On March 9, 2009, the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Houston against the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Texas Transportation Commission (TTC) due to the impacts that the proposed Grand Parkway (GP), Segment E, may have on the Houston environment. A lawsuit is an expensive, time consuming, and difficult strategy that is taken only as a last resort after weighing the situation carefully. We are now at that last resort with the proposed GP.

If the FHWA, TTC, and Harris County succeed with the construction of Segment E then citizens, taxpayers, and drivers in Harris and other counties will be forced, like a Ponzi Scheme, to pay for a gigantic toll road project that winds 180 miles across seven counties, will destroy the last and best open space and flood control detention areas left in Houston, and will cost an estimated $5.7 billion.

After working for over 25 years for solutions other than the proposed GP the Sierra Club had two choices: acquiesce and allow this terrible injustice or file a lawsuit. The Sierra Club chose to file a lawsuit.

What are the Sierra Club concerns about the proposed GP which required us to take such an action?

The proposed GP is a development project and not a transportation project. This was most clearly stated on March 5, 2009 at a TTC meeting when John Barton, an official with the Texas Department of Transportation, stated that economic stimulus money should be spent on the proposed GP because it was an opportunity to open up land in Northwest Harris County to development. So the question is, Why should Westpark and Sam Houston Toll Road drivers and taxpayers subsidize wealthy private developers and help them build traffic generating subdivisions where no one lives?

The proposed GP, Segment E, will directly destroy about 700 acres of Katy Prairie. Indirectly, by subsidizing the Bridgelands development in its efforts to construct subdivisions, the proposed GP will destroy about 12,000 acres of the Katy Prairie. Let those who want to destroy, degrade, and develop the beautiful Katy Prairie pay for this with their own private dollars, not public dollars.

The Katy Prairie is more than a home for hundreds of thousands of geese, ducks, herons, egrets, songbirds, and other wildlife. The Katy Prairie is a giant sponge that soaks up flood waters and detains and keeps those waters from flooding down Buffalo Bayou causing havoc downstream in Houston. In other words, the Katy Prairie is Houston’s biggest detention basin provided by Nature free to us. All we have to do is not pave it over and it will protect us. It goes without saying the importance of parks, wildlife habitat, flood control, and beautiful landscapes are quality of life issues that Houstonians care about immensely and which the proposed GP desecrates and destroys.

There are proven transportation alternatives to the proposed GP, Segment E, which will reduce traffic congestion where people live, work, and play. Some of these alternatives are: commuter rail along U.S. 290, widening of U.S. 290, Hempstead Highway toll road, widening of Katy-Hockley Road, and connection of Fry and Mason Roads to U.S. 290.

We need to spend precious taxpayer and toll payer dollars where people live and traffic congestion exists now and not use our money to subsidize further traffic generating sprawl growth that clogs our roads. The poem in the sidebar was recited to the Transportation Policy Council on February 27, 2009, before it voted in favor of supporting the use of federal economic stimulus money to fund the proposed Grand Parkway, Segment E.

LAWSUIT SUMMARY

• A lawsuit is a last-resort action.
• The proposed Grand Parkway is 180 miles long, stretching through seven countines.
• It is a development project, not a transportation project.
• It amounts to an indirect public subsidy to developers.
• It and the associated development would destroy the last open space and flood-control detention areas.
• Destruction of open space has a large detrimental effect on wildliife, including migratory birds.
• There are much better transportation alternatives.
• Public funds are better spent elsewhere.
• The Sierra Club has worked toward other solutions for over 25 years.

May 2009

Last updated:  06/27/2009.   Content © 1999-2009 by the Sierra Club.