How Houston will continue to expand transportation options in 2023

Rodney Ellis Bicycle

Florian Martin | Houston Public Media

Harris County District 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis rides a bike around City Hall in 2018 when he and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced a new partnership between the city and Harris County to create more bike lanes.

Gabe Cazares doesn’t have a car, and because he’s blind, he says he never will.

But the chief executive of transportation organization LINK Houston, like most residents of the nation’s fourth-largest city, still has to commute to work and shop for groceries, and he still enjoys getting out of the house and exploring his hometown. It can be challenging even in his East End neighborhood, where Cazares says there are few sidewalks.

“To get to my office, where I do transport, I have to leave the house and walk the streets,” he said. “I look forward to the day when people in the city of Houston don’t have to worry about moving from one place to another if they don’t have a car.”

That day won’t come tomorrow, or next month, or even next year, in a region that has long prioritized highways and lane capacity for cars and trucks. But in recent years, the Houston area has made strides in building additional infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit users, and that work will continue into 2023.

While the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) continues to expand freeways in the region, there are many ongoing projects involving the city, Harris County, the Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority (METRO), and the Houston Parks Board that are expanding transportation options for residents in the interests of access and equity, security, economic growth and climate change mitigation.

The city, which adopted the Houston Bike Plan in 2017 and has since built more than 400 miles of bike lanes, is working on a series of road improvements that require adding bike lanes, widening sidewalks and reducing lanes. METRO is upgrading its bus stops and expanding its services with a $3.5 billion pledge from county voters in 2019, and last year, voters gave the county the right to spend up to $900 million on transportation and drainage infrastructure, including facilities for cyclists, pedestrians and mass transit users.

“We need progress to continue, at least at the current pace, but hopefully faster,” said Joe Cutrufo, executive director of BikeHouston, a non-profit cycling advocacy organization with about 12,000 members.

The city recently completed the MKT Spur Connector, an 850-foot concrete walkway in the Heights that connects the popular White Oak Bayou and MKT trails, while the county is building a 10-foot-wide trail along Almeda Road to help residents bike to NRG Park . Another bike path is under development on Patterson Street between Buffalo and White Oak Bay, according to David Fields, the city’s chief transit planner.

Gail Delother / Houston Public Media

Police stop traffic so pedestrians can cross at North Shepherd Drive and 10th Street in 2019.

Here is a summary of some ongoing city projects:

Security improvements on North Main Street: In an attempt to reduce crashes on North Main Street between Airline Drive and Boundary Street, where there were 224 collisions between 2017 and 2021, the four-lane road is being redesigned and construction is expected to begin within a few months. The city’s work will involve upgrading the METRO bus stops along Airline Drive, which includes the addition of high comfort bike lanes between North Main and West Cavalcade Street. To connect the proposed bike lanes at Airways and North Main, the city plans to widen North Main to fill the half-mile gap between Airways and Cottage Street.

Lawndale Street Bike Path Project: According to Fields, construction should be completed within a month on the Lawndale site between Telephone Road and Forest Hill Boulevard in southeast Houston. Under the Houston Bicycle Plan, the work involves reducing the number of vehicle lanes from two to one in each direction while adding bike lanes and wider sidewalks on both sides of the street.

eleventh Street safety improvements: Construction began last year and is expected to be completed midway through this year on the 1.5-mile stretch of West 11.th A street in the Heights that reduces vehicle lanes, adds protected bike lanes, and introduces pedestrian protection islands, including at 11th Street.th and Nicholson Street near the Heights hiking and biking trail. The work also includes a cycle path on rue Michaux between 11th and Stude Park to the south.

Parker Road Mobility Project: During the design phase and in response to community concerns, the City is exploring ways to redesign the 1.6-mile section of Parker Road between Exeter and Fulton Streets in the Northside area. The aim is to reduce the speed of traffic and the number of collisions, prevent vehicles from moving off the roadway into neighboring sections, and improve crossings for cyclists and pedestrians.

Bicycle lanes of the Third Ward: Under an agreement between the city, Harris County, and Texas Southern University, Cleburne Street on the north side of campus and Blodgett Street on the south are being transformed with improved drainage, wider sidewalks and bike lanes, and reduced traffic lanes. cars and trucks. Work is underway at Cleburne and underway at Blodgett and construction is expected to be completed in the fall.

In addition, the Memorial Heights Redevelopment Authority is using federal funding to overhaul Durham and Shepherd Drives between the 610 Beltway north and Interstate 10 to the south. Like some other projects, the multi-year work entails expanding space for pedestrians and cyclists while reducing the capacity of lanes for vehicles.

Last year, the city received a federal grant for similar work on a 3-mile stretch of Telephone Road in southeast Houston, and Fields said another grant will fund design work to expand the bike path network on Hillcroft Avenue in the Gulfton area. The city is also seeking a grant to redevelop the 7-mile stretch of Bissonet Street between Hillcroft and South Dairy Ashford Road, Fields said.

More bike lane projects are in the pipeline, and Fields says the Washington Avenue and Irvington Boulevard corridors are in line for redevelopment.

“This is a big city. We’re going to do it piecemeal,” Fields said. “When we make these streets safer, it’s safer for drivers, too.”

METRO bus

Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media

A Houston resident boards a METRO bus on March 31, 2022.

LINK Houston’s Cazares said his organization is focusing on the work being done by METRO, which is upgrading several bus routes across the city with new and expanded walkways and ramps, as well as bus shelters. Work began last year and is ongoing on Airline/Montrose Route 56 and Scott Route 54, with construction expected to begin in the second quarter of this year on Westheimer Route 82.

Here is more information about these initiatives:

56 Airline/Montrose: The 23-mile corridor between Texas Medical Center and Greenspoint will have 200 new bus stops, sidewalks, ramps, intersections, and bike lanes. Section 1 between White Oak Drive and Cavalcade Street is completed and construction of two segments between Cavalcade and West Gulf Bank Road continues.

54 Scott: Construction began last year on the stretch between McGowan and Miner Streets and is 30 percent complete. Work on the project is expected to continue until at least 2024, which will upgrade the 11-mile stretch between downtown and the MLK Health Center with 100 new bus stops, ramps, sidewalks, walkways and bike lanes.

82 Westheimer: A total of 175 bus stops will be upgraded with new ramps, sidewalks, bike lanes and intersections along the 19-mile corridor between downtown and the West Oaks Mall.

As of last year, METRO has also improved about 2,500 of its 9,000 bus stops as part of its universal accessibility program to make its services more accessible to Houstonians with disabilities. This work is also ongoing.

“Things never move fast enough — or as fast as we want them to,” Cazares said. “Therefore, I think that in a year we will continue to see important projects promoting central pedestrian infrastructure rather than car infrastructure.

“Does this mean that we will see another city during the night?” he added. “Not. That’s why organizations like ours exist to keep pushing at every level of government to ensure they protect the interests of all people, not just vehicle owners.”

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