A crucial part of paying for Houston’s biggest ever freeway project along Interstate 45 — still years from starting construction — could happen in the next 20 days.

To demonstrate local support for the mega-project, the Texas Department of Transportation is asking the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s Transportation Policy Council, the committee that doles out state and federal money controlled by local officials, to commit $100 million to the central 3-mile portion of the freeway rebuild, from Interstate 10 to Loop 610. State officials would cover the remainder of the $1.22 billion cost, or around 91 percent of the total.

If approved this month by the transportation council, the money would not move from HGAC to TxDOT until construction begins, estimated around early 2024. The more immediate effect would be showing support for the increasingly controversial project, and would be reflected in upcoming plans. Further, it would be $100 million that local officials could not direct elsewhere in a region rife with road improvement needs.

Committing the money would have no effect on projects already planned and funded, officials said.

During a June 28 discussion about the project and about whether to commit the money, members of the transportation council were divided. Despite years of community meetings and redesigns of the project, some on the council thought the I-45 plans lack solutions for some of the problems critics identified.

“My concern is we are forced to stick our neck out and put a down payment on a house we have not seen,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said.

Others worried the region is delaying a needed and inevitable project.

“It is critical this project get underway,” Sugar Land Mayor Joe Zimmerman said.

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Pass up the commitment, transportation officials said, and the state could send its money elsewhere.

“If this would not go forward,” Quincy Allen, district director for TxDOT in Houston said of the state funding offer, “I don’t know when we would have the money to go forward.”

The transportation council is scheduled to meet July 26 and is poised to decide on the money then, though officials could choose to delay. The state’s long-range plan, to be unveiled during a public meeting in Austin that will be streamed online, is set for approval in August. State officials could amend it if Houston-area leaders balk at committing the region’s share.

The massive rebuild, by many standards the largest highway project in Houston history, is broken into three segments. The first portion, perhaps the simplest in terms of design, runs from Beltway 8 south to near Loop 610 north of downtown. The second segment includes a rebuild of the I-45 interchange with Loop 610 and runs south to Interstate 10. Segment three is the downtown portion, including shifting I-45 to follow I-10 and then I-69 along the east side of the central business district.

Combined, the segments are expected to cost more than $7 billion.

The enormity of the downtown segment — particularly the plan to remove the elevated segment along Pierce Street — has drawn the most attention. Advocates say it finally would connect Midtown and downtown, and a plan to bury the freeways would reduce them as barriers between neighborhoods. Skeptics worry the design further would isolate Third Ward and East End communities by putting an even wider web of freeways between them and downtown.

Those concerns follow the project north, with Near Northside residents worried about health effects from more cars emitting more exhaust and those farther north lamenting the loss of homes and businesses, along with flooding worries. Outside Loop 610, most of the concerns center on TxDOT claiming land along the west side frontage road for the widening, notably just north of the Loop 610 interchange.

“This project is continuing to sow mistrust between TxDOT and the communities,” said Harrison Humphreys, transportation policy advocate with Air Alliance Houston.

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Criticism of the project, while vocal since 2015, has grown in recent months as TxDOT awaits federal approvals that could come in a few months. Downtown segments could start construction as early as 2021.

The window is closing, some transportation officials argued, for TxDOT to build the best possible project. Houston leaders are working to improve some neighborhoods, including those cut off by previous freeway projects, while encouraging development and economic growth.

“We do think strategically widening freeways are part of that,” said Houston Public Works Deputy Director Jeff Weatherford, a member of the transportation council.

The challenge will be widening while improving, something it is not clear the I-45 project will achieve.

“There is an up-welling of a very vocal group, and that group is growing,” Weatherford said, noting the project does “potential damage” to some communities. “We have got to address those concerns.”

Backers of the freeway widening stress they have worked to address every problem they can.

“We are extremely committed to this,” Allen said. “We are going to continue to receive those concerns and address them.”

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Officials have moved ramps and redrawn designs to lessen some right of way needs, along with re-evaluating drainage in light of heavy rains and flooding in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

They also are addressing an existing traffic problem, said Varuna Singh, director of special projects for the Houston district, noting the downtown freeway segments and stretches of I-45 rebuilt in the project represent nine of the top 40 most congested highway segments in the state. Further, Singh told officials last week, much of the freeway simply is outdated.

“The corridor is an aging one, with some parts 25 to 30 years old,” Singh said, noting that is about the useful life of a concrete freeway.

TxDOT officials also have committed — though not yet in writing — to work with the Houston Housing Authority to replace subsidized housing displaced by the project, along with relocating some historic structures in Independence Heights, northwest of I-45 and Loop 610. Singh said officials are willing to work with communities more than required.

“We are offering resources to assist communities to secure historic designations they do not have today,” Singh said.

The road widening project does not add general use lanes to the freeway, but instead creates two managed lanes in each direction, aimed at increasing transit and carpool use. As a result, the project has vocal support from transit officials.

“Just the things in here now would be enormously beneficial,” Metropolitan Transit Authority Chairwoman Carrin Patman said, saying she was comfortable with committing the $100 million.

She called the two-way managed lanes “critical for transit,” noting bi-directional transit lanes are part of the region’s long-range transportation plan.

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Others said the freeway widening plan is short-sighted at a time when Houston needs to think bigger about transit.

“The decisions we are making now are going to affect the community for decades and decades and decades,” At-Large City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards said.

Edwards, who led a HGAC subcommittee looking into high-capacity transit options for the region, pressed for more consideration in the plan for an elevated rail line down the center of the freeway, including a possible link to Bush Intercontinental Airport.

The elevated line would require TxDOT officials to acquire about 20 more feet of right of way along a corridor where neighbors have said they want to keep property losses to a minimum. Allen also said TxDOT would need funding from elsewhere, as they cannot use money meant for highways for a transit project.

To many critics, the fact there is $7 billion to widen one highway while Metro’s long-term goal is $7.5 billion in transit improvements across the region is the bigger imbalance. Susan Graham, a critic of the I-45 project, urged regional transportation officials to “repair rather than replace” I-45 and scrap the widening.

“We can no longer continue to be an automobile-dependent city,” Graham said.

dug.begley@chron.com