Last January, a Downtown Management District board member proposed rerouting a section of Interstate 45 to run along Houston Avenue. That proposal was not well-received, and was more or less disavowed by TxDOT’s Pat Henry in a subsequent neighborhood meeting in the Woodland Heights. Now it seems that the idea may not be well and truly dead. From an email from Jim Weston of the I-45 Coalition:
You may have heard that there was, at one time, a proposal to re-route I-45 along Houston Avenue instead of keeping it along its current route. I had heard numerous times that due to the overwhelming public opposition that the concept had been rejected. The opposition was mainly centered on the total potential devastation of the neighborhoods that a widening and re-routing of I-45 would create.
It appears that maybe it has NOT been rejected! According to this upcoming meeting being held by The Urban Land Institute (ULI) next week on 10/3/06 at the Hilton Americas. Pre-registration is over TOMORROW on September 28th – after that the price goes up by $10.
Please attend if you would like to hear first hand what the current proposal for “rerouting and depressing of the I-45†means. It scares me!
Please consider attending this meeting if you can! You can call 1-800-248-4585 to register & pay by phone. If you call and you are not a member of the ULI, tell them you are a member of the I-45 Coalition (a non-profit) and it will save you $10. (Non-member rate for a non-profit or a student is $50; after 9/28 it will be $60).
Here’s the details of the event. Mark Cover is the guy who floated the I-45-on-Houston-Avenue idea in the first place, so when he talks about “the rerouting and depressing of the I-45 and I-10 freeways”, bear in mind that at least at one time, that’s what he meant.