if highway expansions worked, LA and Houston would have the best traffic in the world

Level entire neighborhoods for highways: ✅ Level ANYTHING to build fully grade-separated rapid transit: ❌❌❌

Got to love how the solution to connecting midtown to downtown is to make the east end even more disconnected from downtown. Really brilliant planning there.

So that's why they tore that down??????!!!!! I was like dang, they just built those lofts a few years back

Man that sucks about the brewery as they just got award for best for the year in Texas for 2022.

Contrary to what a lot of people are saying here, this project will NOT add any additional freeway lanes. Its simply moving existing lanes to another location.

Even if they paved the entire city, it still wouldn't be enough.

It’s a big money grab for politicians, construction companies, etc. It will not alleviate traffic. It will affect poor people the most, as projects like this have historically done.

Adding more lanes comes with six problems that are never solved, and all of them increase traffic. 1. People who previously took alternate routes will use the freeway more (wayz and google streets have "avoid highways" features for people who hate crawling). 2. People who used other modes of travel will use the freeway (transit abandonment due to lack of investment, active pedestrian transit is too dangerous). 3. People who waited to travel at off peak times (i.e. 8 PM or later) will use the freeway more at peak times. 4. People who avoided additional trips at peak hours will take more spontaneous trips at peak hours (i.e. errands or shopping). 5. People will take the expanded freeway due to future economic development around this infrastructure (i.e. offramps to new malls, perhaps new stadiums or job centers) instead of transit oriented development. 6. The places people want to go (shopping centers, sporting events, downtown, major employment centers, airports) are located on bottlenecked lower capacity surface streets. It wouldn't matter if you had a 1000 lane highway, those exits will always back up. And the 7th problem is none of this development pattern is sustainable or affordable. Houston and Dallas are drowning in debt and instead of paying it down, the government passed a tax cut. Good luck with dirt roads and open sewers in the cities, because you'll never pay your way out without raising taxes, especially when you're trying to maintain 26 lane highways with population densities lower than Detroit TODAY. As someone from Detroit, spoiler alert, when the growth stops, you'll see the same effects. Might not end as bad, but there will be the bankruptcies.

This is probably the worst idea to change the downtown freeway system. It will cause tons of confusion for drivers trying to figure out which freeway they are trying to go to. It will be a huge waste of money and screws up an up-and-coming neighborhood. The problem with the downtown Houston freeways are the choke points before and after downtown, not within downtown. If anything, a lot of connections to the freeway need to be removed to lessen the easy access to the highways at the choke points. I could go on and on for days, but my common sense solutions don't matter.

The reality of highway expansions is that traffic will not get any better. We should be investing heavy dollars into projects that restore the health of our bayous, building mass transit including commuter rail lines, and rehabilitation of our existing roads to make them safer for all uses. That's not to say that the benefits of reconnecting Central Houston neighborhoods are not important, but there are other less expensive options to connect our urban core.

$7 billion for such project? ...and some people critivize the proposed $12 billion 218 mile Brightline West corridor

This is so sad. I was about to encourage any and all locals to fight this tooth and nail but it sounds like the plan is already moving ahead (@4:23). Houston is about to swallow a massive infrastructure liability that will only serve to destroy the wealth and livelihoods created in this revitalized neighborhood. Such a shame, but its honestly par for the course in US infrastructure engineering.

"Just one more lane" they say, absolutely refusing to invest into rail infrastructure. Metrorail has been around for 20 years at this point yet is still nothing more than a novelty to bus out-of-towners between downtown, NRG, and the museum district/TMC. Additional stations & expansions to the suburbs & exurbs could help alleviate highway congestion. Between the Gulf Freeway expansion, 59/610 expansion, this, and whatever other projects TXDOT comes up with in the future, freeways will continue to be an insatiable beast that perpetually need to be widened.

I had really thought the USA had moved past Robert Moses level clearance projects... Guess not! SMH! Damn, Houston! What are you doing???

The TXDot plan is pure lunacy.

