improvement project for Houston. TxDOT is spending $7 billion including $5 billion in the downtown area to achieve these improvements for Houston. The FEIS plan was forged over 10 years, and like any complex plan it is a compromise plan, with elements for both sides to like and dislike. As with any compromise plan, you don't come back at the end and say "Oh, I want to keep the parts I like and get rid of the parts I don't like." That's not how a compromise works.
With the lawsuit, there are numerous scenarios in which the currently committed funding of $5.05 billion could be lost
- Due to delays or insufficient local support, TxDOT could rescind the funding and reallocate it to other projects statewide.
- The court could require a redo of the environmental process, which would take years and also wipe out existing plans. There's no assurance TxDOT will be willing to fund the Pierce removal and below-grade Eado freeway if the process restarts from scratch. When the West Loop expansion was canceled in 1992, the revised plan was a basic, low-cost plan. We know how that turned out, with the West Loop perennially among the top two most congested freeways in Texas, and usually #1 most congested.
- Long delays could cause inflationary cost increases in the billions. Construction costs are down about 10% due to Covid, but as the recovery progresses we could see a severe inflationary surge similar to the increase seen after the Great Recession. In the five year period from 2011 to 2016, construction costs increased 60%, which would increase the project cost around $4 billion to $11 billion. (source)
- Probably now or never. With TxDOT's generally declining financial situation due to reduced fuel tax receipts and declining oil severance tax (which funds Proposition 1), there is no assurance there will ever again be funding for a project of this scope if current funding is lost. TxDOT's funding is currently slated to be in steep decline in the 2030s, as Proposition 7 expires in 2029 and 2032.
- The Biden "infrastructure" plan, if passed, would to be minimally helpful to TxDOT's long-term financial situation. Only $115 billion (5%) of the $2.3 trillion proposal is slated for highways and bridges. If Texas receives a share proportional to its population (which it probably won't), that would be $10 billion over 8 years, or $1.3 billion per year which is around 8% of TxDOT's $15 billion annual budget. Of course there would likely be numerous strings attached to the money, possibly restricting it to maintenance and repair.
UPDATE: We're not the only ones that see the benefits of this project:
Houston Chronicle: Supporters of I-45 widening say pause puts promises of relief on hold, too
'Others bristle at the concerns voiced by critics who say they are representing minority and low-income groups, when many Black and Latino groups, businesses and residents want the project. Local NAACP officials and others cheered TxDOT for going to unprecedented lengths to include communities, who are not in total agreement with those who argue the project is racist or unfair to struggling families.
“There are people that come on the line that say they speak for the poor, but they have not spoken to them,” community activist and urban planner Abdul Muhammad told the Texas Transportation Commission.'
Labels: infrastructure, MaX Lanes, mobility strategies
posted by Max Concrete @ 10:47 AM
26 Comments:
I think it's important to note that H-GAC paid Tory Gattis and Oscar Slotboom to write the report "MaX Lanes: A Next-Generation Mobility Strategy for Affordable Proximity," which supports the Managed Lanes that run along the center of the NHHIP.
You'd think we should have learned our lesson about sinking freeways below ground level, as proposed in East Downtown.
That HGAC project was done on a volunteer basis and uncompensated. We do believe in the potential of MaX Lanes to move more people around Houston, especially on transit, and the I45N project would be a big boost to that, but it's also possible to do them within the existing 45 footprint.
Hi Tory, thanks for getting back to me. If H-GAC didn't pay for your MaX Lanes report, then what is the meaning of "sponsorship" as it appears on page 2? "This report was made possible by the generous sponsorship and support of the Houston-Galveston Area Council."
I'm interested to learn more about MaX Lanes within the existing I-45 footprint if you think that's viable. Best regards.
The original plan was for it to be funded at a very modest level, but some hangup in the bureaucracy and budgeting kept that from happening.
MaX Lanes in the existing footprint would require the conversion of free lanes and shoulders, which would be politically difficult and less safe.
