Fred Hartman Bridge in 1995: Eight Lanes Still Out of Reach

01 / Baytown and La Porte · January 1995

The celebration had already been postponed

Texas transportation officials once hoped to open the Fred Hartman Bridge during their department’s seventy-fifth anniversary in 1992. By January 1995, the anniversary was long past, and drivers were still waiting. The proposed crossing between Baytown and La Porte had begun in 1987. Its eight lanes remained out of reach while traffic squeezed through the old two-lane tunnel beneath the Houston Ship Channel.

Cindy Horswell’s January 23 Houston Chronicle account put the latest forecast at four lanes opening in September and four more in October. State Representative Robert E. Talton had already heard a succession of dates: the previous year, March 1995, July, and now September. After enough revisions, a construction schedule becomes difficult for the surrounding community to plan around.

The later Fred Hartman Bridge photographs show the scale of what was being built: long approaches rising to the double-diamond towers. The completed structure is impressive. In early 1995, however, the useful part for residents was still the part they could not drive across.

02 / The daily consequences

A two-lane tunnel carried more than traffic

Baytown’s Pilot Club organized petitions and letters over the $91.2 million project. Its spokeswoman, Doris Sherron, described hospital trips interrupted by backups and people whose commutes could take two or three hours. The group said it had collected about 10,000 signatures and 1,400 letters for Governor George W. Bush. This was a sustained local campaign, with specific complaints about how the unfinished crossing affected everyday travel.

Moving from two tunnel lanes to eight bridge lanes was a substantial change in the crossing’s design. Residents were being offered much more road space across the channel, but its usefulness depended on finishing the approaches and opening the lanes to traffic.

The tunnel’s limited capacity made even recurring incidents consequential. October flooding had closed I-10, the other evacuation route cited in the report, adding to Baytown’s concern about depending on a single troubled crossing. The surrounding I-10 East archive helps locate that second route. A bridge delay was therefore also a question of how reliably people could leave the area.

03 / Construction and purchasing

The steel dispute had several parts

Project engineer Mark Madera attributed two years of delay to importing steel from South Africa. The controversy involved more than delivery time. Baytown had lost 2,000 jobs when its U.S. Steel plant closed, while opponents objected to buying from a country then under sanctions for apartheid. Federal projects had an American-steel requirement; state projects did not acquire one until three years after bridge construction began.

Customs officials allowed the purchase because it involved fabricated rather than raw steel. That ruling did not settle whether the material was acceptable for the bridge. Horswell described girders made too short, misplaced bolt holes and repeated state-inspector warnings. Authorities said usable steel finally arrived in 1990. Madera attributed another year’s delay to equipment failures and other construction problems.

By January 1995, Madera said Williams Brothers Construction had accumulated $2.4 million in penalties, with another $1.2 million due if completion came that fall. Penalties put a price on lateness. They could not provide the missing traffic lanes while construction continued.

04 / Access and accountability

The unfinished approaches reached into local businesses

Mayor Pete Alfaro had taken the issue to Austin, and TxDOT executive director Bill Burnett was expected to visit Baytown. The pressure concerned the contractor’s performance as well as the bridge’s complexity. Horswell cited department records showing fifteen Williams Brothers projects completed on time and thirty-one late during the preceding decade, excluding projects still underway. Williams Brothers president James D. Pitcock Jr. could not be reached for comment for Horswell’s report.

At the Galley Restaurant, Barbara Pearce said traffic and construction had blocked customer access. She had reduced her workforce from thirty-five to fifteen and lost half her customers. Those losses explain why another promised opening date offered limited comfort. The bridge would eventually be a striking place to drive; the report captures people paying for its unfinished state before they could use it.