Let’s be real though that park will never come…expanding freeways don’t work..look at I-10? It’s still terrible. Unfortunately, many organizations in Houston that’s supposed to help the city get better actually support this boondoggle of a project…btw this project will take years to complete…this plan is a complete embarrassment to the city…stuff like this makes the city move backwards…This project just shows how leadership has absolutely failed Houston. It also shows how corrupt the city and state is. Also, this could be disastrous to EaDo. Who really wants to fight traffic and construction to go out at night or during the day? This project is not something a forward thinking city would do. However, I do agree with getting rid of the pierce elevated. It would be cool to have a hi line type park but we all know that won’t happen just like the proposed EaDo park. They even said it’s not a guarantee even if this horrible project gets completed…it’s projects like this that make me understand why so many people I know are leaving Houston.

My band and I have been playing warehouse live for a couple years now. Great venue, but we found out they will close in December. The thing a out the park is that there will be a ton of homeless people there as there are ALREADY a lot of homeless folk in that area

I remember when they widened the Katy Freeway to reduce traffic - except it still has the worst traffic.

Houston & The State needs to stop being so Stupid and put a damn train in the middle of the Highways. It's a crying shame there no train going to neither airport. How about a train to the Woodlands and on a hot day a train to the beach front in Galvestion. 1 train car takes 50 cars off the road. Everytime they expand highways, that bring more cars more traffic. Duh! Get rid off that stupid old HOV lane. There's hardly any cars in it anyway,

net negative

This isn't the reason I was expecting. My mouth literally dropped when you said we were discussing flattening entire blocks for highway expansion in modern day. Funny, we're always given this idea that doing similar things for increasing residential density or passenger rail are impossible.

Freeways aren't inherently bad. However, big expressways like this should be kept outside the urban core--to the outskirts of a city, where the warehousing and distribution districts are. Houston is doubling down on a flawed model

JUST ONE MORE LANE, BRO, TRUST ME BRO

That’s a lot of property tax revenue lost!

They need to simply remove the urban freeways. Spending billions to expand them and cap them is money that could be better spent building mass transit. Boston spent billions covering an urban highway but in order to do this it stupidly diverted subway funds from trains to the highway. Now it is left with really old tracks and rolling stock. Imagine if Boston removed this urban freeway and built 3 more subway lines instead. This would have removed tons of traffic from downtown while enabling even more people to get around even faster. Spending billions of dollars to destroy hundreds of homes and businesses has no possible return on investment. It's just putting all the money in a pit and burning it. Except even burning the cash would still leave you with the hundreds of tax-paying businesses that were not destroyed.

Net negative unfortunately this will reduce the city as well as the states revenue and will be a huge tax burden for decades to come for repairs. Seriously it would have been more cost efficient for them to just burn the money in a bonfire, since at least then they wouldnt have to worry about the insane maintenance costs and also loss of revenue. Since it also isnt a toll road this project will never pay for itself, not that it needs to but its insane that we say that public transit needs to be self funding.

Chinatown moved to Bellaire Blvd however I would like to see downtown Houston with a second Chinatown. Even Greenspoint has a Chinatown that's bordered by Veterans Memorial Drive and Gears road

Everything but more light rail and long over due commuter/ regional rail lines. Houston just keeps shooting itself in the foot!

FORGET THE HIGHWAY! Put that money and more at building one of the countries best intercity transit systems. Make it so you hardly need a car in Houston. That would make Houston one of my favorite cities in the country. SO MUCH CULTURE. LOVE THE PEOPLE.

This is a great summary for all those changes.

I work in Houston, it's built in a swamp. Any road way built under ground level will flood.

Houston needs a rail transit system

I lived in Houston 1969-1984. I live in the Western MA Berkshires now. Insanity to sanity. You can have Houston.

Great video. I'm curious to see how the park idea plays out. If I were in a position of making decisions, I'd stipulate that the new lanes would have to include space for a rail track.

Well done piece!

Not a single thing about this makes sense to me. Jeez. Thanks for your videos, super interesting. Thank you

I haven’t worked downtown since 1997 and had no idea all of this was happening. I hope it all works out for the people and businesses affected. 🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽

Going to be such a bummer when Neil's Bar gets torn down. That's my favorite bar in Houston

A vibrant neighborhood in Houston? Let's replace it with a fucking highway... Texas is so stuck in the 1950s.