Please include loss of 187,000 good-paying jobs; A minimum of $19 billion in statewide economic impact, a large portion of which could be directed to the HGAC Region; "Ecosystem Resilience" (bounce forward not just bounce back) for the low to moderate-income residents displaced by not only providing vouchers but also financial literacy training, down payment and relocation assistance toward sustainability and home ownership; Reduction in crime and recidivism through construction trade and workforce training for youth and young adults to leave street life and earn an honest living; The 21st opportunity for small companies joint venture to grow to prime status rather than languish as perpetual MWBE firms waiting for the crumbs that fall from another's table; and finally expose, once and for all, the difference in the goals of the environmentalism versus the environmental justice movements. The former is an ecocentric movement, where the latter is an anthropocentric movement. This lawsuit is a purposeful highjacking of the environmental justice movement by environmentalists who seek to create an urban form that has not benefitted the poor communities of color in a developer-friendly city with no zoning or rent control, but has instead gentrified and pushed them out to the suburbs with no mass transit to get back and forth to their traditional neighborhoods. We truly want multi-modal transportation, then, fund the Rail Division of TxDot, the Gulf Coast Rail District, METRONEXT, and bring the high-speed rail all the way into downtown rather than terminating in the Northwest transit center.
But why is Harris County suing? Is this an environmental suit to stop automobiles? Is this due to the change in ideology of the County Judges? Why?
So the argument is that these supposed benefits, which have never been realized in a project of this type and size before, outweigh the human cost of displacements, worsening air quality, and contributions to greenhouse gas emissions? Really?
This so closely resembles a propaganda piece, it's hard to take it seriously. There is no independent data to support the congestion arguments, which make up half of this analysis; it just relies on TxDOT's numbers. Numbers that are universally ridiculed by the academic world, I might add.
The arguments against encouraging transit use don't make sense and are vaguely racist (Hispanic people don't have any need to go Downtown? What? Would LOVE numbers on this lol). Needs to restated over and over again (apparently) that TxDOT WILL NOT FUND THE DECKPARKS. Please stop using these as justification for this project. The rendering of the deck park comes from Mr. Slothboom's website. He might consider investing in a graphic designer.
I'm all for representing all sides of an issue, but this is lazy and disturbingly indifferent about the human toll of this project. Y'all could've at least tried to engage the discourse in good faith and taken the opposing arguments seriously. It probably would've been more productive than jsut reposting TxDOT's slogans
We're not the only ones that see the benefits of this project:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/Supporters-of-I-45-widening-say-pause-puts-16087423.php
'Others bristle at the concerns voiced by critics who say they are representing minority and low-income groups, when many Black and Latino groups, businesses and residents want the project. Local NAACP officials and others cheered TxDOT for going to unprecedented lengths to include communities, who are not in total agreement with those who argue the project is racist or unfair to struggling families.
“There are people that come on the line that say they speak for the poor, but they have not spoken to them,” community activist and urban planner Abdul Muhammad told the Texas Transportation Commission.'
"Numbers that are universally ridiculed by the academic world, I might add."
Neither of those links go to academic authors - just bloggers - while the TTI is part of very well-respected TAMU.
@Joel
Press coverage has overwhelmingly focused on the negatives of the project, except for today's article referenced by Tory which is more balanced.
This blog post lists the benefits of the project. In my view the benefits far exceed the negatives, but of course each person will have their own opinion.
It is a usual tactic of anti-highway folks to exaggerate project negatives. For example the City of Bellaire opposed extending the Loop 610 feeder roads under the Southwest Freeway. I think everyone would agree no harm came to Bellaire from the frontage roads. When the Southwest Freeway Montrose elevated was removed, West Alabama was used as a temporary alternate route. This was strongly opposed by the neighborhood but the impact turned out to be minimal. There was a lawsuit against the Katy Freeway expansion (which was dismissed), and I think the overwhelming majority in west Houston would agree the project has been highly beneficial for West Houston. After all, who would want to go back to the original, 1960s Katy Freeway?
If NHHIP is defunded or canceled, the freeways will most likely stay just as they are today to 2050 and beyond, with only maintenance and perhaps some minor improvements.
