Starting this year, Houston freeways will look a lot different
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- When it comes to traffic, 2020 will literally be a year of ups and downs, from flyovers to underground freeways. Watch above to see what we mean.
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It's a basic fact that every town planner knows; more roads means more traffic, more public transport means less traffic
bUt PuBlIc TrAnSpOrT mEaNs SoCiAlIsM
@@francisrogers9824 It's just that it is really costly to build public transport when factoring the distance that said public transport needs to cover. Europe is entirely different since they are living really close to each other (I live in western Europe, so I know how the Europe public transport works). You can't compare US suburbia (where most people live in big cities) to European suburbia. Many people in the EU live within 5-10 miles of the city. This is not the case in the US, and definitely not Texas. A monorail within the inner loop already would cost a lot of money and to win that money back would mean either higher taxes, or a ticket price wich would be unaffordable.
Now from what I know, Americans don't like taxes being raised. I live in The Netherlands and we pay lots and lots of taxes (which do not only go to public transport, but that's besides the point). I think Texas would have got to get rid of the "no state income tax" rule in order to afford public transport in the suburban citities as well (because that is where the traffic comes from).
I am however excited in how Texas/Houston will combat this issue because the state is massively growing in population. I don't think that only adding more freeways are the problem though.
@@ScatPack123 People are starting to grow more fond of walkable streets and efficient public transportation. The cost of a vehicle surpasses the cost of the infrastructure of maintaining a vehicle
Public transit always go slower than cars
@@ScatPack123 and you mean to tell me the current 26 lane clusterfuck is cheaper than 2 or 4 railroad tracks would be?
The US failure to invest in a decent rail infrastructure will make commuting unbearable as city populations grow.
This disgust me how these people can spend billions for the car but not for humans, trains, trams, buses, are for the human.
Urban planners: You know, we messed up in America by centering the attention of our city planning on the car. It created city sprawl and highways cut neighborhoods and cities in half and.....
Houston interrupts: MOAR HIGHWAYS AND ROADS!!! (Also doesn't mention public transportation once...)
5:12 False. People don't want to drive. They're forced to drive because we've made so hard to walk, bike, or ride public transit from A to B.
I know! It's as ridiculous as saying everyone loves hoovering and your proof being that everyone owns a vacuum cleaner
Everybody loves toilet paper! Just look at how everybody has toilet paper at their homes!
Sadly, Houston still hasn't learned their lesson on urban sprawl
The Interstate Freeway expansion will destroy:
*4 religious buildings*
*2 schools*
*168 homes*
*1067 multi-family units*
*and 331 businesses that employ 25k people*
This isnt the katy freeway but I understand what you mean
This is what NOT learning from the LA area's mistakes looks like. Houston needs to start building high-capacity, high-frequency rail and or metro NOW. Cities in Australia half the size of Houston are doing a far better job. Texan governments obviously don't believe in the proven theory of "induced demand" when it comes to highways.
I will come up with a solution that would fit Texas better (induced demand is addressed:
-Legalize motorcycle lane splitting
-Introduce tax credits (on federal taxes, of course :-)) for motorcycle and future transit use. TAX THE S**T out of SUVs and Trucks inside metro limits
-Invest in adaptive lane configuration near bottlenecks (rarely applicable given ridiculously wide texas freeways
-Don’t spend a DIME on widening projects, or for new freeways for that matter, (except maybe finishing grand pkwy).
-If congestion returns, invest what you saved into mass transit buildout into suburbs. Within 610 (preferably Beltway 8) NON NEGOTIABLE.
Given the size of the Houston’s freeway network, the existence of congestion in Houston is unacceptable. Follow the lead of Phnom Penh or Saigon, (both of which have unremarkable traffic on TERRIBLE infrastructure, and would LOVE to use the money Houston is gobbling up on ineffective solutions to build infrastructure which will actually be used, or toss the money in a bottle in the ocean.
@@mobilityproject3485 Really like your answer! I do have some questions tho.