This feels like a net-positive. Removing the Pierce Elevated will be huge for the city. For the first time in over half a century, downtown will no longer be an island. As for the i45 expansion, that definitely sucks and at a bare minimum, we should fund a cap. A park would be awesome, but enabling commercial and residential development on the cap would be even better.

Meanwhile North Carolina & Virginia DOTs are planning to expand Amtrak rail service & have a mostly NEC equivalent Rail between Richmond - Raleigh & Ridership is booming in Vrigina & North Carolina

I think the only way to stop crap like this from happening to mandate it out of existence along with offering better alternatives which in this case is ANYTHING!

If only they seperated the rail from the roads.

America is a joke unfortunately nowadays :( I have no needs tor travel again to the Usa anytime soon. You have to rent a car everywhere and all the little towns look the same. A big street with a Walmart and Target, and an abandoned old street sadly.

It will be a net negative for the city, and a huge net negative at that. The only highway expansion project that has benefited a city, ever, is Boston's Big Dig accomplished by the state DOT.

No wonder that apartment complex that was by the bayou is completely demolished

They need to tunnel it or cancelled/block the widening project. Sink and cover current highway. This widening is a overkill.

Damn I thought my home state of Florida was crazy spending 7 billion on highway expansions across the state, but they are largely in logical areas like rural highway connections between far flung exurbs and popular destinations. They arent widening highways and destroying real estate in the urban cores...

What a waste of money! I can't believe they're gonna demolish a building that's only a little over 20 years old!

I grew up in Houston before 610 was built and remember many homes were bought up to build it. From the get go many builders came into Houston and built where ever and in my opinion they screwed Houston. Especially the flooding problem as well as a vital transportation system. Very poor planning by the city it's self. The reason I say this is I do know back in the 70's and even perhaps 60's out at the University of Houston they taught forecast of growth in the southern part of the US. Also there were flooding problems back then. Due to Houston becoming a sanctuary city crime has also escalated. In growing up it saddens me to see what has happened to Houston.

This is a lot like what's happened and is still happening around downtown San Antonio. From middle class neighborhoods to more I guess hipster and artsy kinds of restaurants and homes and so on. Idk if it's a good or bad thing but it's far from the worst things I've seen here

The whole thing looks like its gonna be one big clusterf*ck!

Expanding highway is the worst idea especially when there is enough traffic already. Houston should build an above ground Train system like Chicago. This will bring in revenue and connect people without driving.

Adding more lanes cause more traffic than alleviating it. Turns out Americans forgot about the importance of high speed rail transport (more like don't know it) and all other kinds of transport. Cars will kill people more than help. The truth about cars is that no one in America like me knows how to follow the rules of the road.

Lot of good times in that area back in the in the late 90s early 2000s.

This is shameful. We need transportation initiatives that get wheels OFF of our roads. Highway expansion has been proven time and time again that it does NOT work. San Antonio, where I live continues to expand outwards, and we’re the largest city in the country without a light-rail system. We’re undergoing an immense highway expansion that will perpetuate the car dependent lifestyle and further separate our communities. It’s just a shame that things are the way that they are - TXDOT has no regard for the future or betterment of society, and they’re always thinking about the short term, and cheapest way to put a bandaid on a gaping hole in terms of transportation. What a useless govt organization that collects taxpayer money to fund projects that Americans DO NOT WANT OR SUPPORT.

Obscene. How wide will this road be? Thirty lanes???

I think it's going to be a negative for Houston.

Not happy with weather in Texas. Wait and it will change.

this is not about relieving traffic , its about making more pay roads to tax you

Tearing Down Pierce Elevated There Is Gonna Be More Traffic Its A Mistake!!!!

I hope they planned this well. Whenever I go downtown on 59 the traffic grinds to a halt with people switching lanes to get onto 45 or 288 or 59. Road switching should be a process that gives people a couple of miles to get into the right lanes without slowing down.

I want to see what the park on top would look like honestly sounds like a sick idea

I dont understand why they cant make the pierce elevated a double deck freeway.

