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Regional Transportation Plan - Meeting and Impact Summary |
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Written by groovygirl
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Wednesday, 28 April 2004 |
On April 27th, BikeHouston board members and advisors attended the Houston-Galveston Area Council (HGAC, a regional transportation planning organization) meeting concerning the Houston Regional Transportation Plan 2025. The transportation plan sets out a vision, goals and budgets for the Houston region up to 2025. The For more information go to www.h-gac.com and follow the links to the 2025 Regional Transportation Plan.
The following summarizes what was explained about the plan the comments expressed by many about the plan at the meeting.
The room was packed with people (approx. 150) and representatives from many council members' offices. HGAC spoke first and shared its vision for transportation and mobility in Houston by 2025. The plan roughly lays out a budget and framework for 73% more roadways in Houston, 20% more mass transit in some form or another, and about 1% for pedestrian and cycling facilities (these numbers are very rough, so please go to HGAC's website for real numbers). Other speakers were given the floor to express thoughts on health, flooding and environmental impacts of the plan, results of random citizen surveys about transportation, etc. After about 30 minutes, the floor was then opened to public comment by people who had signed up to speak. This process went on for about 1.5 hours.
Speaker after speaker got up to express clear concern with the plans being put out for vote on May 25th with public comment ending May 4th. Many of the people who spoke were urban planners, heads of citizens' coalitions, super neighborhoods, engineers, attorneys, mothers, etc. There are public concerns about the following:
- Plans for 3 million people entering Houston by 2025, but people contend that many of these are low-income people who will not be moving to the suburbs but will remain in the city; many have no cars. Plan lacks vision for inner city employment and transportation and focuses mainly on suburban development.
- Health of neighborhoods along freeways, health of people stuck in cars for hours (air quality, etc.). Pollution mitigation along these expanded roadways.
- Road-centric plan does not account for the possible rise of gasoline costs and dwindling supply of oil by that time and people's options for taking mass transit as an alternative. Do not want to become another Los Angeles.
- Acreage being swallowed up by highways. Big part of the budget is for Grand Parkway, which will condemn many houses and farms along the ROW. Many small towns very against the road. Many major roads and highways will be going through important city and state parks, ecological, and scenic areas - the plan has no protections for greenspace inside or around the city.
- Plan lacks vision for bringing all of the traffic in the from the suburbs and dumping them inside the loop; "road to nowhere". Plan assumes little population growth inside the beltway, but converts many inner city streets into "express roads" to allow for suburban commuters to get to downtown.
- Added flooding and runoff pollution from increased highway concrete.
- Plan lacks integrated urban planning with developers - smart growth and transportation planning.
- Lack of real public input into the plan (members actually on the Transportation Policy Committee have provided comments and design comments that appear to be largely ignored). Many people asked to extend the period of review for the plan and extend the vote for approval into the summer months. People wanted to know what happens to comments and alternative ideas once they are received.
- Some people asked for a referendum like METRO had to obtain for approval of its plan. People expressed concern that $70B price tag has no public vote at all required for such a large amount of public $.
- Lack of planning for safe pedestrian and cycling, safe routes to schools. Cycling accommodations largely off-road with connectivity issues lacking. Connectivity of entire system and planning for people to get to destinations and recognition of population using this mode as a sole source for transportation in urban neighborhoods.
- Main Street corridor to be made into an express lane into downtown - citizens coalition very opposed to this "improvement". The road has already been torn up once and there are plans to do this yet again in the next 2 or 3 years for a project that is not wanted in a historic neighborhood. Many other similar examples given.
- Timing of lights in areas through Memorial and other neighborhoods - speeding from commuters.
- NAFTA Hwy 69 coming straight through the middle of Houston and its effects on traffic.
- Tollways being planned without public insight into actual plans (blanket vote for $$ to build, but no impacts and locations). Talk of tollway through Memorial Park and West University along existing railway line.
- Plan lacks incentives for people to get out of their cars.
- Citizens component to Blueprint Houston committee goals and HGAC goals are flipped with environmental and quality of life issues at the bottom of HGAC's list and traffic mitigation at the top.
This is just a short list of the many issues being raised about the plan. There were so many good speakers who raised a lot of interesting points that can't be captured here. BikeHouston hopes HGAC was listening.
Please take a moment to review the plans for YOUR neighborhood and provide comments. This plan will be set into motion and very hard to change once approved. The more comments HGAC receives, the better. Comments can be completed and submitted online here.
Christina Case, BikeHouston ChairYou can read about the meeting in this West University Examiner article |
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