Point two: You are saying that you should tax the sh** out of SUV's and Trucks. This really goes against the principle of freedom and choice. If implemented in Texas, a lot of people will lose faith in the freedom that Texas offers and I don't think it'll be good for the future of Texas (I don't agree with your point either).
Your last point: You say: invest your surplus into mass transit buildout into suburbs. It would cost 10's/100's of billions of dollars to build public transport in the suburbs (if you are talking about trains/trams/monorails). You could invest it in busses that would go from suburb to downtown, but this is highly ineffective since not a lot of people in suburbs want to go in busses (forgot the study, but there was one), and trains are super expensive. I'm super interested in how you are planning to pay for it without increasing taxes (because using excess from not widening highways is just not going to do it).
Sorry for my English, I'm European so there could be a few mistakes.
@@ScatPack123 Commuter rail can run on existing train tracks. BRT, perhaps on (temporarily?) less trafficked lanes or unused highway space could work for suburb to suburb in the interim.
Thanks for the question.
@@mobilityproject3485 no problem and thanks for the answer! Hadnt thought about that, but then youll still have the problem of new(er) suburbs which dont have these railways
@@ScatPack123 Park and ride, bicycle paths, or busses (not that many use them) are about what they got.
I lived in Houston for 38 years. Now I live in a place that doesn't require a car and I don't own a car. Life hasn't been so good without wasting my life in a car.
where do you live
@@uzin0s256 Paris.
@@SurpriseMeJT nice. congrats on escaping
What is Texas' fascination with highways?! Try rail or bus rapid transit.
To spread out to work
The second half of the video was all about brt.
I like driving
@@xkjjx I like driving too... But why not have multiple ways to get around?
They're too dependent on a car centric environment for the economy. Laws incentivize sprawl and building highways. Houston will go on like this until it fails. There is no solution because they're simply in too deep.
Its already impressive, how the freeway infrastructure in Houston is, adding more freeways in the city is going to deteriorate that image. Why don't the Texas governments don't even talk about light rail/ metros?
Karthik Gupta they have a light rail
@@me-it9jn its short, we need it paired up with atleast Beltway 8
The state is chronically afraid of giving money, god knows that’s why most new freeways in the state are tollways
People in chevys will never ride it. It’s cheaper to ride public transit than to save that money you’d spend on a ghetto loft kit and deep dish rims, but these folks will always hammer their toes to prove a point.
@@TheOzzyMartin1 also, there’s a good video about why you need several “Eztag/carpass” all over the us. Basically they’re funding new freeway infrastructure because the price of building has gone up, maintenance has gone up and people won’t pay more in fuel tax.
Add the electric cars to the equation and boom. Tolls everywhere.
3:05 Is there a city here? Or just concrete?
Can’t wait for this project to be a brand new lesson in Induced Demand!
Induced demands also rips off public transport sometimes.
Bigger problem is car dependancy. Redo the suburbs as actual cities, you will find current freeways are enough or only a few micro management stuff is needed
Have none of these people ever heard of a train?
welcome to shitxas
The city needs to focus more on dealing with flooding issues. Put the money there!!!! Priorities first!!!!
Stop moving into flood areas
@@cavitycreep There would be less flooding if we would reduce carbon emissions. And people move where there are jobs.
Trust me my mom was brave enough to save our drowning cat in the middle of Harvey when the bayou’s looked like rivers
Well I'm sure this additional massive slab of impermeable concrete is bound to improve the situation, don't you think?
I haven't noticed where more highway equals less traffic, maybe the opposite if anything.
Its a phenomenon called induced growth.
its a double edged sword. the city wants to encourage growth and expanding transit would do as much. but also expanding roads in particular only keep the traffic levels the same in most instances. however i think the downtown elevated portion of 45 absolutely needed to be replaced. two to three lanes of freeway through the heart of the city is an embarrassment.
Vox recently made a video about how expanding highways increase traffic.
Induced demand is the phenomenon. There's a better way, America! End the car-dependency!
