KATY FREEWAY CONSTRUCTION: END IN SIGHT “The eastbound main lanes are wide open all the way into downtown for the first time in more than 36 months. . . . Having this long stretch of roadway open paves the way for the final completion of the entire project slated for October 2008, a grand total of 23 miles.” [abc13]
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Freeways and Toll Roads
Stuck in traffic on I-10 near the Beltway 8 interchange, Lou Minatti spots this construction leftover, stranded on an old onramp that’s already being torn down at both ends.
After the jump: the long view.
Sure, Metro talks a lot about transportation in this city’s central districts. But a Houston Business Journal profile shows us Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority Chairman David Wolff is also enthusiastic about Houston’s westward spread:
Many developers are building various types of commercial properties west of Houston and beyond.
The city of Katy, with an estimated population of 205,000, sits square in the path of Houston’s westward growth pattern.
“The whole city is going that way,” Wolff says. “I think Katy is going to be the next Sugar Land.”
He recalls the creation of Park 10, and how much the area has grown over the last three decades.
Says Wolff: “It was just rice fields. That was really the edge of the world then.”
After the jump, the METRO Board Chairman’s exciting projects way out west, plus how to get folks in the “next Sugar Land” to build freeway on- and off-ramps for your developments!
A teensy item appears in the middle of a long list of projects on the revised agenda of an obscure public agency. The list is voted on, and presto! Nine months years later The Westpark Tollway gets extended all the way to Kirby Drive!
Christof Spieler spots this exciting news—sure to make a lot of West U-area residents take notice—and complains:
Once a project is on a list that gets approved by the TPC, it’s a lot closer to happening. Months or years from now, a neighborhood might object. And they’ll be shown the list and told, “it’s in the plan. It got approved. There’s nothing you can do.†Pieces of paper can have a lot of power.
And this piece of paper came out of nowhere. There was no public announcement, let alone hearings. It was a last minute addition to the agenda. David Crossley of the Gulf Coast institute spotted it only because he was looking through the TPC web site. [emphasis added]
- Writing a blank check [Intermodality]
Photo: Flickr user Danburg Murmur
