CITY WISHLIST FOR DAIRY ASHFORD: WIDER ROADWAY, HIGHER BAYOU BRIDGE 
On city council’s agenda for tomorrow: a vote of support for widening Dairy Ashford Rd. from 2 to 3 lanes on each side between Westheimer and I-10. As part of the roadwork, the existing bridge across Buffalo Bayou would be rebuilt — potentially above 500-year floodplain level, though the city hasn’t decided yet. New, wider sidewalks are on the table, too. With the council’s blessing, Houston’s public works department would next submit an application for the project to the Houston Galveston Area Council, which could choose to help pay for it with state and federal money. [Houston City Council Agenda] Map: Houston City Council
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sidewalks don’t even exist between the bayou and Memorial – only death traps fully covered by limbs & branches
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Of course this part of town believes speed bumps are more of a priority for safety than sidewalks so I don’t think the surrounding hoods even care about pedestrian safety to begin with.
Any improvement to that stretch will be a great thing. It’s high traffic – with lots of trucks – and nothing but peril!
Pavement repair and sidewalks – yes, definitely. However, some of us who have to deal with this stretch of street literally every work day, and who have endured multiple episodes of construction and associated lane closures, backups and detours over the last two or three years, question whether the extra lanes (and thus the bridge reconstruction) are really warranted.
Be careful what you wish for. Look how the City and its contractors have borked the 77079 Memorial Drive reconstruction project (far behind schedule and nowhere near complete), the Dutch Junction project (took nearly a year to complete vs promise of a couple months), and the reconstruction of the Memorial/Eldridge intersection (I swear, this intersection has been under some kind of construction for nearly the entirety of the 5 years that I’ve lived in the area, and still isn’t close to being done!).
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I actually wish the City and Energy Corridor District would quit throwing everything but the kitchen sink at these rebuilds (depressing the street so that it floods more readily, widening, traffic islands, etc) and just stick to simple repaving and proactive maintenance/repair of storm sewers in neighborhoods near the Bayou (witness the Bramblewood Drive debacle last year, in which a handful of homes flooded 4-5 times before the City finally fixed the storm sewer).
Memorial/Dairy Ashford intersection is the new US-290. Our grandchildren will someday wonder if it will ever be completed.
I used to live out there in the boonies ( no cultural amenities) and I cycled on the Hershey Hike&Bike trails along Buffalo Bayou. I would sometimes use the Dairy Ashford “sidewalks” ( @ joel:exactly ) and I took my life in my hands traversing that stretch of D-A. It’s DANGFEROUS as hell. Whomever designed that stretch of road NEEDS to lashed 100 times by angry pedestrians & cyclists. It’s a death trap. The City can rebuild all it wants, but NEEDS input from cyclists/pedestrians .Build the bridge to the 1000 year flood plain level. ‘Cause by the time the slow ass City gets off it’s slow poke butt and actually votes to fund and approve the rebuild, Houston will have had a few more floods. I bet that projects in the Mayor & council members hoods get #1 priority & are expedited pronto.
They need to leave Dary Ashford as a two lane street. Expand Eldridge it will not directly impact residential property.
Increased lanes do not reduce traffic long term. For a short time there will be better flow. After that, more people will discover the roadway and traffic will increase. Look at I-10. They have been widening it for 30 years and it is a parking lot most of the day.
The city should reconsider its priorities. I agree with Grant below: just focus on simple repaving, proactive maintenance/repair of storm sewers in the neighborhoods, and ROUTINELY clean the bayou of debris blocking the flow (this past summer it was the only time in more than 25 years that I saw equipment clearing the bayou!). Currently the biggest obstacles to traffic are the reconstructions at Dairy Ashford and Eldridge at Memorial Drive. I don’t know why we never considered round-abouts like in the United Kingdom, Australia, etc. to avoid stop-and-go at these major intersections. The median though could be improved but I am totally against removing trees there. Yes, the sidewalks should be improved too, but there should be input from pedestrians and bicycle riders to make them more user-friendly and less dangerous to them. Two lanes are enough.