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The West Houston Association has reviewed the proposed
2025 Regional Transportation Plan and submits these comments for
consideration by the Transportation Policy Council.
The West Houston Association has represented business and development
interests in our 850 square mile area of interest in Houston’s western
suburban communities since 1979. We focus on development and
infrastructure to support quality growth. One of our primary areas of
interest and expertise is transportation facilities and services. Our
goal is to help assure our region has a transportation system that is a
decided asset rather than a liability.
In summary, we believe the 2025 RTP:
• Adequately anticipates both the quantity and location of population and
employment growth—it identifies the anticipated growth of employment
centers such as Energy Corridor, Westchase and Memorial City
• Accurately depicts the needs of the entire eight county area served by
this RTP
• Accurately identifies the change in peak-hour travel demand from a
radial pattern to a circumvential pattern as employment continues to
migrate to suburban locations
• Accommodates the resulting demand on the roadway and transit
networks---particularly in the “unofficial” 100% Plan portion of the RTP
and introduces new concepts such as “express streets” and “signature bus
service”
• Acknowledges by including clean air initiatives the requirement to be
in “conformity” with the State Implementation Plan to reduce emissions
from mobile sources
• Provides for new technologies such as ITS, RCTSS; includes alternative
modes such as bicycles and addresses requirements of freight movement on
our system
• Recognizes individual agency initiatives and coordinates for
synergistic impact
• Balances the need for new construction and the need for rehabilitation
and maintenance and operations expenses
• Does not ignore the realities of current and future “market demands”
for all modes of transportation
• Resists a “one-size-fits-all” approach to transportation planning and
resists overemphasizing one life style choice over another
The West Houston Market Area Characterized by Rapid, Low-Density Residential Growth with High
Concentrations of Employment
The West Houston area of interest consists of an estimated 2000
population of 1.16 million and is expected to reach 1.4 million by 2007.
Our area’s 2000 employment of 388,000 is expected to reach over 600,000
by 2025. There are three major regional activity centers in the region:
Westchase, Energy Corridor and Memorial City. Several of these are
projected to reach concentrations of employment of 100,000 by 2025. Our
area has over 49 million square feet of net rentable office space.
The character of this large, suburban area is clearly dominated by
low-density single-family housing anchored by some of the region’s most
successful master planned communities. Our region accounts for 34% of
Metropolitan Houston new homes sold between 1990 and 2002 . Multi-family
construction in our area accounted for 25% of that in Metropolitan
Houston between 1998 and 2002.
The resulting demands on our current and future transportation system
reflect the reality of low-density residential, dispersed retail and
growing suburban employment concentrations.
Transportation System Needs
The West Houston area work and non-work trip requirements are heavily
oriented to the single driver vehicles—similar to that of the region as
whole and other modern, fast-growing metropolitan areas across the
country.
RTP Adequately Addresses Regional Needs
Our eight county region is required to produce a 20-year transportation
plan every three years. This three-year cycle is designed to assure that
the plan is always up to date with expected growth and changes in the
eight county area. The current plan, the 2025 Regional Transportation
Plan is a compendium of plans from agencies across this eight county area
as complied by the Transportation Policy Council. All agencies submit
their project plans to the Houston Galveston Area Council (HGAC) to be
compiled and analyzed as a complete system of transportation projects and
services for the public. In the Houston-Galveston non-attainment area,
our plan must meet strict federal air emission requirements. HGAC
performs extensive modeling on the compiled plan to assure that it
“conforms” to the emission requirements as established in our State
Implementation Plan.
RTP Anticipates Growth and Transportation Demand
We have found that the RTP identifies expected population growth and
employment in the entire eight county region. Further, through empirical
data and extensive modeling, HGAC accurately reflects the nature of that
growth—where population and employment have grown and in what
proportions. The RTP anticipates, we believe accurately, that regional
employment will continue to disperse to the suburban areas while the CBD
and inner loop areas also grow.
The Houston region is in reality a highly suburbanized region with
pockets of high density. The transportation system plan must and, in this
case does, accurately reflect these realities if it is going to be
effective and cost beneficial.
