24 lanes urged for Katy Freeway

Faced with the prospect of waiting years for the state to ease traffic congestion on the west side, Harris County officials are pushing a plan to turn the Katy Freeway into a mega 24-lane roadway with a toll road down the middle. The plan has been talked about for years, County Judge Robert Eckels said Thursday. But the county is now ready to gauge the Texas Department of Transportation's interest in joining the Harris County Toll Road Authority to finish the entire project by 2006 -- years before the current $1 billion Katy Freeway expansion would be complete. The plan is still a murky concept with a myriad of factors to address. But, on Tuesday, Commissioners Court gave toll road officials the green light to start talks with the state.

"This is an important project," Eckels said. "I'm not going to say it's going to solve forever the congestion problems on the west side, but it will make a big dent in the problem today and give us time to work on additional development strategies." Some of those strategies, said Eckels, might include a rail line. But first, he added, the freeway problems must be tackled because they cause safety hazards and disrupt businesses. The Katy, considered one of the most congested stretches of freeway in the state, costs commuters, residents and businesses an estimated $85 million a year because of traffic delays, Eckels said.

On large portions of the Katy Freeway, there are three general use lanes going each direction, one reversible high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lane in the middle, and two frontage lanes on each side of the freeway. The Transportation Department's current expansion project will reach from the West Loop to Texas 6. It's expected to start in 2003 and take 10 years to complete. It calls for four general use lanes in each direction, one barrier-separated HOV with lanes going in each direction and two diamond lanes. The frontage roads would increase from two to three lanes.

The plan formulated by the Toll Road Authority, which would extend about the same distance, calls for five general use lanes in each direction, two diamond lanes, four frontage lanes on each side and four toll lanes in the middle, two going each direction. Toll Road Authority Executive Director Bernard Koudelka said the plan for now doesn't include any barrier-separated HOV lanes.

"This is just a preliminary proposal," he said. "With this, we're just trying to open the doors to discussions. We'd be open to any suggestions. We haven't finalized anything." There has been no financing plan worked out, no hard examination of what would be involved in acquiring land and no discussion of the roles each agency would take, Koudelka said. In addition, officials will need to get federal approval to put toll roads on the Katy Freeway.

County officials have had positive preliminary meetings with the Transportation Department, Koudelka said. But, he added, a timetable for putting together a deal is unclear. "We think we can work out agreements and do our studies and everybody can come to some understanding to finalize an agreement, probably by the end of the year," he said. Eckels said the cost of the project would probably still be around $1 billion.

Eckels said the authority would be solely responsible for building the toll lanes. That would give the state Transportation Department the flexibility to expand and focus on other areas. County officials hope the authority's involvement will get the entire project started and finished sooner because the authority has a reputation of bringing in road projects quickly and under budget. As a general rule, they said, roads that produce revenue are always built faster. When the state builds a road, Eckels said, delays happen because money is spent at a slower pace so the Transportation Department doesn't run out of funding.

There are other factors Eckels said could drive the deal -- the authority can bring its own financing to the table by issuing bonds and it has already worked well with the state on other projects, like co-ownership of the Sam Houston Tollway and connections to the Hardy Toll Road and Beltway 8. Koudelka and county officials also pointed out that the authority can generally move faster on dealing with utilities and acquiring right-of-way than the state can. If the project is completed ahead of schedule, Eckels said, that could save an estimated $65 million, not to mention how much money it would save commuters and businesses.

Eckels said he's already talked to community leaders and others about it and will schedule several town hall meetings to discuss the plan. He expects resistance from environmentalists. Transportation Department spokesman Norm Wigington said the Texas Transportation Commission will consider an item April 26 similar to what the court approved. It would authorize local transportation officials to discuss the plan with the county. Wigington said any change in the plan would not widen the "footprint" for the freeway's expansion that has been worked out and discussed in public meetings over the years. Until more is known about the new plan, Wigington said, "we are pursuing our current plans." "If the Toll Road Authority would like to participate in the expansion," he said, "that might help us accelerate construction as well as help us pay for it."

Julie Gilbert, Metropolitan Transit Authority vice president and spokeswoman, said the authority had no knowledge of the county's new plan. However, she said state officials have discussed some kind of congestion pricing mechanism for "special use" lanes to be included in plans for the widened Katy Freeway.

Local environmental leaders reacted negatively to the super-size freeway plan. "If this is what they envision for Houston's transportation future, I am appalled," said Frank Blake, chairman of the Houston Sierra Club. "Our big concern is this -- they keep depending on building roads for our transportation needs," Blake said. "They really need to switch gears and look seriously and quickly at a rail network." Jim Blackburn, a Houston environmental attorney, said he is troubled that the new Katy Freeway plan does not incorporate a rail line in its wider corridor. "This would be a wonderful opportunity to design some right-of-way for rail transit into the long-term plan," Blackburn said. He represents two local environmental groups in continuing legal negotiations with government officials over environmentalists' allegation that local road-building plans do not conform with the state's new smog-reduction plan for Houston, as federal law requires. The negotiations were scheduled to resume today in Austin.

Eckels said the county plan will conform with air quality standards and, he argued, it will improve air quality because commuters will be moving, as opposed to sitting in traffic with their engines running. Roger Hord, president of the West Houston Association, said the group began talking with county representatives about the freeway plan in November. "We had been concerned for some time over the pace of the I-10 development," Hord said. "The schedule, to us, seemed to be slipping. The earliest construction seemed to be 2003, and it could take as much as 10 years to build. "We just felt that was not acceptable. We began casting around for some ways to accelerate the process, and one way was to infuse it with some cash."