Inner KATY BRT Plan

Metro’s Inner Katy BRT Plan, and Urban Exodus Trend

in , /by

I attended Metro’s public meeting last week on the Inner Katy BRT+Express Bus elevated lanes and was fairly impressed with the plan. One-seat Silver line BRT ride from downtown to uptown. Easy access for 290 and I10W HOV express buses without a transfer. Uses Purple/Green LRT lanes downtown so no new lanes are lost. Good destinations like Memorial Park, POST, Theater District, GRB convention center, and Eado/PNC Stadium.  One downside: HOV/HOT vehicles won’t have access, and will lose access to existing elevated HOV lanes into and out of downtown. But TXDoT is planning to build their own to extend the Katy managed lanes all the way downtown. Seems a little duplicative to me. I sent this official public comment to Metro:

Just attended the public meeting and am overall impressed with the plan, but non-transit HOV vehicles losing access to the CBD ramp to downtown is problematic and could generate public blowback (I use that ramp myself quite often). As you know, that ramp bypasses a significantly congested traffic bottleneck downtown. Engineering should be possible to allow those vehicles to share the lanes on the portion between the Studemont station and downtown (with ingress and egress just east of Studemont) without significantly impacting the bus service. Or if not, please coordinate closely with TXDoT to facilitate access for those vehicles with an alternate route/lanes, maybe with a shared structure/ramp/bridge?

and got this response:

“Dear Mr. Gattis: Thank you for contacting Metro and thank you for participating in our latest public meeting. METRO is currently working with TxDOT concerning the Katy CBD Ramp. As mentioned during the virtual public meeting, TxDOT plans to tear down the Katy CBD Ramp (one lane in each direction) as part of TxDOT’s North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP). TxDOT then plans to replace the Katy CBD Ramp with managed lanes along I-10 (two lanes in each direction with shoulders) that would accommodate non-transit vehicles.

These managed lanes would go to the east side of downtown and have connections in and out of downtown to the west. During the interim of these projects (TxDOT’s NHHIP and METRO’s METRORapid Inner Katy Project), METRO and TxDOT are looking into the timing and what can be feasibly done during the time gap between these projects. As TxDOT progresses with their projects in the I-10 corridor, they will also hold public meetings in the future to provide additional information concerning the Katy CBD Ramp.

Please visit TxDOT’s meeting schedule here for more details.

METRO appreciates your feedback regarding vehicular access and will take this into consideration during our coordination efforts. If you have any additional comments or questions, please contact us at crm.RideMETRO.org or visit RideMETRO.org/InnerKaty for more information. Thank you for contacting Metro.”

Moving on to a few smaller items this week:

  • From Wendell Cox: “The Australian Financial Review (the nation’s equivalent to the WSJ) ran a piece suggesting that housing may be the most important policy failure in the nation” (based on our URI/COU Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey). I’d flip that and say housing may be Texas’ and Houston’s most important policy success!

“All the research suggests housing is a critical determinant of well-being and good community functionality and has long been considered an essential part of the “Australian dream”… Econometric analysis has shown that in some places in Australia, planning restrictions are responsible for 67 per cent of the cost of housing.” (!!!)

“Induced demand isn’t necessarily bad or wasted VMT. Being able to get to a better job or access venues that offer better choices and lower costs isn’t bad. Businesses having access to a bigger labor pool and potential customer and supplier bases isn’t bad. Making those supply chains work better isn’t bad. Getting emergency vehicles where they need to go, faster, isn’t bad. Pulling cut-through traffic out of neighborhoods isn’t bad. Using infrastructure to shape development or improve economic competitiveness of given geographies isn’t bad.”

“it seems less likely that those who purchased homes in the suburbs and exurbs during the pandemic, motivated in part by new remote work options, will be selling and moving back to cities.”

This piece first appeared on Houston Strategies Blogspot.


Tory Gattis is a Founding Senior Fellow with the Urban Reform Institute (formerly Center for Opportunity Urbanism) and co-authored the original study with noted urbanist Joel Kotkin and others, creating a city philosophy around upward social mobility for all citizens as an alternative to the popular smart growth, new urbanism, and creative class movements. He is also an editor of the Houston Strategies blog.

Image: Houston Inner Katy BRT plan, via Wikimedia under CC 4.0 License.