TxDOT Ditches Proposal for Pierce Elevated Park

Tory Gattis breaks the news that a proposal for the Pierce Elevated Park as part of a plan to redevelop the I-45 North in Houston.

Gattis shares his take on the developments in the proposed plan:

"The headliner for most people is that they’re intent on selling the land under the Pierce Elevated to fund other right-of-way purchases, so that disappointingly kills the idea of a Pierce Elevated Park (concepts here and here).  I’m also disappointed they’re declining to connect Midtown and Memorial to the new downtown connector (or 59, in Midtown’s case), which I think is a big mistake (although they are adding one for Allen Parkway, thank goodness).  They’re also still not considering connecting up the managed lanes through downtown to create a more comprehensive network – instead they just terminate downtown the same as they always have.  The only benefit left I’m really excited about is fixing the inbound 59S bottleneck at Spur 527 and the elevated, and that could be done without doing the whole project."

Craig Hlavaty followed up on Gattis's blog coverage with more details about the end of the proposal to build the elevated park. The article includes a slideshow of Houston's big, never-built projects.