That’s my neighborhood, and this is the email they sent out on Thursday about it.
In recent weeks the WHCA has challenged TxDOT on their plan to elevate I-10 near our neighborhood between Heights Blvd. and I-45. Due to the lack of transparency, engagement, and overall dubiousness around the project, the WHCA cannot support this project. The project, in its current form, seems to be a waste of taxpayer money and jeopardizes the tranquility and worth of our community.
Below is a high-level list of issues:
TxDOT has defined the need, designed, and funded this project to start in 2024 without first considering the impact to the surrounding communities and ecosystems or engaging the public.
TxDOT should halt this project until Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) completes its evaluation of a plan to build 8 massive tunnels that would divert and store water underground. A study should be done to determine whether the I-10 elevation would be needed if the tunnel system goes forward.
This finished project would not withstand a Hurricane Harvey level event and traffic would still need to be re-routed as it is now and would be through the construction period. Any tax-payer funded project that purports to address flooding should be built to take on a 500-year flood.
The elevation of I-10 would add significant noise pollution to already very loud highway noise. The increased noise will impact property values along White Oak and surrounding streets.
The construction will last a minimum of four years and will be a burden to our community. In that time we will have limited access in and out of the neighborhood which will cause congestion within the neighborhood. That could lead to homeowners leaving, depressed home values, and homes sitting on the market longer.
TxDOT should consult local organizations to define parameters of the environmental impacts to be studied for ecosystems along White Oak and Little White Oak bayous and into our neighborhoods which are nesting sites for important birds like the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, the official bird of Houston and formerly endangered Bald Eagles.
TxDOT should not take away any greenspace along White Oak Bayou.
TxDOT should not disturb the forested area slated to be a detention pond. This provides important sound mitigation, natural habitat and aesthetic beauty.
TxDOT should not break the Inner Katy project into smaller projects.
- We are concerned that TxDOT’s decision to split the Inner Katy Corridor into segmented projects will mean that the full environmental impacts are not captured under National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
- We support other communities like Cottage Grove who are fighting a separate I-10 project threatening their parks and further dividing their neighborhood.
- Impact analysis should be combined with the current I-45 impact analysis as they will affect the same neighborhoods and bayous
Here’s how you can help stop TxDOT’s I-10 Plan:
Submit a pre-written email to TxDOT and elected officials: click here.
Submit your own comment on the TxDOT.gov website and reference project number: CSJ 0271-07-326
See here for the background. Some of these concerns may be more parochial than others, but at the very least the concerns about flooding and maybe playing games with the environmental impact are universal. While the subject of the email was “The WHCA Stands Against TxDOT’s I-10 Plan”, the word “oppose” doesn’t appear in the message body. It is possible that TxDOT could address these concerns. Given the I-45 expansion debate there’s not a huge amount of trust and goodwill, but it could happen. For now, there are a lot of questions that the folks in my neighborhood have.
The justification for elevating the freeway is to keep it from flooding… however, all of the I-45 plans I’ve seen keep it below grade, and I can’t find any plan to bring the Katy out from below grade from Shepherd west – which means that this stretch might be dry, but won’t do a blessed thing to move people during a flood event. It looks like this project won’t do anything but spend an enormous amount of money to increase noise and raise a giant concrete finger to the neighbors who’ve been objecting to I-45 on the other side of the neighborhood.
I’ve always suspected that 10 and 45 were intended to serve as flood catchments from the get-go. Raising that one portion of 10 to mitigate flooding of only a portion of that highway seems irrational to me, given the overall context of the confluence of three bayous in the immediate vicinity.