kf5nd
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Harris County Toll Road Authority Hempstead Highway Study - 2005/06/23 15:43
FROM: Me!
TO: Mike Strech, P.E.
Director
Harris County Toll Road Authority
330 Meadowfern Dr.
Houston, TX 77067
Dear Mr. Strech:
Subject: HCTRA Hempstead Highway Feasibility Study
I have heard that HCTRA is going to undertake a feasibility study
concerning conversion of Hempstead Highway into a Toll Road / HOV
lane. I have comments concerning this concept.
1. Access to the West Little York METRO Park & Ride. Currently, the
north end of Hempstead Highway at Brittmoore Rd. is the fastest way
for any vehicle to get from FM529 to the West Little York Park & Ride
(FM529 > Golden Gate Dr. > Port Northwest Dr. > Brittmoore Rd. >
Hempstead Highway). I encourage your study group to look at ways to
improve this connection, and not simply divert Park & Ride users
coming from the west on FM529 onto West Little York Rd. itself in
order to access the Park & Ride. West Little York is narrow, crowded,
and slow compared to FM529, and it is not at all safe for bicycles,
whereas FM529 is, it has specifically marked bike lanes, and they are
good (I use them to get to work). If the FM529 to West Little York
Park & Ride connectivity (such as it is) is eliminated, there will be
no way for bicycles to access this METRO Park and Ride, and we will be
going backwards in terms of encouraging people to leave their cars at
home and ride their bikes to take public transit.
2. Bicycle Access to I-610 Loop Generally from the Northwest.
Hempstead Highway is used by bicyclists to get inside the I-610 Loop.
This very month, June 2005, I used Hempstead Highway to get to and
from Jury Duty in Downtown Houston. Teri Kaplan, The TxDOT Bicycle &
Pedestrian Coordinator, told me (telephone conversation) that she sees
bicycles pass by her office on Washington; I will bet that many of
them came from Hempstead Highway. If Hempstead Highway is converted
to only Toll & HOV, and bicycles are banned, then an important bicycle
corridor will be lost.
3. Social Justice. Hempstead Highway goes through a heavily Hispanic,
low-income area, where people are often too poor to afford a private
automobile. Many times during my commutes, I often see Hispanic
workers traveling via bicycle along this corridor. If bicycle travel
along this corridor were curtailed, that would be a travesty of social
justice. In effect, the mobility of low-income local residents would
be compromised in order to facilitate affluent suburbanites' car
commutes. I happen to be an affluent suburbanite, and that very idea
is repellent to me; how is that "loving thy neighbor as thyself?"
4. Recreation. One of the refrains we hear over and over again in the
County is that residents are crying out for "Quality of Life". Well,
Hempstead Rd. to the northwest of Hegar Rd. is used extensively by
bicyclists on the weekends. The Northwest Cycling Club turns out a
couple of hundred riders every week who ride from Zube Park or the
Hockley Community Center, and they ride on Hempstead Rd. from Hegar
Rd. as far out as Hempstead in Waller County and back again. What a
great, zero-expenditure way to enhance "QOL" in the northwest corner
of Harris County, by just doing nothing and leaving well enough alone.
I hope that your study group will give these comments due
consideration. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.
Sincerely Yours,
Me!
Cc:
Steve Radack, Pct. 3
Jerry Eversole, Pct. 4
Scott Barker, METRO
Advisory Board, BikeHouston
Northwest Cycling Club e-mail distribution list
Dan Raine, H-GAC
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ritz
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Harris County Toll Road Authority Hempstead Highway Study - 2005/06/24 18:48
Nice! Hope it does something. Ritz
WWW.TOURDEPANTS.COM
Visit my blog at:
http://www.tourdepants.com |
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kf5nd
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Analysis of bike / pedestrian concept, Hempstead Highway - 2005/10/05 17:03
Cross-posted at:
www.ctchouston.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=517#517
There is a proposed "hike & bike" path for the Hempstead Tollway. It is 15' in width, nestled in-between a high-capacity transit corridor and the automotive lanes of the tollway.
I think it is highly significant that this path showed up on a document that came out of HCTRA, and they should be congratulated for taking this step.
