Earlier this month, I blogged about the status of the US 290 expansion, for which TxDOT’s plan rested on the assumption that the Harris County Toll Road Authority would go forth with the construction of managed lanes along Hempstead Highway. Well, Commissioners Court will be voting on their capital improvement plan (CIP) tomorrow, and the word is that the Hempstead lanes are out, and the Grand Parkway Segment E is in. From the CTC press release:
Harris County will vote Tuesday to drop funding for Hempstead Managed Lanes, pursue Grand Parkway development project instead
Citizens will ask for 290 traffic relief through Hempstead project
US-290 commuters who want relief must head downtown Tuesday morning to demand alternatives to increased congestion. Harris County Commissioners’ agenda includes a public hearing on the 2010/11 – 2014/15 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP):9:00 am Consideration of capital improvements for Harris County, Harris County Flood Control District, Port of Houston Authority of Harris County, and the Harris County Hospital District.
On Tuesday, Harris County residents will urge Commissioners not to waste resources on the speculative Grand Parkway real estate project while 250,000 US-290 commuters need the relief of the Hempstead Managed Lanes as soon as possible.What: Citizens urge Harris County Commissioners to fund Hempstead Managed Lanes before the speculative Grand Parkway
Who: Citizens’ Transportation Coalition http://ctchouston.org, and
Houston Tomorrow http://houstontomorrow.orgWhere: 1001 Preston at Main St., 9th floor chamber, downtown Houston, 77002 (map)
When: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 9:00 am
Visuals: Harris County Court chamber, grassroots leaders
Background
On US-290 each workday, 250,000 commuters sit in traffic. US-290 is widely-recognized as the most-congested highway in the Houston region.
In 2007, TxDOT and Harris County released draft improvement plans for the US-290 corridor. These expansion plans include constructing new managed lanes, like the IH-10 Katy managed lanes, along Hempstead Highway from IH-610 out to Cypress and beyond. The plans repeatedly claim to the public that the Hempstead project will be constructed first, to give commuters new options, before TxDOT tears up US-290. The final plans, released in April 2010, still claim that the Hempstead lanes will come first.
Also in 2007, Harris County fought TxDOT for rights to develop the Hempstead project. With SB 792, the Texas Legislature granted the County exclusive rights to Hempstead. Only Harris County can build the Hempstead Managed Lanes.
Since then, TxDOT has designed $2.4 billion of improvements to US-290, but has no budget. Beyond reconstructing the US-290/IH-610 interchange, TxDOT has no funds on hand to add capacity to US-290 anytime soon.
In contrast, the Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) is flush with cash. According to the County Auditor’s revenue estimate, HCTRA expects to collect $470 million in tolls in 2010/11 and is sitting on another $423 million in cash. HCTRA has $324 million for capital projectsbudgeted for 2010/11. They should be well-positioned to tackle the $2.2 billion Hempstead project.
Unfortunately, it looks like 290 commuters won’t get any help from HCTRA, either. HCTRA’s capital plan includes no funds for the Hempstead relief project, but will spend $125 million for the Grand Parkway, a speculative toll road that will run through mostly-vacant and environmentally-sensitive areas of far northwest Harris County.
In fact, according to the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) Harris County intends to spend $2.01 billion on Grand Parkway in the next four year, as reported in the draft 2011-2014 Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP). That’s nearly enough to complete the entire $2.2 billion Hempstead Managed Lanes project.
The County’s priorities are absurd when you consider that 384,000 people live in the US-290 corridor. In contrast, less than 15,000 live along segment E of the proposed Grand Parkway. It seems that Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and the Commissioners choose to subsidize developers of proposed new far-flung subdivisions rather than provide real mobility relief to current Harris County taxpayers. They obviously aren’t spending our money where the people are. To add insult to injury, new suburban development that follows the Grand Parkway will only make traffic worse on US-290.
The next time I hear some blowhard like Randal O’Toole yammer on about the evils of urban planning, I’d like to ask him what he’d call this. Be there and make your voice heard if you can.