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| Houston Apartment Locator Services : Houston Apartments |  | Contents | |
| Transportation |
| Highways |
Interstate 45 as it traverses Downtown Houston |
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Freeway and skyline of Downtown Houston |
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| Houston's size and lack of zoning have contributed
to decentralization, or urban sprawl, which, combined with the
humidity and hot summers, has made the automobile the favored
means of transportation. This dependence on cars causes various
pollution problems, including excessive ozone levels. Houston
is ranked among the most ozone-polluted cities in the United
States. |
| Houston freeways are heavily traveled and often
being reconstructed to meet the demands of continuing growth.
Interstate 45 south has been in a continuous state of construction,
in one portion or another, almost since the first segment was
built in 1952. Texas Department of Transportation (TX DOT) planners
have been running experiments to reduce traffic congestion at
rush hour. The primary method currently in use is the High-occupancy
vehicle (HOV) lane for vans and carpools. Timed freeway entrances,
which regulate the addition of cars to the freeway, are also
common. Houston has an extensive network of freeway cameras
linked to a transit control center to monitor and study traffic. |
| One unusual characteristic of Houston's freeways
are its frontage roads. Alongside most freeways are two to four
lanes in each direction parallel to the freeway permitting easy
access to individual city streets. The frontage roads make freeway
access very easy, but due to their visibility to passing traffic,
they have attracted most of Houston's gas stations and major
retail stores. New landscaping projects and a longstanding ban
on new billboards are two ways that Houston is trying to back
away from this side effect of convenience. |
| Houston has a hub-and-spoke freeway structure
with multiple loops. The innermost is Interstate 610, forming
approximately a 10 mile diameter loop around downtown. The roughly
square "Loop-610" is quartered into "North Loop,"
"South Loop," "West Loop," and "East
Loop." The roads of Beltway 8 and their freeway core, the
Sam Houston Parkway, are the next loop, at a diameter of roughly
25 miles. Most of this freeway requires payment of $1 or more
toll every five or ten miles. A controversial proposed highway
project, Texas Highway 99, would form a third loop outside of
Houston. Currently, the completed portion of Texas Highway 99
runs from just north of Interstate 10 east of Katy in Harris
County to Sugar Land in Fort Bend County at U.S. Highway 59
and was completed in 1994. The next portion to be constructed
is from the current terminus at U.S. Highway 59 to Texas Highway
288 in Brazoria County. |
| List of major highways |
| Residents often refer to Freeways and Tollways
by their names instead of numbers. |
- Beltway 8 - Sam Houston Parkway (Beltway 8 refers
to the frontage road)
- Interstate 10 - Katy Freeway (to west) / Baytown East Freeway
(to east)
- Interstate 45 - North Freeway (to north) / Gulf Freeway (to
southeast)
- Interstate 610 - North Loop, South Loop, West Loop, and East
Loop
- U.S. Highway 59 - Southwest Freeway to southwest / Eastex Freeway
to northeast
- U.S. Highway 90 - Beaumont Highway
- U.S. Highway 90A - South Main St. (Houston's first and only
"mini-freeway")
- U.S. Highway 290 - Northwest Freeway, Hempstead Highway
- Texas Highway 99 - Grand Parkway
- Texas Highway 122 - Fort Bend Parkway
- Texas Highway 225 - Pasadena Freeway, LaPorte Freeway
- Texas Highway 249 - Tomball Parkway
- Texas Highway 288 - South Freeway, Nolan Ryan Expressway
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| Mass transit |
The first line of the light rail system has been opened.
In this picture, a MetroRail train is approaching a
station in Downtown Houston, Texas |
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| The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County,
Texas, or METRO, provides public transportation in the form
of buses, trolleys, and lift vans. Uptown, METRO provides free
service on the Uptown Shuttle. The city got the METRORail, a
light rail service, on January 1, 2004. It runs primarily along
Main Street from central Downtown Houston to the Texas Medical
Center and Reliant Park. A 27 mile (43 km) expansion has been
approved to run the service all along the central Houston area,
including Uptown. METRO hopes to expand the Light Rail to the
2 major airports, as well as the Bay Area, Katy, Spring and
along the Southwest Freeway. This is Texas's second major light
rail service, after DART's light rail service in Dallas, Texas.
Although now only about 8 miles (13 km) long a long term plan
is being developed for several more much longer line segments
connecting diverse corners of the metropolitan area. |
| Two METRORail cars - #101 and #102 - are the only
METRO vehicles with dedication plaques to former mayor Lee P.
Brown and former METRO chairwoman Shirley DeLibero. |
| Airports |
| Houston is served by George Bush Intercontinental
Airport (IAH) and William P. Hobby Airport (HOU). |
| Bush Airport handles all of the city's international
traffic. Hobby has a lot of the intra-United States traffic
that is headed for downtown, southern Houston, Galveston, and
the southern suburbs; it also handles all flights by Southwest
Airlines from Houston. |
| The only passenger traffic that Ellington Field
(EFD) ever handled consists of passengers going to and from
Galveston County flying to Bush Airport to reduce travel time
to that said airport. Passenger flights ended on September 7,
2004. Ellington Field is in danger of closing down, as of February
2004 |
| To the southwest of Houston, in Sugar Land, is
the Sugar Land Regional Airport (SGR), formerly Sugar Land Municipal
Airport. Sugar Land Regional Airport is the fourth largest airport
in the Houston—Sugar Land—Baytown Metropolitan Area,
and the only general reliever airport in the southwest sector.
The airport mostly serves corporate, governmental, and private
clienteles, while it is owned and operated by the City of Sugar
Land. A new 20,000 SF Terminal and a 60-acre GA Complex, are
currently under construction, with the Terminal completion expected
in Spring 2006. |
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