In modeling the peak hour travel demand that will result from these
trends, HGAC concludes that the predominant trip demands will shift from
the current radial pattern to a more circumvential pattern particularly
in the fast growing west and northwest suburban areas. If this trend was
not acknowledged and adequately planned for, the RTP would be fatally
flawed. This 2025 RTP is not flawed.
Roadway Deficiencies Measured
A vital component of the RTP is its measure of the current deficiencies
in roadway capacities. Without this knowledge accurate plans for capacity
improvements, intersection redesign, signal timing, and the application
of transit services would be impossible to plan for and implement
intelligently. Previously mentioned demand is all important in this
process. Again the modeling undertaken in the 2025 RTP process is
critical to this as is an understanding of existing conditions. On both
counts, we believe the 2025 RTP performs well.
The 2025 RTP also accurately measures the need for system maintenance and
rehabilitation. All to often, these necessary elements of a
transportation system are the “step child”. This plan accurately
estimates what is needed to maintain the system during each elements
useful life and what the reconstruction costs are at the end of that
useful life. These are important issues and can not be dismissed.
Financial Modeling & 100% Plan
The West Houston Association believes that the RTP can be most useful
when the demand data—population and employment growth—is overlaid on the
current system and the system is, in essence, redefined to fully
accommodate that demand within acceptable parameters. In our judgment,
this is not fully possible in the 2025 RTP. Federal regulations require
an artificial financial restraint in the planning process. That is, the
2025 RTP may not show what projects—roadway and transit—are needed to
fully address the demand we actually foresee. The official RTP must
conclude therefore that sufficient financial resources will not be
devoted to building and maintaining the full system needed. It must be
“financially constrained”.
In our view, the financial restraint requirement will automatically lead
to a dysfunctional, under performing system that will be the equivalent
of an economic ball and chain around the feet of the Houston economy. As
an example, we may likely see much more user-toll financed construction
than is anticipated in the Plan. To the extent we do, the financial
constraints could not foresee the freeing of traditional funding
resources to accomplish more and different projects than those currently
in the plan.
Our community has embraced user-toll financing for roadways as valid and
economically sound means of paying for increased capacity. Roadways may
be fully or partially “self-financed”. It is more difficult on a 20-year
planning horizon to estimate what roadways may be subject to this
alternative funding vehicle. Additional future roadway projects may be
partially financed using this method thus expanding the financial
capabilities of area agencies.
Fortunately, the 2025 RTP carries an unofficial addendum, the 100% Plan
(the Plan) that seeks to define the total system needs. In its current
form, the 100% is an excellent first start. It must be continued and
refined. It can serve the public well as a barometer of how the
transportation system will perform in the future against the demand that
will be placed on it.
As an example, the 100% Plan carries a new component of the roadway
network, Express Streets. It is acknowledged that our current
thoroughfare system is undersized and that the freeway system is
disproportionately over used for trips that would be better served on a
street. The Express Street concept is valid and well discussed in the
Plan as an alternative to freeway use. Despite this, implementing the
full system is problematic. Right of way restrictions, access
requirements for property and land use are only a few of the matters that
will serve to limit the ability of agencies to develop a complete Express
Street network. This early planning however provides the opportunity to
identify the those corridors that may more easily accommodate them. The
West Houston Association supports further concept development of grade
separated express streets on SH 6, Westheimer Parkway-Westheimer Road,
Bellaire Blvd. and Gessner. Several of these routes present major
obstacles as mentioned above.
Regional Transit Services
The 2025 RTP reflects the planning of the Metropolitan Transit Authority
and the Metro Solution plan as passed by the voters. In so doing, it
reflects the limitations of providing upgraded transit services to
regional activity centers outside the inner loop. Our concern is that
limited roadway capacity will require the long-range development of
alternatives such as transit that better serves the rapidly growing and
low-density suburban environment.
We are not certain when demand for transit services to accommodate
suburban-home-to-suburban work-trips will be materially relevant and
financially feasible. We do know, however, that current transit services
to these suburban activity centers are minimal and efforts must start now
to plan for this future demand.
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