- Airia (Formerly Aliana) Planning New Residential and Mixed-Use Commercial Development on 2,200 Acres in Conroe [HBJ]
- Crews Tearing Down FM 646 in League City This Weekend, Kicking off 6 Months of Detours [Houston Public Media]
- Breakfast Chain Snooze Opening Woodlands Location at 2415 Research Forest Dr. on March 20th [Eater]
- Grand Central Park Development at Former Camp Strake Site in Conroe Adding 13-Acre Amenity Complex [HBJ]
- Flood Control District May Need To Close 8 NRG Area and Med Center Bridges at Once for Brays Bayou Flood Mitigation Project [abc13]
- Rothko Chapel’s New Skylight Includes Louver System for Filtering Daylight, Projected Digital Light for Nighttime [New York Times; previously on Swamplot]
- Waffle Bus Is First Temporary Tenant in NextSeed’s New Greenway Plaza Popup Restaurant Space [Culturemap]
- Why FEMA Shouldn’t Be Auctioning Off Harvey Relief Trailers [Houston Public Media]
Photo of The Marlowe Condo Tower at 1311 Polk St.: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Attention: All inhabitants of Grand Central Park report to Amenities Complex for obligatory joyfulness.
“…close 8 bridges at once….” ….. Typical move for the Houston area contractors; close everything at once then work on them one at a time. How about a little actual PLANNING for a change? They know they won’t have crews working on each one at the same time, in fact I would be surprised it they had more than two crews working at once. SPREAD THEM OUT either time-wise or with different contractors for each
I agree with citycynic. The closure then re-opening of buffalo speedway bridge made it quite clear to me that the city and contractors are not doing a great job coordinating things.
Maybe they could finish the 288-S610 interchange before they start closing all these bridges?
City Cynic and Juancarlos31 please do not blame the contractors.
The design engineers (private engineering firms hired by the governmental entity) and the engineers/project managers at the Flood Control District (and Harris County itself and even the corps of engineers) design and determine the traffic control plan (TCP).
Contractors have to follow it as set out in the construction plans and (in my experience) have no control over the traffic control plan nor the sequence of work as laid out in the plans.
As someone who lives near 610 and Woodway I can tell you first hand that the TCP for that Post Oak bus Lane created weeks (and possibly months) of traffic than was worse than necessary given the area of work. I guarantee you the plans Williams Brothers has been working under required them to close all that excess area south of Woodway around the entrance/exit ramp that could have sped up the traffic.
If the sequence of work requires all eight bridges to be closed simultaneously that lies squarely on the design engineers and the bureaucrats.
Unless I am mistaken each bridge will be a different contractor, meaning it is possible that the same contractor wins each bridge bid, however this is unlikely. Some of these bridges have already been bid and either awarded or soon to be. The government can’t demand or stipulate a different contractor for each bridge. Lowest price wins.
Spreading them out time wise is a perfectly acceptable suggestion and on a personal level I agree with that argument.
On a only partially related note, sometimes things outside of contractor control require a bridge to sit (and seem) like no work is being done…50% of the time it is absolutely attributed to contractor laziness or lack of available crew. However the other 50% can be from the government owner failing to make prompt decisions or a lack of “coordination” or “organization” on their end.
As someone who lives in the area, I think it is foolish to shut 8 bridges down at the same time. That is just asking for trouble.
.
Spacing them out time-wise is the only sensible plan with no overlap – so that it actually minimizes any delay of any domino-effect. Two bridges at a time (at opposite ends of this geographic span) would be even more free advice I’d give. Yes, the final two bridge would be the closest to each other and shut at the same time but the radiating 3 bridges on each side of that axis would be brand spanking new and ready to handle the disruption.
.
To the argument that this makes the project completion longer and more risk of a flood event: it shouldn’t be a factor in decision-making. The flood is a maybe but the traffic clusterflock is a given.