Want to know why Houston traffic sucks? Look at Uptown
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In less than three years, Uptown developers have moved to add at least 10 million square feet of office buildings, residential skyscrapers, apartment complexes and retail shopping centers.
You know how many turn lanes were added or streets widened to make room for all these new people and cars. ZERO.
Does the Uptown Management District care about anything besides lining the pockets of developers and members of the Uptown Board? Why is the City of Houston is just letting it happen?
Dolcefino Consulting has examined the traffic studies for proposed projects in Uptown and it exposes a cruel joke on Houstonians that isn’t funny at all.
When developers seek permits for new projects, like the 40 story tall Dinerstein apartment skyscraper at San Felipe at Post, or the 830,000 square foot Alpha Tower, or the 363,000 square foot office tower on the 610 Loop, they have to turn in a traffic management study to the City of Houston. We’ve hit the highlights from some of the proposed developments:
1600 West Loop South
In November of 2014 the developers of 1600 West Loop South turned in their final traffic study. The project would include 363,000 square foot of office space, 260 hotel rooms, and 27,000 square feet of new restaurants, right smack dab on the feeder road between San Felipe and Post Oak.
Traffic Engineers used fancy graphs to tell us what we already know. Up to 5 of the major intersections around the project already had an F at rush hour. And yes, from school we know what an F is. The traffic engineers conclude a new turn lane would help, however they decide that’s not possible because there’s not enough room. Not enough right of way.
1717 West Loop South
Just across the Loop will be 400,000 more square feet but traffic engineers conclude the property isn’t wide enough for a right turn lane.
Alpha Tower
In July of 2013, the real estate blog Swamplot featured a story on the proposed new Apache headquarters in Uptown. 830,000 square feet of office space.
In November, the final traffic study was turned in with another startling revelation. The projects around San Felipe and Post Oak will add traffic. Ya think?
Traffic Engineers said new turn lanes would improve overall service, but guess what, “adding turn lanes is not feasible because of right of way constraints”. For the non-engineer types like
us, that means there’s no room for more turn lanes.
Yet Uptown is fine with tearing out the turn lanes already at the intersection for dedicated bus lanes. That will make that corner one to avoid!
It is one of the reasons the owners of the Cosmopolitan Condo have been screaming foul. They live right by the intersection, and right next door to another planned skyscraper, the 40 story tall
Dinerstein apartment tower.
San Felipe Residential
The Dinerstein project wants to build at the Northwest Corner of one of the busiest intersections in town. San Felipe and Post Oak. 351 high rise apartments and 17,000 square feet of restaurants. A 7 story parking garage. The conclusion. No problem.
“there will be minimal impact to the surrounding intersections when the development is fully built and operational.”
The Walter P. Moore traffic study bases its rosy projection on the proposed Bus Rapid Transit System cutting traffic congestion in Uptown by 4 percent. Where did that number come?
Walter P. Moore, using the companies own study to justify this study.
The BRT plan will actually eliminate one of the critical turn lanes at the intersection, and close off one of the medians where folks can make U turns. The Cosmo folks know that spells
Galleria Gridlock, but hey, the folks making all the deal say everything will be fine.
2200 Post Oak
This office tower will replace a smaller office tower, with 322,000 square feet of office space and 30,000 feet of retail, and 275 more residential units and 168 hotel rooms. Doubt that will
add any more cars?
Maybe we should have gotten a degree in traffic engineering “There will be very little change in delay at the study intersections due to the proposed project”. Sound familiar?
This study by Traffic Engineers raised other questions. It quotes a U.S. Census Report from 2006 that 5 percent of workers living in the City of Houston utilize public transportation as their
primary mode of transportation. They conclude Uptown has better mass transit, therefore twice as many people use it. Guess they never looked at empty bus shelters. We did.
These are just a few of the pictures Dolcefino Consulting took along Metro’s 33 Route on November 12, 2015 between 4 and 6 pm. As you can see, traffic is backed up but very few people are taking the bus.
The engineers talk about the Kingsland Park and Ride Service coming in from Katy. That is Route 285. It existed when this study was done, but not anymore. Metro cancelled it because of
low ridership.
Uptown Park
Uptown Park will include a 310 room hotel, 32,500 square feet of restaurants and 487 high rise apartments. Just two months before Uptown starts tearing up trees and medians for the Bus
Rapid Transit Project, this traffic study says this “while the type and the timeline of the transit system is still unclear, it is expected to occur. For this reason, it is recommended that any
current mitigation for this development be limited to signal timing changes.”
That seems to be the Hail Mary no matter what is being built and how big it is.
There’s no room for extra lanes, even turn lanes, so let’s adjust the traffic signals. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
So when folks at the Cosmo can’t get out of their condos, and when the residents of neighborhoods around Uptown are marooned at their homes, remember we tried to warn you.
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