. It is intended to serve as an information
clearinghouse and citizen exchange across the Gulf Coast Region.
This site provides facts, maps, and analysis regarding the proposed
Grand Parkway, as well as links to additional resources and
community groups. Opinions here do not necessarily reflect the
position of any individual organization.
HOUSTON CHRONICLE ARCHIVES (relating to some of the segments of
the Grand Parkway)
Paper: Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2008_4523702
Date: Sunday, March 2, 2008
Section: B
Page: 1 MetFront
Edition: 4 STAR R.O.
GRAND PARKWAY / The latest SEGMENT is ready, but not everyone is
excited about the highway's PROGRESS / Opposition doesn't detour
the next loop
By RAD SALLEE, MIKE SNYDER
Staff
With fears of $4 gasoline and global warming looming
and with the grass roots already
in revolt against toll roads,
one might think backers of the long-delayed Grand Parkway would
be ready to give up.
But a spacious, affordable home and a good school in a safe
neighborhood still is a strong magnet, even if it comes with a
long commute. And just as strong, in Texas anyway, is the
ability of developers to build subdivisions on rice fields
quickly and get roads built to service them.
As the second segment of the parkway opens to traffic this
week - a 9-mile-long stretch connecting Interstate 10 at Mont
Belvieu to FM 1405 south of Baytown - the long fight over the
project shows no signs of abating.
Billy Burge, a
developer and president of
the Grand Parkway Association, is optimistic. Although
the parkway plan has been on the books 25 years and only 28 of
its planned 185 miles have been built, Burge said last week that
he expects to see it completed within a decade.
He discounted the opposition increasingly voiced by
local elected officials.
"Everybody wants it - not in their backyard,
but they want it," he said. "They want to control it, and they
want the revenue it generates."
Many of the 180 people who attended a Feb.
20 public forum in Fort Bend County, where
design of the parkway's Segment C
is scheduled to begin in September, would strongly
disagree.
Every candidate for public office who attended
pledged to help residents fight the segment, which
would run from the Southwest
Freeway to Texas 288,
passing near Brazos Bend State Park and bridging the Brazos
River and its wildlife-rich bottomlands.
Opponents included County Commissioner Tom
Stavinoha whose precinct includes the planned route, along with
both of his challengers in Tuesday's Republican primary and all
five Democratic candidates.
"We're saying, `Leave off on the Grand Parkway,' " Stavinoha
said.
The commissioner said he thinks the county's mobility needs
can be met by expanding existing roads.
Opposition also has emerged in the Spring area,
where the parkway's segments F2 and G
between the North and Eastex freeways
would cut through subdivisions; in Brazoria County,
where the Grand Parkway Association moved the planned route
south because of residents' concerns; and in Waller
County, where environmentalists worry about the impact
on the Katy Prairie.
Planning ahead
Burge replied with what Grand Parkway backers have been
saying for years: Growth and roads are inevitable, and it's
better to plan for them. As an example of what the parkway is
meant to avoid, the association often cites the hodgepodge of
development along Texas 6/FM 1960.
"I grew up in Houston and saw the city of Bellaire fight Loop
610 and delay it 12 or 15 years," Burge said. "And then Beltway
8 - the idea had been out there forever before (County) Judge
(Jon) Lindsay really went out and made it happen."
"My point is that because Beltway 8 was so slow in coming, it
forced 1960 to be the way you'd travel around Houston, and
that's one reason it's so tacky," Burge said.
Grass-roots opposition to the parkway may have been increased
by the 2003 decision to develop it as a toll project, said
Robin Holzer,
chairwoman of the Citizens'
Transportation Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group on
transportation issues.
Early plans for the parkway called for right of way to be
donated by landowners who expected to profit by developing
adjoining land. That tactic fizzled.
Backers then sought tax funding, and the Texas Department of
Transportation partially completed one of the 11 planned parkway
segments in 1994, an 18-mile-long, four-lane free road linking
the Katy and Southwest freeways.
For a time, TxDOT kept additional segments on the back
burner, saying other roads were more urgently needed. Since the
late 1990s, however, most of the parkway segments have been
going through the lengthy federal environmental and public
outreach process required in selecting a route.
Taking toll
The idea of financing these segments with tolls has
been caught up in the larger debate over
long-term tolling contracts between the state and
private investors.
The foremost example is the
Trans-Texas Corridor-35, which involves a proposed
50-year contract with a Spanish-led group.
Opposition to tolling also was fueled by TxDOT proposals,
since abandoned, to make toll roads out of highways already paid
for by taxpayers.
A legislative revolt against TxDOT's toll plans last
year led to a law giving local governments the first shot at
developing toll projects. Under that law, toll
authorities in Harris County and surrounding counties have the
right of first refusal to complete the Grand Parkway.
With help from the Houston-Galveston Area Council and
consultants, TxDOT and the Harris County Toll Road Authority are
determining the market value of the future
completed parkway - a value that would be used in negotiating a
contract between TxDOT and HCTRA to develop it.
If the parties cannot agree on how the project should be
developed, it cannot proceed; if they agree, but the counties
decide not to participate, TxDOT may seek private investors to
build the parkway or undertake the work itself, said Alan Clark,
chief transportation planner of the Houston-Galveston Area
Council.
Opponents, however, say most
remaining segments of the project simply should be abandoned.
New way of thinking
Rising gasoline prices
and concern about air quality and
climate change are making the
public increasingly wary of massive
highway projects serving far-flung, sparsely populated areas,
Holzer said.
"Since the Grand Parkway was first conceived on the
back of an envelope, the world has changed," Holzer said. "We
recognize that how we grow affects our quality of life."
Daryl Howsley,
a Spring resident who has been active in opposing the
parkway's Segment F-2, said the project would
divert trucks through his community, increasing noise and air
quality problems.
On the Katy Prairie, which provides
important habitat for migratory waterfowl, the parkway
and associated development would increase
flood risks by paving over areas that absorb and retain
water, said Brandt
Mannchen, a longtime leader of Houston's Sierra
Club chapter.
The federal environmental impact study (FEIS) for
this segment says the prairie's natural depressions and
artificial basins used for rice farming
may reduce flows by as much as 80
percent.
Burge is unfazed. At the grand opening Feb.
19 of the Baytown-area segment, local officials "we're
really excited," he says.
"They wanted to stay ahead of growth and to say, `Hey,
we're here to attract
economic development and we welcome you all being out
here.' "
He continued: "I think that if you do your homework and do it
right, and if the public officials will stand tall, it will come
together. There's too much future in it if these counties will
really work together.
"If they don't, we'll end up like a Los Angeles or some of
those cities that didn't pull on the same rope."
