A massive remake of Interstate 45 from downtown Houston north to the Sam Houston Tollway that would be among the largest road projects in the region’s history also is one of the nation’s biggest highway boondoggles, according to an updated list released Tuesday.

The North Houston Highway Improvement Project — the umbrella term for the entire $7 billion-plus plan to remake Interstate 45 — is listed in the latest installment of unnecessary projects compiled by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Frontier Group. Nine projects across the country made the 2019 list, the fifth annual report from the two groups that have argued for greater transit investment.

“We believe that to fix congestion problems we need to take cars off the road,” said Bay Scoggin, director of the TexPIRG Education Fund, a subset of the national group. “We could do far better investing $7 billion in public transit.”

The dubious distinction on the list comes days before two city-sponsored public meetings to gauge ongoing fears about the project. In the past six months, concerns have ramped up against the project as the Texas Department of Transportation and engineers seek federal approvals, following years of discussions.

Public meetings Houston city officials and TxDOT are hosting two public meetings to update residents on the planned Interstate 45 project. Thursday, June 20, 6-8 p.m. Harris County Department of Education 6300 Irvington Blvd. Wednesday, June 26, 6-8 p.m. Acres Homes Multi-Service Center 6719 W. Montgomery Road Source: Houston Planning Department

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The I-45 project would remake the downtown freeway system by moving the highway from its current alignment to follow Interstate 69 around the east side of the central business district. I-45 then would curve and flow along with Interstate 10 before splitting and heading north in the same location as today.

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The downtown portions would affect nearly every freeway in the area and radically reform downtown because it eliminates the portion of I-45 commonly called the Pierce Elevated. That, supporters say, opens a huge opportunity to better connect Midtown and the central business district, at a cost for the downtown work at about $4 billion, perhaps more.

North of downtown, the project adds two managed lanes in each direction, available to buses and carpools, something supporters say will help achieve the goal of getting people out of solo vehicles.

Quincy Allen, district engineer for TxDOT in Houston, said the project allows officials to make substantive design changes with limited additional right of way. He cited analyses that rush hour speeds on downtown Houston freeways would increase by an unprecedented 24 mph, which helps every driver downtown and around the I-45 corridor regardless of whether they are on the freeway.

“When we get congestion on our system, people seek alternative routes,” Allen told a Houston City Council committee on June 13.

Other estimates would be equally life-altering for commuters, if they occur. Compared to 2017, TxDOT estimates the crash rate along the freeway will drop 30 percent, mostly by eliminating places where drivers are forced to make sudden movements to merge on and off I-45.

“We are trying to get you in the right lane at the right time as quickly as possible,” Allen said of the new design.

Critics have called the rosy expectations of what more freeway lanes will deliver fundamentally flawed, and over-reliant on the way the region always has done things.

“Policymakers are living in a field of dreams if they think they can build their way out of congestion,” Scoggin said.

Instead, advocates argue for more investment in transit, bike lanes and less subsidization of automobiles through expanded freeways and free parking.

“One car-one person is not an innovative way to go for a city,” said Inge Ford, education director the bicycling advocacy group BikeHouston.

In the assessment of national highway boondoggles, researchers noted Houston has the second-most expensive commute in the nation when time stuck in traffic is considered. Officials also cited the 2018 Houston Chronicle report that showed the region’s fatality rate was the worst in the nation for preventable factors such as drinking and driving and excessive speed.

In their analysis, U.S. PIRG and Frontier concluded the I-45 project “will widen barriers between neighborhoods, crisscross over parkland, and make transportation more difficult for commuters without access to a car.”

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Meanwhile, researchers said the project jeopardizes other Houston efforts, such as safer local streets and more walkable development.

"Sometimes it's the infrastructure we don't build that makes all the difference," said Gideon Weissman, a co-author of the report and a policy analyst with Frontier Group.

Houston can look to Dallas for an example. Officials there spent years developing a six-lane, $1.5 billion parkway project aimed at reducing congestion. In 2014, it was listed among the nation’s biggest highway boondoggles.

By 2017, facing increased criticism and analyses that showed flooding would plague the project and it would have questionable benefits in terms of “solving” congestion, Dallas officials killed it.

The report is not the first public call to cancel the I-45 project. Jeff Speck, a nationally-recognized urban planner, urged Houstonians to reject it outright in a Feb. 27 presentation sponsored by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University.

“Highway investment is the quickest path to devaluing your inner city,” Speck told the crowd.

Since 2017, city officials have sought a number of changes from TxDOT, including some of the additional bike lanes and air quality mitigation proposed by community and advocacy groups. However, they also have supported the plan, with Mayor Sylvester Turner calling it “a potentially transformational project that will provide desperately needed congestion relief through the heart of our city and will strengthen Houston's economy.”

Turner also outlined the city’s requirements that the project truly mitigate its effects on low-income housing and nearby neighborhoods, while maintaining adequate space for future mass transit.

A number of city leaders have pressed for greater consideration of transit in the plan.

“We are going to be looking at ourselves and re-watching these tapes and asking ourselves why we didn’t make the decisions to get this region moving toward transit,” At-Large Councilwoman Amanda Edwards said during a city council committee meeting last week. “I think it would be a mistake for us not to proceed with preserving that as an option.”

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Rather than work to improve the project, Speck argued its aims and goals were simply irreconcilable with making Houston a better place to live. It is a trade-off of enabling vehicle trips in and out of core parts of the city, at the expense of neighborhoods such as the Northside and Independence Heights while exacerbating flooding woes.

“Even if you stop it and nothing happens, you’ll be in a better position,” Speck said.

For now, the posture of most people concerned with the project remains acceptance that TxDOT is going to move forward. Opponents’ aims are more about making what is built the best it can be.

“How many times will we have to have press conferences? … How many times will they have to come together?,” said the Rev. James Caldwell, founder of the Coalition of Community Organizations, gesturing to the assembled environmental, neighborhood and biking groups behind him speaking out against the project last week. “The answer is, they’ll be here (however) long it may take. We will continue to come as long as it takes to address inequality.”

Still, there is belief among some that the project simply needs to never happen.

“It is never too late to do the right thing,” Scoggin said. “Until they break ground and the first checks are written, this is not a done deal.”

dug.begley@chron.com