@@vrettos99 any motorways through a city are an embarrassment - urban motorways should not exist
Houston needs more rail lines like they have here in Dallas Fort Worth. End of story
That would be a start but the problem with Dallas/Fort Worth rail lines is that most people don't use it and it does not get you to where you need to get to
@@JAG214 Well Something is working up here in DFW, because Houston traffic is way worse. There are actually more people up here when looking at metro area.
if you make everything sprawl, public transportations don't work.
you need compact and dense zones to make public transports work.
if you stop people having homes too big for them, cars too big for them, then you could make healthy compact and dense centers and low traffic.
better for the environment, etc, better air, lower commute stress, etc.
The zoning laws make car dependant sprawl, not to mention how it ironicly FAILS to be car centric (stroads, too many exits on freeways)
TXDot really has some brain dead “city planners”. Why tf would the solution to congestion be to smash two highways together? If you want less congestion why not spread the traffic around? Now instead of some people going to one highway and the others going to a different one, you have all those people trying to get onto one “superhighway” using the same roads to get there. Or, you know…you could give people different options other than driving.
INVEST IN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION!!!!!!!!!
We need a train
Underground interstates is a bad idea. Flooding is an issue
Houston needs a significant rail system
we need bike trails to encourage nearby businesses and lessen traffic
Not everyone can or wants to ride a bike, if you want to reduce traffic, you should also consider creating/expanding/improving bus/subway networks
Should have built metro rail in 1985
LOL Houston transit/highway system is the worst. Whoever is in charge need to be fired ASAP.
Coming from The Netherlands, a country where the car is secondary to walking, cycling and public transportation, this looks absolutely horrendous. Even our busiest highways (around Amsterdam) don't look like this. Way too many lanes destroying the downtown area.
The Netherlands is tiny and dense. Texas is huge and sparsely populated, like many other places in the US. You can't compare the two.
Netherland was built before cars were invented and thus was not designed with them in mind. I’m not saying that’s bad, but at the same time, you can’t criticize American highways too.
it takes 1-1.5 hours to drive houston end to end from any direction. its a necessity at this point. just a different style of city planning
@@vrettos99 A worse style of city planning.
@@vrettos99 If that's the case, then they need to have good rail connections and walkable neighbourhoods with access to necessities within walking distance ASAP. If buying milk can't be done in a city on foot and getting back to your house within 15 minutes then that is a problem.
As it is, the population density is unsustainably low, but it's going to be so hard to undo the suburban sprawl.
Who's laundering money off of this cuz this s*** don't make no sense. We need Rails!!
Rails are expensive too. Besides people will always prefer traveling in a car.
We need rails, U.S. in general lacks compared to the rest of developed nations
@@randomname1579 unfortunately Americans and especially Texans love their cars. Alternative transportation is needed otherwise the city will become another L.A. with absolutely unbearable traffic 12 hours a day. At least L.A. is building more rail and alt transportation systems.
Our rival city up north already has this, also has city to city to suburb rail. We're the bigger city, why do I feel like we're playing catch up?
@Tr3y5 BigTone I thought it was a 600k difference in population. No matter, that being said, smaller cities and metros have much better public transit than the 4th biggest city in the country. Houston is far behind when it comes to it's infrastructure. Hopefully it's rectified sooner rather than later.
@Plus Ultra Gang wait Dallas is finishing it’s 2 railway, honestly really cool. I hope Texas continues to add rails like it is. Hopefully the bullet train from Dallas to Houston actually works (unlike California’s) and become real. Being able to travel between the 2 within 90 minutes is a game changer honestly...👍🏻🇺🇸
@手ぇ 愚 ゃあ The guy that Beatup Superman No it doesnt tf you get them numbers smmfh. The current metro area population of Dallas-Fort Worth in 2021 is 6,397,000. The current metro area population of Houston in 2021 is 6,491,000.
@手ぇ 愚 ゃあ The guy that Beatup Superman Not according to the numbers dfw is 2 cities houston is one so gtfoh!
