Press Room
Stay up to date! Below you will find a collection of coverage from external media outlets, as well as all of our own press releases.
‘It’s just more and more lanes’: the Texan revolt against giant new highways
April 29, 2022From Oliver Milman in The Guardian: “Texas, with its wide-laned roads and supersized highways, seems like an unlikely place for a rebellion against the supremacy of American car culture.”
News & Articles
The Road Home
July 12, 2021From Megan Kimble in The Texas Observer: “The Texas Department of Transportation intends to spend $25 billion widening highways to fix traffic in Texas cities. What if we tore them down instead?”
Widening I-45 will be a Disaster for Houston
September 6, 2019From Jeff Speck in the Houston Chronicle. See also his video explainer on the impacts of the proposed expansion.
Reducing Congestion: Katy Didn’t
December 16, 2015From Joe Cortright in the City Observatory: “Here’s a highway success story, as told by the folks who build highways…There’s just one problem: congestion on the Katy has actually gotten worse since its expansion.”
Title VI Complaint
December 16, 2021Air Alliance Houston, Stop TxDOT I-45, LINK Houston, Texas Appleseed, and Texas Housers respectfully submit this complaint alleging violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d-7, and U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) implementing regulations, 49 C.F.R. pt. 21.
These civil rights violations stem from the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) adoption of a preferred alternative for the North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP) through its United Transportation Plan (UTP) that will result in disparate, severe, and unmitigated environmental and economic impacts on the predominantly Black and Hispanic/Latinx communities which lie in the path of the proposed expansion, including Second Ward, Third Ward, Fourth Ward, Fifth Ward, Independence Heights, Aldine, Acres Home, and Near Northside. TxDOT is a recipient of federal funds, and under Title VI, cannot lawfully take actions that have a discriminatory impact on the basis of race, color, and national origin.
Press Releases
To Secretary Buttigieg
November 30, 2021We write to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttegieg to urge his continued support of a thorough investigation by the Federal Highway Administration into complaints of civil rights violations by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
On Mayor Zimmerman
November 19, 2021Through his connections to his private employer, Halff Associates, Inc., Mayor Joe Zimmerman of Sugar Land has maintained conflicts of interest that violate multiple codes of ethics and undermine the TPC’s necessary impartiality in managing federal transportation funds. For these reasons, we call on Mayor Zimmerman to resign from his position on the Transportation Policy Council and ask H-GAC staff to conduct a review of Mayor Zimmerman’s conduct during his time serving as a TPC member.
The True State of TxDOT
October 21, 2021
Transportation Advocacy Group of Houston (TAG) engages in special interest fundraising luncheon with the Texas Department of Transportation, forcefully removing a paid ticket buyer and ignoring picketers outside. The “TRUE State of TxDOT” is dysfunctional, archaic, and ignoring the communities they purport to serve.
TTC Approves UTP
August 31, 2021
On Tuesday, August 31, 2021, the Texas Transportation Commission (TTC) unanimously approved its 2022 Unified Transportation Program (UTP), which includes the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) proposal for the NHHIP (North Houston Highway Improvement Project). It is Stop TxDOT I-45’s position that no such approval can be considered ethical when community voices have been intentionally excluded and ignored. Stop TxDOT I-45 continues to advocate that these funds be used for a re-envisioned project, one which incorporates feedback from impacted communities and local governments.
TTC Accommodations
August 19, 2021A request that the Texas Transportation Commission (TTC) immediately institute procedures for remote public comment for its August 31, 2021 Commission meeting and all TTC meetings thereafter until the state community transmission rate has declined to low or moderate levels, and the decline in community transmission rate has continued for at least 4 weeks.
Invest in America Act
June 21, 2021We are encouraged to see a bill that better distributes funds across transportation modes and we support the bill’s prioritization of funding to public transit, safety programs, active transportation, complete streets, transit-oriented development, low-to-zero emission transportation solutions, and infrastructure maintenance.
That said, more funding is needed to address historically racist transportation projects and the transportation sector’s negative environmental impacts.
To Secretary Buttigieg
March 31, 2021We write with an urgent request that Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg take steps to ensure that the recent request by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to pause contracting on the North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP) is complied with and effective in ceasing ongoing right of way acquisition. This is needed in order to avoid irreparable harm to homeowners and tenants in properties located within proposed right of way areas that TxDOT or its contractors continue seeking to acquire for the Project.
On the FEIS
December 8, 2020Stop TxDOT I-45’s full response to TxDOT’s Final Environmental Impact Statement on the North Houston Highway Improvement Project.