David Crossley

An opportunity for Citizens

President, Houston Tomorrow, Oct 12, 09.

Tagged with grand parkway, art storey, katy prairie

Earlier this year the nearly-moribund Grand Parkway got a shot of life when the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) urged the Houston region to use a big chunk of federal “stimulus” money to build the controversial Segment E.

Last week, the Chronicle reported that Art Storey, Harris County’s infrastructure director, now recommends that the County move that money to other projects.

Storey said a necessary permit from the Corps of Engineers wouldn’t be ready in time “because of conflicts over environmental impacts and mitigation.”

That has been the issue with the Grand Parkway from the beginning. The Grand Parkway is a decades-old project designed to “get out in front of growth,” according to several local elected officials, and to “open land for development,” according to TxDOT. It was the grandest of all the schemes to use transportation infrastructure to drive sprawling land development through what is arguably the richest ecoregion in North America.

Segment E and the hoped-for development along it would destroy nearly half of the remaining Katy Prairie, a sensitive area that provides natural services and wildlife habitat, particularly for birds. If the existing piece of the Parkway is any indication, the whole Parkway project and its ensuing development would displace some 1,100 square miles of Prairie, Big Thicket, Piney Woods, Columbia Bottomlands, Prairie Systems, and Bayou Wilderness.

This is massive ecological damage, and also includes obliterating thousands of acres of the remaining prime farmland in our region. That’s a wild risk that assumes we don’t really need to produce food to feed ourselves. This bet ignores the changing dynamics of the world of agriculture and transportation costs in which localism of food supply is making a powerful comeback.

I can’t help believing that if you sat down with a random group of area residents to discuss this they would overwhelmingly say we shouldn’t destroy that land. And I’m quite certain if you discussed this with young people, who would inherit such a wasteland, you’d find passionate opposition.

As I write this, there are 88 comments on the story at the Chronicle website. A few see some personal use for it and are angry that it might not go forward, but most express disapproval of the Grand Parkway concept. Some do so because they oppose toll roads, some because it looks like the public will have to pay for it twice, and some because they just don’t think a road in the katy prairie is necessary or useful.

But Harris County Judge Ed Emmett says “It’s still going to happen. This is in no way a crippling blow to segment E. It’s not even a damaging blow.” West Houston Association President Roger Hord agrees, telling KHOU-TV that “We certainly believe [Segment E] will be built.”

Obviously, they intend to keep pushing for the $5 billion project, regardless of the dangerous consequences. But with TXDOT floundering financially and the clear need for many other really important transportation projects beginning to raise the ire of Harris County residents, it’s difficult to see the justification for proceeding with a road out in the vacant prairie.

Full story: Is the Grand Parkway out of sync with community priorities?
Source: Houston Chronicle Blogs: The List, Oct 12, 2009

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