COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY HOUSTON FREEWAYS SHOULD BE BUILT TO FLOOD 
“. . . Why would you NOT want a massive freeway that would otherwise be empty in the event of a true emergency to flood? Spend the money on barriers/signage for flooding, throw in some pumps and you have a perfect deterrent for neighborhood flooding in the event of an emergency. I don’t remember any of the surrounding areas along 59 complaining about it being a great place to store flood water during Allison.” [joel, commenting on What Could Go Under When I-45 Moves Underground and East of Downtown] Illustration: Lulu
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Yeah, I don’t see flooding as an issue and I think the fact that the highway is below grade should actually be seen as a positive since a sunken highway acts as a temporary reservoir. Feeders remain at grade level so they’d only flood in a flash flood event when the raining is coming down faster than it can drain.
Like most of the commenters in the other thread, I’m completely against this project though and would hate for this to sound as if any type of endorsement for trenching newly expanded freeways
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Through / cross town traffic flow around downtown is abysmal. The available lanes for I-10 & 45 crossing through town are a complete joke, and are very real and serious drags on productivity and greater prosperity for many of these immediate areas. However, making everyone suffer through 5yrs of construction hell just to have 5yrs of a benefit before becoming a whole new monstrous traffic hellscape has not been working out well. If this plan was a silver bullet then TXDOT would have more people on board but there’s so many stagnant issues and gaps in this re-development plan that it’s simply not worth the time and expense at this stage.