TxDOT scraps plans for elevated Katy Freeway feeders

TxDOT has dropped plans to build 30-foot-high elevated frontage roads along the Katy Freeway between Washington and T.C. Jester, a move apparently driven by concerns from nearby residents about noise, pollution and aesthetic harm the elevated roads could bring. The proposed new feeder roads were part of TxDOT's $40 million proposal to create continuous frontage roads between Washington Avenue and Taylor Street — there are now gaps between Taylor and Studemont, Yale and Patterson and where the Union Pacific tracks cross the freeway (the unusual "grape arbor" overpass, whose story you can read in two parts here and here).

The decision to scrap the design came two weeks after TxDOT said it would move along with construction of the elevated roads despite neighborhood complaints; it's not clear what made the agency change its mind, but the Chronicle reports that Mayor Bill White talked with TxDOT Houston District Engineer Gary Trietsch the day the announcement came down and expressed his concern over the project. The official word from Trietsch, a statement dated yesterday, cited cost/benefit concerns with the bridges.

The question now is where to put the feeder roads that will cross the railroad tracks. Residents have said they'd like to see them built underneath the tracks, but TxDOT project developer Jim Heacock told the Chronicle last month that they won't fit there. Transit officials say the continuous feeder roads are necessary to help in case the below-grade stretch of the Katy between the West Loop and I-45 floods again like it did during Tropical Storm Allison; residents say new detention ponds being built along White Oak Bayou will do enough to keep the freeway from flooding.

There's no word yet on what TxDOT's Plan B will be.