Transportation for America is actually a think tank, much like "Urban Reform Institute," albeit with a little more research backing up their arguments. Would be interesting to hear you respond the content of the reports instead of dismissing them outright. Here's a few more if you actually want to talk!
Victoria Institute - https://www.vtpi.org/UMR_critique.pdf
https://cityobservatory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Measuring_Urban_Transportation_Performance.pdf
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/8/28/the-mobility-trap-why-well-never-fix-congestion-by-speeding-up-traffic
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/02/05/tti-urban-mobility-report-bungles-congestion-analysis-yet-again/
"We're not the only ones that see the benefits of this project" The articles cites a total of...five people in support of the project. Three, if you exclude Oscar and Marlissa Briggs, a leader of the developer group North Houston Association, who has a substantial financial interest in seeing the project move forward.
But numbers can be misleading. Who knows! Maybe all those in support of an alternative vision are wrong. And maybe if you send this post along to those who will get displaced, they may see the light. Hell, I wonder if that "Hispanics don't need to go downtown" argument will defeat the civil rights law suit. You never know!
@Oscar You seem like a numbers guy. I would love to see some numbers on this section: "The City of Houston request...Making traffic worse will impart disproportionately large cost and inconvenience to this workforce."
Seems to be a lot of claims here:
- Building out transit infrastructure a la Houston's plan will worsen traffic. Can I see the data that supports this?
- Because Hispanic people work more construction jobs, they have little use for better transit access downtown. This is quite an extraordinary claim even without considering the major transit center in downtown and the Wheeler center south of downtown, both of which connect transit riders with the rest of Houston. Can I see your numbers supporting this claim?
Thanks!
I'm seeing precisely Sweet Fanny Adams in the proposed elevated parkway park. The space below is pretty much a hobo jungle. Installing a second tier is unlikely to be happy-making.
I've read those sources in the past. Typical transit/anti-car worship. It's a dogmatic religion for some people. I try to focus on what real-world people actually do and cost-benefit of different mobility options.
Actually, with only 7% of metro area jobs downtown, you can say with confidence that the vast majority of any neighborhood anywhere doesn't need to go downtown. They need interconnected MaX Lanes that will get them to every major job center across the metro area.
"I've read those sources in the past. Typical transit/anti-car worship. It's a dogmatic religion for some people. I try to focus on what real-world people actually do and cost-benefit of different mobility options." So...you got nothing lol. That's fine, that's what Texas transportation policy has been coasting on for decades. Amazing that you can claim that this project passes any sort of cost-benefit metric that goes beyond looking at Level of Service and pushing cars beyond safe speeds.
Have any of the "real-world people" you've spoken to live in the proposed right of way? What are their thoughts on the NHHIP's B/C? Do you think the kids at Bruce Elementary, who look up and see the expanded freeway over their heads, will understand that commute times can improve by potentially 15 minutes for a professional coming into downtown from the Woodlands (after ~15 years of construction, and then only for 5 years before traffic returns)? They may be convinced by that argument!
Here's what I've got: the entire history of this blog going back 16 years disarming pretty much all of their arguments. Take a look sometime.
Fantasy-world talks about transit capacity. Real-world talks about actual ridership numbers can cost per passenger mile.
I'll take a look now. Care take a stab at talking about literally any of the other aspects of this project that I've brought up? Displacements? Air quality? Greenhouse gas emissions? What about the fact that construction on Segment 3 will essentially suffocate the downtown and wheeler transit centers? Do those users not matter, or are they not 'real-world'? The TAG and NHA folks at least try to acknowledge the human cost. Does that not factor into your "real-world" schtick?
There has been plenty written about the negatives of the project. All major projects have pros and cons to mitigate and weigh up. We felt the pros case needed a more vigorous airing, since the media is naturally focused on the negatives.
And you believe those pros outweigh the cons?
