TXDOT TO PIERCE ELEVATED: YOUR YEARS ARE NUMBERED, PROBABLY 
Pending a vote next month by the Texas Transportation Committee, some early-stage projects connected to TxDOT’s plan to reroute I-45 and the whole downtown freeway exchange system could be getting started a few years sooner than TxDOT officials initially thought they would, Dug Begley writes in the Chronicle. (Those early stages include the reworking of the bottleneck on northbound US-59 where Spur 527 now peels off 2 of the freeway’s lanes just before SH 288 merges into the mix.) The first few projects “are incremental compared to the overall plan,” writes Begley, but “officials say [the projects] are important and send the clear message: The I-45 freeway is relocating and the elevated portion along Pierce will be abandoned and maybe demolished within the next dozen years. . . .Work on revamping the freeway intersections is slated for late 2020 or early 2021.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Pierce Elevated: Russell Hancock
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Time to start looking for some relocation work, this is going to get messy.
Until the bus station is relocated, efforts to upgrade this section of Houston will be futile.
Then thank God for the bus station(s).
I wonder what UHD thinks of the portion of this work at White Oak Bayou that is supposed to basically seize the entire 17 acres they recently acquired to expand? Unless all of the land formerly occupied by the freeway is given to them in trade, they have no future growth prospects. And even then, it’s questionable.
@Neil, bingo! I drove by the bus station again yesterday. I used to live at 2016 Main Street Condos. IMO Greyhound, Amtrack, MegaBus, and the Texas Central Railroad all need to start and stop at the same point. I think the owners of the block bounded by Gray, Travis, Webster, and Main are just in a holding state for now. Maybe they want to buy the bus station lot and then renovate both blocks. IDK, I just would love someone from COH to champion this issue
@Walker
I’m pretty sure that the midtown redevelopment authority bought the block across from the greyhound station a few years ago and stopped letting them use it for overflow bus staging as a way to make things more difficult for them. I’m having trouble getting it to pull up on HCAD to confirm.
Strike that, it looks like Rice’s endowment still owns the property.
I could see the Mcdonald’s lot being redeveloped if the PE is demolished. That would do the area some good. One less hang out for the Greyhound crowd
I do like the idea, in principle, of a single central hub for TCR, Amtrak, Greyhound, Coach USA/Megabus, et al., and I was kind of hoping that Hardy Yards, the former Post Office, or the HPD-Reisner site would’ve been in play for TCR for that reason. Forcing ground-based transportation options into a single cluster would put them in head-on competition to provide lower prices or better value; but if TCR gets to control the Northwest Mall site or some substantial portion of it, then I would expect that they would be closed to such an idea.
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In any case, for now Greyhound is exactly where it ought to be — within a few blocks of the Downtown Transit Center. Yes, it’s a blight on the neighborhood. It would be a blight upon any neighborhood, so why not this one given that it is already ideally situated?
Omg, destroying that monstrosity would be great!