Bury it! (I mean the highway, not the neighborhood)

This will create a bigger bottle neck that’s already present. No need for car accident. It’s exactly there where the traffic begins and it’s annoying that ppl slow down to only go back to speed after passing this section.

CONCRETE, CONCRETE, CONCRETE......AND THEY WONDER WHY WE FLOOD HERE SO BAD! DUHHHHH

This project is about to cost 1trillion dollars and take a min of 30 yrs to finish 😫. MY LORD

We don't need anymore freeway lanes. Just maintain the roads we have. That's not going to happen though.

They need to do the same thing to 288 and reconnect the 3rd Ward to Midtown and the Museum District.

"Just one more lane!"

Why don’t American cites invest in metro systems! Highway expansion in 2023 is insane!

Cant they do anything about the surface parkinglots!? I have a whole plan to rezone the city of phoenix i just dont get the poor planning!!

Did you know that all of this information has been available for years? It's in the Houston Planning Dept. The Loop, beltway 8, 288, etc. has been on the table for decades. All anyone has to do is ask. Had anyone asked they would know where to build or open a business and where to stay away. Don't blame TxDot for the business owners lack of due diligence. If you're going to put your own money in a business you better know about future freeways, you better know about current crime, you better know about possible flooding, there's so many things you need to know but most people don't bother. The words I didn't know seems to be a battle cry for business owners who don't do their due diligence and want to blame their ignorance on somebody else.

That area was depressed and now revived. Now they want to demolish it and build a bigger road that will be clogged with traffic. Every major expansion ever done has caused worse traffic than before it was built. This is a bad idea and will ruin the area.

What does removing the Pierce elevated do for anyone other than Houston centric urban planners? Waste of taxpayer money and existing infrastructure (that had been rebuilt not long ago). Robbing Peter to pay Paul. I'd much rather see the money spent on connecting metro light rail to the IAH airport (which should have been the very first section of light rail).

Get rid of the frontage roads they are just dangerous!

Please get rid of the pierce elevated freeway Over all I think it’s better to do this than not to do it, it sux but…

Well dang

JUST ONE MORE LANE I SWEAR ITLL ALL BE FIXED See yall when its done in 2042

This is partly why I’m beginning to dislike Houston. All it cares about is unsustainable growth at the expense of all else.

Cars are people too.

I'm not trying to get into a cultural/ tribal war argument but anyone that's lived in Houston in the last 50 years knows that the Pierce Elevated HAS TO BE REPLACED! The absolute worst bottleneck in Houston.

A year later... They're still there.

that area is cool but not safe

2nd Ward*

There’s a way they can add the same amount of lanes without destroying all the businesses on St Emanuel… They should keep the current 45 path, but put it underground with caps at the current Pierce Elevated right of way. They can keep the current width, 6 lanes through downtown, and just widen it as it gets closer to 69. Where they currently plan to divert 45 to 69, they should only add 4 Lane downtown bypass on the proposed 10/69 route which connects to 45 north and south of downtown.

This is BS!!

The way government and TXDOT moves, this will be completed way over budget in a decade. We probably have to vote for more bonds, otherwise it won’t ever get completed. Who ever wins these contracts and sub contracts (“wins” you know bribes city council) will only have 10 people working on this project and 7 of those 10 will likely be construction site manages that point fingers all day - having been in construction in my past life, I seen this play out. Certainly they will expand and just add expensive HOV tolls making it useless to most - much like the Katy freeway. Hey those mostly empty metro busses like it. I digress.

Look. The fact of the matter is they’re not expanding the highway system. They are making/ transitioning it into a better maintained and better traffic junction system. If you live in Houston you know how bad the I-10/45 corridor is, especially 288 and 45, and just going down through down town in general is horrible because of the random merge lanes, the junctions are messed up etc.

good lol

Oh no! Nail salons, check cashing, smoke shops, tattoo parlors, bars, and filthy restaurants gone??????

Start with, 5 th. Ward.

They should expand 59 and keep the Pierce elevated.

Build the freeways!

There's no good I'm this

I’m gonna call your BS right from the beginning of this video --> You said the Gulf Freeway was completed !?!?!?! WHEN ?! It has been a THORN in the side of anyone commuting in Houston my entire life!! (1970)