City of Houston considers selling 2.99 acres to TxDOT for I-45 expansion

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A group known as StopTxDotI45 is asking the City of Houston to abstain from selling a portion of land near downtown that would be used for TxDOT's I-45 expansion project.

The city council will vote next week on whether to sell 2.99 acres along White Oak Bayou to TxDOT for $261,051.00.

The portion of the bayou contains trails and is located across from the University of Houston-Downtown near Milam and Commerce.

Chloe Cook is with Stop TxDotI45 and told ABC13 that the entire project is bad for the City of Houston.

"There's really a lot of negatives to urban freeway expansion and hardly any positives for almost everybody," she explained.

TxDOT has touted improvements in mobility as the driving force behind the $9 billion project, which has endured years of planning, design, protests, and even a lawsuit from Harris County.

They announced in November they were almost ready to begin construction.

Cook said the portion of land the city might sell would ultimately suffer from having multiple lanes of freeways built on top of it.

"There's simply no way to say that it's not going to affect the wildlife, the experience of being a user on that trail, or that it's not going to make the air quality worse," said Cook.

TxDOT's website said the expansion project will improve bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Still, they didn't answer ABC13's specific questions about this area when this article was published.

The city council was supposed to vote on the sale this week, but it was delayed so District H Councilman Mario Castillo could ask TxDOT more questions about the project.

The vote is now scheduled to take place next Wednesday.

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