On a personal level, no, because I live in Midtown and will have to deal with the construction. But if I objectively look at what most benefits the health of the metro region and the City of Houston, yes. In particular, I think the connected MaX Lanes network is critical to the long-term health and growth of the region, and this project enables that. Pretty much every argument against it could have been used against any freeway project of the last 80 years, and if Houston hadn't built its freeway network, it would be Beaumont today instead of a thriving, growing global metro of 7 million.
https://urbanreforminstitute.org/2017/05/max-lanes-next-generation-strategy-affordable-proximity/
@VeracityID said... "But why is Harris County suing? Is this an environmental suit to stop automobiles? Is this due to the change in ideology of the County Judges? Why?"
Yes on the ideology change: the Commissioners Court is now 3 Ds and 2 Rs instead of 3 Rs and 2 Ds. I'm guessing most of the supporters of the project, including the downtown interests, backed Emmett, but Hidalgo won. The far left is the most anti-car/anti-freeway, and those are core Hidalgo supporters. But I think if she broadly polled the county as a whole, or even just a broad base of her supporters, she'd find they support the project.
@Joel
My contention is that the workforce will have access to more employment opportunities with both highway improvements and public transit improvements as planned by NHHIP, as opposed to public transit alone. The tradeoff for highway improvements is that there is right-of-way acquisition. Regarding traffic, my claim is that traffic will be worse without NNHIP. Prior to the Katy Freeway expansion it was congested all day and on weekends. Now (pre-Covid) it is congested at peak periods only.
I don't have data readily available to support my claims. Anyone wanting data is free to ignore this point or any other opinion item in this piece.
"Pretty much every argument against it could have been used against any freeway project of the last 80 years, and if Houston hadn't built its freeway network, it would be Beaumont today instead of a thriving, growing global metro of 7 million." Love the implicit argument that destructive and racist planning practices like running highways through poor neighborhoods and redlining are okay because Houston isn't a backwater town today. Stunningly devoid of any sort of empathy or understanding of our own infrastructure history. I'd suggest trying to read up on how those projects actually affected the neighborhoods they built over - Dr. Bullard is a fantastic source. Because right now, you sound ignorant and are kinda proving the point that the supporters of the project really don't give two shits about the people it'll hurt, as long as you get yours.
Still waiting on any sort analysis on why Harris and Houston's proposals won't work beyond "Hispanics don't go downtown" btw
I'm not saying mistakes weren't made in those projects - absolutely they were - but they're not optional. We had to have them. Maybe they should have been routed differently, and there should have been higher compensation to the displaced and affected, but at the end of the day a comprehensive network of freeways had to get built, as they have in every metro in America.
Harris and Houston's proposals are to spend billions with little or no capacity increase, including no MaX Lanes. They take most of the benefits out without proportional cost reductions. Why the heck would TXDoT fund that?!
"I'll take a look now. Care take a stab at talking about literally any of the other aspects of this project that I've brought up? Displacements? Air quality? Greenhouse gas emissions? What about the fact that construction on Segment 3 will essentially suffocate the downtown and wheeler transit centers? Do those users not matter, or are they not 'real-world'? The TAG and NHA folks at least try to acknowledge the human cost. Does that not factor into your "real-world" schtick?"
The handful of businesses and houses that are along the route will be compensated for being displaced. Many folks buy property along purposed routes with the anticipation of a government negotiated buy out to make money on condemned land. Often times the "complaints" we hear are a negotiation tactic for higher prices. I know several developers and investment groups with exactly this tactic.
Air quality improves when traffic is moving instead of sitting gridlocked, where you're idling and literally emitting pollution with no benefit. In fact I wish the planned i-45 re-configuration added more actual capacity instead of being mostly a freeway re-location and a park project for downtown.
What about the 100's of thousands of people who daily use this road? The needs of the many far outweigh the needs of the few. No induced demand has long been discredited "theory". Its population growth thats here and coming that increases transportation demand. What about the extra millions of hours citizens will spend on an unimproved road?
What about all of the jobs citizens wont have access to and the employees who need employee's because they are unable to drive from downtown to where the jobs are. What about evacuations? Do people in coastal areas to be at risk to save one persons house?
Seems to me the benefits far outweigh the negatives of a project like this.
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