Pierce / Dallas

First off, major props to Tory Gattis for what he had to say about toll roads yesterday:

Road needs far outstrip demand in fast-growing Texas, we refuse to inflation index or increase the gas tax (which will soon barely cover maintenance on our existing network), and we refuse to convert historically free freeways to toll roads. The only solution left is tolling all new capacity, and it’s the fairest too: users pay, non-users don’t. You know, if EZ-tag had been available 60 years ago, I think every freeway in Houston – and probably in the country – would have been tolled from the start. It just makes sense. People should bear the full costs of their housing and commuting choices. And it has the added benefit of a congestion pricing option to push flexible drivers to non rush hours. I don’t know why I’m surprised when a politician promises services without costs… but it does get me just a little angry.

This is the what I love about Tory. He and I totally disagree about some things, but he does a great job of realistically connection transportation systems and market economics, and the solutions he suggests are usually creative and well-concieved.

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Now, about the Pierce / Dallas exit from I-45 south into Midtown. This exit ramp is a DISASTER. I have to use this ramp in one way or another twice a day, as it is the only reasonable way for me to get across the Bayou and on to I-10 (where my office is located).

The trip outbound in the mornings is not a big deal. Traffic feeding in from Midtown is pretty steady, but by the time you get merged in to I-45 North you’re past the worst of the commuter rush and there are two lanes that merge from 45 north onto 10 west. So, mornings are ok.

In the evening, however, there are tremendous issues.

First, there is only one lane coming into I-45 South from I-10 East. This backs up as bad in the evenings as it does in the mornings. But there are alternate routes if the freeway is terrible, so it’s not the end of the world. One can exit Taylor and cross over to Houston Ave, or avoid I-10 entirely by taking Memorial.

The problem is, when you get to the Bayou, all three of these routes get stuck on the same bridge. You have major merging issues, major backup from people trying to get onto I-45 South, and worst of all, you have a VERY high number of people who are using the Pierce / Dallas flyover exit as a way to skip ahead of about .1 miles of traffic on 45 south.

I’ve illustrated the problem below:

So no matter which way you come from, you hit the same trap. There are tons of people flying down the ramp off of I-45 just to try and force their way back on again.

This is especially infuriating for me as a resident of the neighborhood at the end of this off-ramp, because it’s extremely dangerous. After having survived the bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way home, all I want is to be able to cross the bayou without being afraid for my life.

The lane configuration is the heart of the problem, so I’ve made an exaggerated representation of the lanes below.

You can see the local traffic from Memorial and Houston Ave trying to get across the Bayou gets stuck in the morass with the many people who are leaving the greater downtown area and heading south on 45. The worst is the bottleneck as you come up from Memorial/Houston and try to get to the right. The left lane is completely backed up full of people trying to get on to I-45, and the right lane has a blind yield to traffic that just exited the freeway. There is NO visibility for people in the right lane coming from Memorial/Houston Ave, and traffic from I-45 comes from directly above and behind you at very high speed. Most of that traffic is responsible for the paralyzing backup in the left lane, because as soon as they fly through the merge without looking they slam on their brakes and try to force their way into the line of cars in the left lane bound for 45 south.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution for this:

If a divider wall was placed on the ramp coming from Memorial/Houston behind the I-45 off-ramp, the traffic coming from that area and heading on to I-45 would be able to get onto the freeway without having to deal with the reckless drivers trying to use the flyover exit to ’skip’ ahead to the next on-ramp. The ramp coming off of I-45 has plenty of space and capacity to be merged down to just the right lane, so that the local traffic coming from Memorial/Houston could take the left lane. The two lanes would then run side by side all the way into Midtown.

There would be plenty of room for merging for people coming from Memorial/Houston to make the Dallas St. exit, and all the destinations currently accessible from the I-45 off-ramp would remain. The ONLY traffic pattern that this would eliminate is the illegitamate off-and-back-on pattern from I-45 South.

The result would look like this:

In the future, local access and freeway access could be even better improved by re-opening the Sabine / Heiner St. connection (shown in blue dashes above). If those streets were reconnected (via a bridge or tunnel crossing Allen Parkway) local access in and out of Midtown and the 4th Ward would be immensely improved, and people coming from Memorial needing a way in to Midtown could stay out of the way of Downtown traffic.

But that may not even be needed.

A simple jersey barrier is all we need to implement this MASSIVE improvement in traffic safety. It’s past time.

I’m sure there are other similarly painful intersections around town that could be fixed easily enough, if you’ve seen one let me know and I’ll post it here for everyone to take a look at. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!