The New York Times has a fascinating story about a project I mentioned a few days ago: The stimulus-funded expansion of the Grand Parkway west of Houston through the endangered Katy Prairie. Once completed, the Parkway will form a fourth highway loop around the city and surrounding suburbs.
When I was in college , the Grand Parkway was my link between the Southwest Houston suburb where I grew up and the interstate to Austin. I never thought of the Eckerd’s- and Randall’s-anchored strip malls and “planned communities” with names like New Territory and signs reading “JAIL: DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS” as anything but suburban hell—a non-place on the way to somewhere else.
The Katy Prairie, according to the Katy Prairie Conservancy, encompasses more than 1,000 square miles of wetlands, creeks, and grasslands bounded by the Brazos River on the southwest, forests to the north, and Houston on the east. It provides habitat for migratory birds, spawning fish, waterfowl, and coyotes, among many other animals; it also helps buffer floods and recharge groundwater.
Environmentalists, the NYT reports,
worry that the law will destroy part of the last 150,000 undeveloped acres of a prairie that was once 1,000 square miles — a treasured expanse of open land in the shadow of Houston that attracts bird watchers, hunters, hikers and prairie flower enthusiasts. The Sierra Club, which sometimes leads groups through the prairie to see its bald eagles, ducks, geese, herons and egrets, filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the project so another environmental review can be conducted.
“When you get out here, it seems you’re not even close to Houston,” Brandt Mannchen, a volunteer with the club, said on a recent tour of the prairie, where he pointed out native grasses and flowers. “This is what we’re trying to protect.”
The road won environmental approval from the federal government last year and took a step forward this month when county officials awarded several design and engineering contracts. It is more controversial for its proposed use of tolls — little loved in Texas — than for questions about land use. But supporters of the project, which has been discussed and planned for more than two decades, say that Houston will continue to expand westward with or without the road, and that it would be better to plan for the growth than to react to it once it comes.
Of course, that’s exactly what President Obama said he wanted the transportation stimulus package to do—plan growth by spending money where the people are, rather than “building sprawl forever,” as Obama put it when he announced the stimulus proposal. Instead, the stimulus seems geared toward building highways to nowhere —and paving over important wild places, like the Katy Prairie, that many might not even be aware of until they’re gone.
ALL of Houston is suburban hell. When other cities bad suburbs die and need to go to a worse hell, they are relocated to Houston.
…and as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention.
Each state and county and municipality submitted their own projects.
Texas … well, we’ve both been there, are you that suprised, Erica?
What a revelation this was, ECB. Everything you’ve ever ranted about “sprawl” and “exurbs” makes so much more sense through the lens of your awful geographic origins.
On the other hand, Seattle is to Texas as up is to down. It’s not apples and oranges; it’s like comparing apples and drill bits…
Seattle sprawl looks more like Houston sprawl every day, @4. It’s easy to forget that because we live in a beautiful setting, our built landscape is actually pretty hideous.
The argument that “Houston will continue to expand westward with or without the road, and that it would be better to plan for the growth than to react to it once it comes” is exactly backwards. Sprawl will follow the highway. The threat to the Katy Prairie isn’t the highway itself, but the development it will drag out there.
I didn’t even know I had that bottle of wine on me when I walked out of the store….
I’m just waiting for the day when some bacteria mutates into being able to digest hydrocarbons. Boy, would that ever be a hoot.
Hey, it could happen.
@6 – I told you to lay off that today on FB, but no … do I seriously have to out you?
I also grew up in that area, and my father works closely with the Katy Prarie Conservancy. As a geologist, He’s worked with land owners in the area since the ’70’s, and is a world expert on the geology of the area. Some of his work helped in the effort to keep nuclear waste out of the salt domes in the area.
I grew up hiking, hunting, and fishing on the “Prairie”. First : I’d venture to guess 99%+ of that land is farms and ranches, and has been for 100 years or more. It’s already developed. Oil wells, mining, etc. That’s what’s all over that land, not pristine praries with native grasslands.
Second : The Katy Prairie Association is typical Texas politics. I’m not sure how much I can really say about that, but I can say that they’re concerned with conservation…right up until they think they can get rich.
Finally : Yeah, sprawl sucks, but Houston is helping to revitalize downtown (Montrose anyone?) too.
It’s all going to be under water in twenty years anyway.
@10: Not too likely, Katy’s elevation is 141 ft.