However, this concept raises more questions than it answers:
1. The path would run from Beltway 8 to I-610, but there is no mention made of any connection to the FM 529 bike lane which is about 0.85 miles beyond the Beltway. The FM 529 bike lane is a unique facility that may eventually go out as far as Grand Parkway, and it would be valuable for people living in the Copperfield area to be able to get to the Hempstead path without taking the tortuous and risky route that currently has to be followed
2. The Hempstead path has to terminate correctly near I-610. North Post Oak (NPO) comes to mind, but NPO is not in the City of Houston bikeway system north of Westview
3. The rebuild of I-610 needs to preserve the West 12th Street bicycle underpass, which is a vital link between the east to west sides of I-610
4. The proposed path is isolated from vehicular traffic. This has advantages and disadvantages. The sole advantage is that a car-weary cyclist can hit the segregated Hempstead path and take a temporary breather from the mind-numbing task of literally watching his or her back. However, the disadvantages are numerous:
a. Bike-bike and bike-ped crashes occur on these kinds of paths, and they can cause injury and even death. It is no laughing matter when two cyclists collide head-on and each one is going 15 MPH. Would you ride 30 MPH into a brick wall on a bicycle? A helmet won't save you, your neck will snap, you will get a severe brain injury. I would rather be side-swiped by a car than suffer a head-on with another cyclist. It is serious when an old person with osteoporosis or a small child is hit by a 15 MPH cyclist. Few cyclists use lights in the dark, in violation of the law, therefore a path would have to be lit to prevent crashes
b. Another problem of a segregated path is getting to it. If you desire to start or end your trip at a mid-block destination somewhere along Hempstead Highway, you will have to ride in full-speed traffic lanes (or walk in the grass if you are walking) without any benefit of bike lanes until you get to a major intersection where you can enter the hike & bike path
c. There may not be any traffic signal controls exactly where the segregated bike paths cross a street. So then cyclists could be exposed to severe dangers at uncontrolled crossings in a high-traffic rush-hour scenario, especially during typical dark dusk-dawn commute times. Also, cars do not expect bicycles to shoot out in front of them mid-block, away from traffic signals (this can be mitigated by putting a stop light at the crossing points, so that the cyclist could press a button and light up an on-demand warning signal). The cyclist in a designated bike lane is, of course, protected by the regular traffic light
d. A criminal is not going to attack someone who is riding a bike in a designated bike lane which is part of the regular street with dozens of cars streaming by per minute. That would be madness, a Texan Good Samaritan would intervene. But, he might be tempted to lie in wait for a victim on a segregated hike & bike trail, especially if it is unlit and beyond easy view of the main traffic lanes. Hempstead Highway goes through some high-crime areas, therefore security is a serious concern for walkers and cyclists
So the decision to use a segregated path or designated bike lanes (which need to be 5' in width, on both sides of the ROW) needs to be made after the needs of potential users are considered:
a. if users have no origins or stops along Hempstead Highway, and only want to use it as a means to get somewhere else, then a segregated path might be OK, if a serious committment is made to spend the money to put in technology to allow safe street crossing and lighting to prevent crashes in the dark and criminal activity
b. if Hempstead Highway becomes a route that is rich in destinations and origins (will apartments, retail, schools, and churches spring up alongside it?) then that scenario points to designated 5' wide bike lanes. How well do the government agencies understand the possible Hempstead Highway development scenarios? That's a key question
5. Who will build it? Mr. Peter Key, Deputy Director of HCTRA, volunteered in the public meeting that no agency has stepped up to the plate to build this path. I have letters in my file from HCTRA that say that bike-ped facilities are out of their mission scope, and they won't build them. So, why did they put the path in the plan? Does this path represent a shift in HCTRA policy? Or will they allow TxDOT, Harris County Parks, or the City of Houston to build this path in HCTRA ROW? Can Federal transportation enhancement funds for bike-ped facilities be used in a HCTRA project where an EIS has not been written?
These questions concerning how the agencies will work together need to be answered, and sooner rather than later for the hike & bike trail, because as momentum builds for the other 99% of the project (the tolled lanes), there is a risk that the proverbial "train will leave the station" without the hike & bike facility, and in 2013 there will be an empty slot where the path should've gone. It would be a real shame, highly embarrassing, and a loss to taxpayers if this bike-ped facility is put at risk due to turf and politics.
_________________
Sincerely,
Peter Wang
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