Texas 288 flyover would hurt Hermann Park, group says A proposal to build a highway connector between Texas 288 and the Texas Medical Center via North MacGregor Way has drawn criticism. Among those opposed to the flyover is the Hermann Park Conservancy, which says the elevated connector would leave Hermann Park’s new trail system in the shadow of a freeway. “Horrible,” conservancy director Doreen Stoller said in summing up the proposal. Among other issues, Stoller said in a written statement, the flyover would take land from the park for non-park purposes, would increase traffic and noise pollution, would cause congestion at one of the park’s major entrances and would diminish the effect of a recent $100 million park upgrade. The $12.1 million flyover is part of a project to add toll lanes to the highway that serves as a major route between the Pearland area and downtown Houston. A 30-day public comment period on a set of transportation projects for the Houston area ended Friday. This document lays out the time frame for the comment period and lists the projects under discussion: http://blog.chron.com/newswatch/2012/06/texas-288-flyover-would-hurt-hermann-park-group-says/
Besides the obvious reasons this sounds bad, before i skipped town in 2011, those HOV/toll lanes on the new Katy Freeway seemed effectively empty. Yes, they got some traffic, especially during rush hours. Maybe it was because they had rebuilt the Katy Freeway so nicely, but for whatever reason they didn't seem like they made sense.
It's not a "freeway" so much as a "spur" and I do see both sides: right now, it's annoying and circuitous to get from the Med Center to any freeway: 288, 59, or 610 (south loop). A spur would be a helpful bypass of the 10+ mins it takes using Binz, MacGregor, Holcombe, or OST. On the flipside, it would immediately create a nasty bottleneck when it dumps all of those cars onto the gridlocked Med Center streets (presumably somewhere along MacGregor between Cambridge and Holcombe). In a sense, it's a good thing to have traffic slowly feed in from numerous routes. I use the trails frequently...and depending on where the proposed flyover/spur is, it's not a big deal. If anything, HPC is almost being hypocritical, given how the Bayou trail between Main St and Almaeda has been cut off/closed off/torn up/unusable for a solid 3 years because the work has progressed at such an unbelievably slow pace. Don't act like you hold the cyclist/jogger/walker experience sacred. One last point - I could be wrong, but I have a feeling the media and local response to "Hermann Park Flyover" is slightly out of context. Everyone thinks of Hermann Park as being the Golf Course, Zoo, Reflecting Pool, and Playground (along Fannin)...but the Park extends to Almaeda from Hermann Drive (north of Macgregor) to Holcombe. My assumption is, the Spur would not cross MacGregor into the golf course, but simply be an elevated interconnection between 288 and MacGregor somewhere in the area of Dixie Road.
Oh really? Nice of our only major newspaper to print this article at the end of the 30-day protest period. But I imagine it would not have made much of a difference. Further more, what is it with toll roads? Why can't we just add them to the collective tax pool? Have them established as interestate highways?
What an idiotic proposal, and so typically "Houston" if it is allowed. Want to ruin a neighborhood with a bunch of commercial crap? Hell yes! We don't want zoning here... zoning is for suckers! Spend a hundred million improving the jewel of the Central City? **** it! Let's put a freeway on it. No one will notice, right? Having trouble getting to the Medical Center? It's odd that I used to have to go there frequently, but always managed it despite not having a freeway over the park. For four years I lived a couple of blocks from Hermann Park and really enjoyed it. Before that, and after, I lived within biking distance of it. This would be a travesty, so I'm sure it'll happen. Houston, my hometown, won't value its history and beauty until its all covered in concrete. Then they'll wonder what went wrong. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The traffic relief is valuable. Just build the road with some unique park-like features underneath it -- like climbing walls on the concrete pillars. Paint it green, maybe, as well
Thats what I think, too. A lot of the bayou land between MacGregor and Almeda is really wasted land. Nobody uses it except for the occasional biker/hiker but there are much better trails to through. If that's all, I have no problem with extending the highway there, only if it affects the main park, which I doubt.
yeah, I think the immediate outrage needs to actually know the details before freaking out (take a deep breath Deckard).
