HOUSTON ARCHIVE · COMMENTARY
Grand Parkway Segment C: The Route Vote Left Plenty Undecided
A unanimous October 2000 vote protected the southwest corridor. Floodplain design, habitat compensation and construction money still had to be worked out.
↗ EnlargeCollection: TexasFreeway Houston photographs
The built west segment stopped at the Southwest Freeway.
R. South from the Brazos RiverJuly 21, 2001The wide grassy right-of-way and separate roadways south of the Brazos River lead toward the Southwest Freeway overpass in this July 2001 view. It shows the existing Segment D terminus, providing a geographic starting point for the proposed Segment C, rather than construction of that southwest extension.
Original image caption
(high resolution 153k) R. This view looks south along the Grand Parkway right-of-way from just south of the Brazos River crossing. South of the Brazos, feeder roads only are built. However, the land along the parkway will not be commercialized, and the housing developer of the Riverpark community has planted a row of trees along the edges of the right-of-way. The overpass in the background is at the Southwest Freeway, which is the current terminus of the Grand Parkway. Photo taken 21-July-2001.
TexasFreeway commentary · Selected, attributed excerpts retain the newspaper’s original words. The surrounding narrative is new analysis.
01 / October 20, 2000
A unanimous vote reserved the corridor
The southwest Grand Parkway won a unanimous regional vote on October 20, 2000. That sounds like a settled project until you read what the vote actually accomplished. The Houston-Galveston Area Council’s Transportation Policy Council approved an alignment for Segment C, protecting the corridor from development and allowing land acquisition and funding work to proceed. Drivers still had years to wait under the most favorable forecast in the report.
Rad Sallee described a 26-mile route from US 59 South in Fort Bend County to SH 288 in Brazoria County. The August development debate had described the proposed connection as 23 miles. These are the figures printed in the two reports, rather than a reason to assign one exact length to every stage of planning. The useful constant is the pair of endpoints and the sensitive country between them.
Detailed design, a final environmental impact statement and a plan to compensate for habitat and wetland losses were still ahead. There would be more public comments and hearings, followed by another council vote to request state and federal money. Route approval gave supporters a place to work; it did not give contractors permission to start building.
02 / Brazos River floodplain
Eight miles of floodplain could not be resolved by a line
The alignment passed less than two miles north of Brazos Bend State Park. A highway crossing that country would have to accommodate runoff and animal movement as well as traffic. The report described the route as elevated across eight miles of floodplain, but that did not mean an eight-mile bridge. Association director Diane Schenke expected a river bridge and adjacent spans, with much of the remaining distance on earth fill interrupted by drainage gaps.
Those details would determine how much room water and wildlife had beneath or through the road. Parks officials recommended a corridor connecting Lake Worthington, the Brazos River and Brazos Bend State Park, including existing forest and wooded wetlands. Schenke supported that recommendation. Sierra Club chairman Frank Blake questioned whether a highway through the middle could leave a decent corridor at all.
“a wildlife corridor between Lake Worthington, the Brazos River and Brazos Bend State Park”
A corridor on a plan needed enough land and workable crossings to serve its purpose. The vote did not specify all of that. The archived southwest planning maps locate the proposed road and its alternatives; they also help explain why park proximity and floodplain design belonged in the same discussion.
03 / George Observatory
The road’s effects could extend beyond its right-of-way
The George Observatory introduced a consequence that a highway noise calculation alone would miss. Its supporters worried about light from the residential development that could follow the road. A route moved farther from the park could lessen a direct impact while leaving the observatory exposed to changes on surrounding property. The highway alignment and the future night sky were connected, but they were not the same design problem.
Blake also challenged compensation for wetlands. He said TxDOT had not yet provided required compensation for losses along the already built west segment. That remained an opponent’s allegation in the reporting, not a finding established here. His distrust helps explain why a unanimous council vote did not end resistance: opponents intended to examine the later environmental work and air-quality assumptions, with litigation still an option.
04 / The work still ahead
Supporters were planning for a larger Fort Bend County
Fort Bend County Judge Jim Adolphus spoke for the project, expecting the county’s population to double to 720,000 over the following twenty years. That was his 2000 forecast and his argument for building ahead of growth. It did not answer opponents’ questions about where the development would go or how the floodplain would be crossed. The two sides were asking the road to meet different tests.
The next public workshops were advertised for November 14 in Manvel and Richmond. Construction could begin in three to five years if the remaining work went smoothly, Sallee reported. The July 2001 west-segment photographs show a road already carrying traffic nearby. Segment C’s approved alignment still required decisions about land, habitat and money before it could offer the same thing.