@Plus Ultra Gang no it doesnt
I love these videos. They demonstrate how traffic problems are not caused by pedestrians or cyclists because there aren't any around. Bus-only lanes highlights this point too.
Holy sh... that looks like infrastructure for a city of 20 million, not 2 million. How is it so inefficient?
Just suppress the current 45 downtown route. Boom....
Who cares if it is cheaper than light rail 🚈 doesn’t mean it is better. NewYork City has it and they are bigger in population than this. It’s obvious the CEO of metro is gaining financialy from all these oil and gas companies that benifet of bigger parking lots and bigger roads.
I am convinced our city planners have never heard of a sidewalk
In Back to the Future 2 when they go into the Future Doc says "where we're going we don't need roads''
If you want to solve traffic problems, give people an alternative so they can choose for themselves how to travel.
Houston has already restructured their bus service to provide a connected grid. Next they need a single, continuous, high quality bike network. That's the cheapest alternative of all, and gives people a way to avoid traffic for local trips.
I the high ramps are an eyesore .... most cities do not do that at every interchange
Trains!
More deaths coming freeways going underground in a Flood Plain. Craziest ideas ever .
The world's slowest construction crews dwell in Houston. They work bankers hours, smmfh!
gotta keep the "immigraints" working!!
Lol
Until Metro gets serious about building an innovative high speed heavy rail system the traffic in Houston is just going to get worse. Every presentation I see for them is about buses, buses, buses !!!! There is no imagination at Metro, no innovation, no ingenuity, no real solutions. They can't even build what people voted for and approved (University rail line). They just do whatever they want and the people in the Houston area suffer without any real solutions. Dallas rail system puts Houston's to shame and Metro should be embarrassed. Other major cities around the country have figured out how to put in effective high speed rail systems, but not here. It's just not going to happen so get use to sitting in traffic and on a Metro Rapid bus that competes with traffic at street level. It's pretty sad. So glad Tom Lambert has retired. He was one of the biggest deterrents to getting a real rail system in Houston. Hopefully some fresh faces will take over Metro and get some REAL progress started.
Rail from Houston to Galveston area and Woodlands.
This is all pretty insane
5:20 WRONG. Everyone HAS TO DRIVE. Regardless if they want to or not
My left ear enjoyed this video
That will all be under water in a flood situation.. what a mess!
txdot and the state have put a lot of effort in fixing bad zoning laws in houston specifically and this project will be no different. its part of the reason for the high price tag. (outside of buying land, businesses, and homes from the people that would be displaced by the realignment) building the freeway in comparison would be cheaper per mile than the flood prevention methods that would be employed throughout the project. I understand the gripe as history has shown us the flaws in our city planning. However, you cannot ignore the billions of dollars the city has spent so far since Harvey to remedy that situation (even if the results are marginal at this point in time due to the size of the city and just how many places in houston need 10+ projects per 10 square miles to make a significant impact)
tldr: houston sucked at city planning since the 1950s but as of 2017 the city has done way too much in that time span to fix decades of issues and ignoring that accomplishment would just make innovation, progress, and improvement happen that much slower.
@@vrettos99 I totally agree.
Wow a underground freeways
what a mess, meanwhile china has invested in intercity metro, innercity metro lines, you would be astonished how modern, clean and reliable their underground metro system serves the people. european cities have multiple lines for pedestrians, cycling lanes for all ages, yes kids go bythemselves to school and other activities, bus lanes, underground metros everywhere so you do not depend on a car and are faster than driving, just research here on youtube.
Watching from Atlanta, GA.
Never thinking about flooding... yeah...
In the end the Rt. 45 rerouting will cost as much as Boston's Big Dig but instead of making real estate more valuable it will blight whole neighborhoods of property making the area a no-go slum. And the park? Since Texas DOT says the funding "will have to come from somewhere else", meaning "Don't expect us to pay to mitigate the damage we do", the park will never get built.
amd you still complaim, I wish we had amy of these im my beloved Caracas.
