Related Articles Related Links

LEAD-IN BY HOST: Thousands of vehicles head downtown everyday on Spur 527 off Highway 59. With the city set to close the spur for construction next year, residents say highway planners must consider community and environmental impacts or they'll take them to court. Erika McDonald has the story. STORY: The West Alabama Quality of life Coalition or WALQ announced Monday they plan to sue the Texas Department of Transportation unless the agency reconsiders construction that would close Spur 527. A city of Houston mobility study supports residents' claims that traffic diversion onto Richmond and West Alabama will result in neighborhood gridlock. WALQ founder, Ray Jones. "There are currently 80,000 cars per day that use the Spur into downtown Houston, and also about 350,00 buses in one direction that will use the spur that will need to be diverted onto Richmond and West Alabama. The effect of that is causing huge traffic congestion equivalent to around the mall during Christmas time, during construction, which is about three years. Everyday." WALQ's legal council Jim Blackburn notified the Texas Department of Transportation last week about the lawsuit. Agency's spokesman Norm Wiggington, says transportation officials will not respond to the notice. "To our understanding and to the Federal Highway Adminstration's understanding, our analysis was complete. There's nothing lacking from it. So we don't feel that there's really any way to respond to Mr. Blackburn." Residents say they'll sue unless the Transportation Department drafts a new environmental impact statement... one that takes into account increased traffic flow and resulting air pollution. WALQ's Ray Jones says the impacts of traffic diversion onto neighborhood streets is missing from the agency's original analysis completed in 1985. "The impact statement that Department of Transportation conducted was 18 years out-of-date. It didn't take into consideration, there's about 10 schools that we counted in the affected corridor and they didn't take into consideration the effect of all the buses, nor did they consider the thousands of cars that are diverted into this residential neighborhood. Circumstances have changed, and WALQ believes that the environmental impact statement is out of date and woefully inadequate for the current situation." Also missing from the agency's analysis is the impact of a traffic lane that will be added to west Alabama in order to handle the overflow of Spur traffic. Advocacy group, Bike Houston's Dan Lundeen said loosing bike lanes to add car lanes would change his neighborhood. "West Alabama is an eclectic street, it's a neighborhood street. It's not a main thoroughfare, it doesn't go through to the West Loop. It's something that you want to have a quiet street, and I think the bike lane does that, it gives us a good neighborhood. It keeps people from racing their cars down the street, it is safe for us to walk and roll our wheelchairs down the street. And I think that's what we need. It's an urban setting, it's not something they should suburbanize by putting in extra car lanes." In addition to a new environmental assessment, residents want the Transportation Department to complete other freeway construction before closing the Spur. West Alabama resident Michael Testa: "They need to go back to the drawing board and think about completing the other major highway work first so that people have other ways into town, rather than putting 75 buses an hour right into our neighborhood where our children and cats and dogs and everybody are. There's 25 buses an hour on Richmond during the peak hours. And that's to say nothing of the pollution and particulates and such in the air. I just urge the city government and the Texas Department of Transportation to go back to the drawing board on this and think it through." Southwest freeway construction was already delayed, said transportation department's Norm Wiggington, but for different reasons. "We've delayed construction for the Super Bowl, that's what the mayor requested. We feel like we have worked very closely with the neighborhood, we've worked very closely with the City of Houston and Harris County to provide an agreeable solution. We've done what the mayor has asked us to do, we've put it off until after 2004, and we're quite confident in our planning." While discussion of urban mobility in Houston reaches from the grass roots to City Hall, WALQ attorney Jim Blackburn said the transportation planners still adhere to what he calls the "tyranny of the freeways." WALQ's Ray Jones agreed the Texas Department of Transportation was sacrificing inner-loop communities to accommodate commuters. "The desire of all of us who live in town is to maintain a reasonable quality of life. To live and operate and function in the community. The fact that so many commuters who happen to live in the suburbs who have to get downtown during this construction period. The in-town residents realize that people have to get to work everyday and that commerce has to go on. Our whole issue is with the Texas Department of Transportation, however. We believe that there are other mechanisms that would keep the cars on the freeway and not divert them into the neighborhoods." With construction on Spur 527 set to begin next year, the fight may have to be settled by a federal judge. Erika McDonald, KPFT News, Houston. E-mail Erika McDonald at erika@cechouston.org . This story was broadcast on April 16, 2003.