Deja vu: TxDOT plan to expand Interstate 10 could divide a Houston neighborhood again

There are few, if any, cottages left in Cottage Grove.

Instead, the neighborhood is filled with an eclectic mix of architecture styles: a walk down the block may boast geometric and sharp modern design standing in contrast to yellow stucco reminiscent of Mediterranean towns.

To hear it from residents, the changes have been recent as new residents took advantage of lower property prices and the neighborhood gentrified to fit its new inhabitants.

What has remained a constant through that period of time has been Interstate 10. In the 1960s, I-10 began construction, with the freeway officially opening to the public in 1968.

Almost six decades later, the Texas Department of Transportation has plans once again for I-10. This time, the project would be to expand the freeway from Voss Road to Interstate 45. The project would extend existing managed lanes into downtown while adding drainage improvements under the freeway. That takes the form of two options: widen the freeway or elevate the managed lanes.

Neither, according to residents, is a good option.

Instead, a grass-roots movement called “No Higher, No Wider” has proposed an alternative that would widen the freeway at its current grade and create managed lanes in the existing right-of-way of I-10.

The main feature of the community-driven design is a structural cap, a cover that would go over the existing below-grade sections of the freeway on which development could occur. The idea is to link the two sides of Cottage Grove for the first time in nearly 60 years with pedestrian infrastructure.

While most of Cottage Grove lies north of I-10, few know the neighborhood extends south of the highway. In fact, few residents of that area even know they are in Cottage Grove.

“We don’t, as a neighborhood, have really an identity because we’re separated,” said Katie Niemann, secretary of the Cottage Grove Civic Association, who has lived in the neighborhood for 10 years. “It’s kind of like an information campaign because people don’t know.”

Letting go of ‘forever’

Andrea Lagow and her husband bought their house and slowly have worked on it through the years, transforming it into their dream home.

“We planned on living here forever and just making the house our own,” Lagow said.

The Texas Department of Transportation has other ideas.

Lagow’s home could be one of more than 80 homes and businesses that would be razed to make room for a potential widening of I-10 that would incorporate managed lanes for the proposed Metro bus rapid transit known as the Inner Katy line. When Lagow’s husband went to TxDOT planning meetings, it was not clear whether their house was in the project’s footprint.

The uncertainty gnaws at Lagow.

“It’s the unknown, and I like maintaining my house and I like having projects around my house,” she said, occasionally glancing sideways to check on her dog as he explored Cottage Grove Park. “I’ve had to put my creative side on hold, and that’s hard for me. But, I mean, it is what it is.”

Lagow’s preference would be to not have to look for another home. However, she has accepted the fate of highway expansion as part of living in an urban area.

“Obviously, we don’t want it to affect us, but at the same time, you know, we purchased the house right there on the feeder,” she said. “It’s kind of part of city living and the growth of the city.”

She smiled and admitted it sounded strange, but she was unbothered by the potential expansion. Her biggest issue is the skyrocketing prices for homes, and how difficult it is to find a place to accommodate her family.

That is not to say she supports expansion. Asked whether highway expansions were the right solution for traffic congestion, she said “no” before the question was even finished. To her, the proper solution is a more comprehensive rail system.

“The truth of it is, we’re in an oil and gas city,” she said. “So, oil and gas has money and they’re going to fight that to the death. So, the chances of us getting a rail system is slim to none.”

A sense of deja vu

Drew Wiley, the infrastructure committee chair for the Cottage Grove Civic Association, has not lived in the area for very long, but he has spoken with some former residents in the area who remember playing on the highway construction site as kids.

The neighborhood began to come together in the early 20th century, with newspaper ads in the Houston Daily Post advertising building lot prices of “only $50 to $100.”

According to Wiley, the construction of I-10 disconnected the south side and signaled the beginning of a downward slump for the neighborhood.

“There’s all sorts of, you know, history of gang violence and things like that at the time, and it really struggled,” Wiley said. “I think the freeway cutting through, it had a big part to do with that.”

Wiley said there were attempts from TxDOT to keep the neighborhood connected with the construction of pedestrian bridges, but those bridges stop short of the feeder road.

