How to solve the traffic problems of The Woodlands

All that growth has its downsides.

The Houston-Galveston Area Council, along with local entities including The Woodlands, Montgomery County, the City of Oak Ridge North and the Texas Department of Transportation, are working on a South Montgomery Mobility Study that they hope will ultimately ease the woes of commuters.

Officials say they realize there are no easy answers. But they say the blueprint will help guide transportation planning for years to come.

“It’s obvious. The traffic situation is getting worse,” said Thomas Gray, a Houston-Galveston Area Council planner who is helping to lead the study. “The existing road network can barely sustain current traffic, and they won’t be able to handle the anticipated volumes.”

Preliminary findings reveal that most of the main arterials in and surrounding The Woodlands, such as Woodlands Parkway, Gosling Road and Kuykendahl Road, are either at or over capacity.

Congestion will only worsen as new residential communities and companies break ground in the coming years, according to early data and area council officials.

Township board members said that some residents believe the township and other regional leaders are not working quickly enough, as growth stresses the local infrastructure.

For many, completion of the study can’t come soon enough.

“I have residents calling and saying, ‘Why can’t you do something?'” said Jeff Long, a member of The Woodlands Township board. He said the No. 1 concern he hears from residents is that they’re spending too much time in traffic.

My advice is to invent a time machine, travel back to 1975 or so, and try to convince George Mitchell to do a traditional grid design for the streets instead of the mishmash of self-contained cul-de-sacs that exists now. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t known for some years now that this funnel everything to a single main road approach doesn’t work so well. Doing a grid would also allow for the creation of a public transportation network, and would also allow people to, you know, walk or bike to certain destinations instead of having to drive everywhere. It’s so crazy it just might work!

While I maintain that the time machine approach would ultimately be cheaper and less disruptive to The Woodlands and other parts of southern Montgomery County and far north Harris County – I wonder if all those soon-to-be-relocated ExxonMobil employees are aware of this? – I daresay that’s not likely to be the way the folks that are charged with fixing this will go. What the next best alternative is, I have no idea. Whatever solutions they do come up with, I’ll bet they can’t afford them with their current level of taxation. Good luck, y’all. You’re going to need it.

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4 Responses to How to solve the traffic problems of The Woodlands

  1. Bill Shirley says:

    Suggestion: live near where you work.

  2. Goeffry says:

    I agree with Bill!

    However having lived in the woodlands and having to have to commute to Houston for work (two to three hours of my life per day wasted mind you), I”m going to make an absurd suggestion to help ease congestion: COMMUTER RAIL!!!!!!!!!!

  3. Thomas says:

    Hey, I’m famous!

    Seriously, though: whatever issues that the road network in The Woodlands might have, at least there was some sort of plan to it. The same cannot be said for the hodgepodge of roadways in the areas surrounding The Woodlands, which is why roads like 1488, Rayford/Sawdust and Robinson are such disasters today.

  4. Jefff says:

    Suggestion: most office workers don’t need to come to the office at all. With virtual private networks and videoconferencing they can stay at home and convert their commute time from hours to seconds, and solve everyone’s traffic problems besides. Just keep the dogs out of the home office, please.

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