You would have the worst traffic on the planet if Caracas was 50% highways....
@@dungeonbeast1087 if they bought big cars and SUVs to gobble up all the road space with impunity.
below ground? What are you thinking TXDOT. I forsee a lawsuit when it floods, vehicles submerged with people drowning in them...
Can't she them for that. It's on they dumbass gonna drive on it knowing it is flooded
This is a $7 Billion project to re-work the downtown interchanges and build the interstates not to cross. It’s a great concept and in 2040, what are they going to do? To make traffic matters worse, once I-69 is fully built, freight traffic will greatly increase along the entire corridor. If only trucks were required to bypass downtown via Loop 8 or 99.
Also, the highways shouldn't be built in the first place. Instead, they could spend the money on pedestrianizing neighborhoods and a bus tram, even a metro system.
Sadly, Houston still hasn't learned their lesson on urban sprawl
This Katy Freeway expansion will destroy:
*4 religious buildings*
*2 schools*
*168 homes*
*1067 multi-family units*
*and 331 business that employ 25k people*
@@ChaineticsYT bruh momrnt
@@stoplightgaming2302 the "city" is just a massive suburb within exurbs
@@ChaineticsYT true
What is going on in this office that they cant carve out a tiny studio space where you dont just see random office workers trying to do their job? Awkward for the person with no privacy at work and awkward for the viewer.
Maybe build a freeway that they can do broadcasts from?
Sadly, Houston still hasn't learned their lesson on urban sprawl
This Katy Freeway expansion will destroy:
*4 religious buildings*
*2 schools*
*168 homes*
*1067 multi-family units*
*and 331 business that employ 25k people*
@@jwelda1 yeah make sure its 20 lanes each way
its so wide whyyyyyyyyyyyy
To let more cars drive? What’s wrong?
Well everything is bigger in Texas
@@xkjjx Typically adding more lanes doesn't always result in a direct decrease of traffic and it means more money per lane and the more space the bridge supports will have to displace.
@@xkjjx law of induced demand. Increasing roadway capacity encourages more people to drive thus increasing traffic. The Katy Freeway widening project promised to solve traffic and finished in 2011. Ever since, traffic thru the Katy Freeway has just increased ever since and now TXDOT is proposing this monstrosity which will just make traffic even worse.
@@xkjjx The Katy Freeway was expanded from 6 to 26 lanes in 5 years, but by the end, it was just as congested as before, and in 2019, was worse than 2005, before the project started.
The Brt is actually a good idea
NO BUSES!
As you get closer to downtown traffic will inevitably slow down as traffic is poured onto the small downtown streets. So while most will be faster downtown will not really
Stack them, simple solution.
traffic would flow smoother is they enforce lane discipline.
4:46 Talk about losing the plot. Unreal. There is a better way to move people around.
future project: 26+26 lanes haha
camera focused wrong lol.
The new IH-610 and US-59/IH-69 gonna be lookin nice once it's finished and wow a underground highway in Houston TX just wow
It won't look nice, do you choose walkability and walkable neighborhoods or big freeways cutting through neighborhoods and stores surrounding by parking lot oceans
The freeway cap is nice, but the expanded freeway underneath will be around a quarter-mile wide. That's way too wide, it should be capped without widening.
*Trains have been kicked from the chat*
If you build it they will come.
LIGHT RAIL
what why !!!!
Learn from Dallas they got better transit system like ,lihgt rail ,city bus,street bus....
I have several plans to save American mega cities from traffic congestion.
If US government interested in, contact me.
Yes the us government is going to contact you via youtube
Texas Big Dig?
More fucking tollways
I-45 & I-10: Just make it twice as Big as the Katy Freeway and make it a fly-over the park, that would give that park some shade from this summer heat...traffic problem solved and a shady park. Have a nice day 😊
It’s beautiful
HIGHWAY INTERSTATE
Is still the same thing
So many people moving to Houston, mostly from NY and CA.
More lanes less traffic
Nope, other way around
katy freeway congestion: am i a joke to you?