“It’s not a safe or reasonable way to try to reconnect a community,” he said. “That was back in the 60s, a long time ago, but the effects are definitely still felt today.”

Prior to 2005 , the neighborhood predominantly was working class and ethnically diverse. It was around that time that developers began buying up vacant land and razing the area’s eponymous cottages. That development skyrocketed land values, driving out seniors on fixed incomes. The civic club at the time had to find new places to meet because its old meeting locations no longer existed.

“The neighborhood’s been redeveloping. It’s great now, a wonderful place to live,” Wiley said. “Not that it wasn’t then, but it’s just, I think it’s suffered from freeway construction, like a lot of neighborhoods do.”

Hitting the TxDOT wall

According to Grady Mapes, director of TxDOT’s District Comprehensive Development Agreements program, public comments generally deal with one specific issue or technical part of the project.

Technical suggestions are easy to evaluate, as TxDOT operates under a set of standards it can weigh against outside ideas and proposals. Those standards deal with such things as stopping sight distances and other technical evaluations of the road.

“We don’t often have comments in a large group that come in that just say we just don’t like the project,” Mapes said.

A Houston Landing review of public feedback from more than 250 residents showed the vast majority of comments were in opposition to the I-10 project.

“It’s an evaluation of the purpose and need at that point is really what it becomes,” Mapes said.

For the I-10 Inner Katy Managed Lanes project, the purpose for the project is to reduce congestion, improve mobility, and enhance drainage on I-10. Many commenters say widening the freeway likely would not do much to alleviate congestion.

Instead, the project would bring more noise and air pollution, while also cutting into the neighborhood’s park. It also may displace more than 80 homes and businesses. Residents called out the potential for damaging neighborhood property values and overall quality of life as lasting impacts without seeing real benefits from the project.

“Going back to 2021, we presented alternatives to TxDOT,” Wiley said. “We were like, ‘Look, this is too much. You guys, you’re just using your old playbook, you’re just widening. You’re adding more lanes, like this isn’t what this area needs.’”

Other commenters wanted to see an emphasis on green spaces and pedestrian mobility. The overall resistance to the same freeway solutions led to the formation of “No Higher, No Wider I-10” and pushes from neighborhoods like Cottage Grove and the West End.

The structural cap solution is not sure to alleviate the concerns of residents, according to Mapes.

“Sometimes they have outcomes that people maybe didn’t think of when they presented the concept,” Mapes said, suggesting that some ideas could require additional right-of-way on the freeway.

Uphill battle

Wiley and his childhood best friend and civic association president Ian Fortney met with TxDOT in August 2023 to discuss alternatives. Both described the meeting as productive until it was interrupted by Raquelle Lewis, a TxDOT director of communications.

“We were pretty much like, ‘Hey, have you considered alternative modes of transportation?’” Fortney said. “And the TxDOT official literally laughed at us.”

According to Wiley, the meeting had been productive until then, with engineers walking the pair through their alternative designs and why they would or would not be feasible. Lewis’ entrance changed the tenor of the meeting.

Wiley explained to Lewis that cities around the country and across Texas were exploring ways to build more multimodal connectivity, and that their proposals were in line with those suggestions.

“She’s like, ‘Well, TxDOT is not doing that’ and she made some other kind of snotty comments,” Wiley said, his voice sharpening as he recalled the interaction.

Wiley paused and admitted it was frustrating.

“You’re the communications director. You’d think you would be more polite when the neighborhood is taking the time to really make a drawing for you and present you this alternative that we think could work for us,” he said.

TxDOT did not respond to a request for comment on Wiley’s recollection of the meeting.

The transportation agency has yet to post the results of the public comment period. Mapes told the Landing it could be until the end of 2024 or even the beginning of 2025 before the agency will be ready to show the project to the public again.

“The thing that a lot of us in all the communities along the neighborhood are doing (is) trying to find win-win solutions. That’s why you have the ‘No Higher, No Wider’ type of thing,” Fortney said, his voice just loud enough to hear over the steady buzz of traffic on I-10.

“There’s precedent for this. So, it’s not, like, pie in the sky.”