TRANSPORTATION UPDATES
COMPILED BY DANIEL WEEKS & ILANA WILLIAMS
ONGOING PROJECTS
TxDOT plans for more electric vehicle charging stations To support the growth of electric vehicles, Houston is addressing air quality concerns and long-term fund- ing strategies for electric vehicles and charging stations. Texas has also been allocated $400 million of federal P SEABROOK There are 19,000+ electric vehicles in Harris County. +52% CHARGING THE BAY AREA Charging station Electric vehicle charging stations can be found at more than a dozen locations throughout the Bay Area.
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money, which will be distributed over the next five years, to fund electric vehicle infrastructure. Electric vehicles are in 233 out of Texas’ 254 counties, according to a Texas Department of Transportation plan released this spring. As of July 19, there were over 19,700 electric vehicles registered in Harris County, according to data from Dallas-Fort Worth Clean Cities and the North Central Texas Council of Governments. However, electric vehicles account for 0.56% of all registered vehicles in Harris County. In Galveston County, there are over 1,219 electric vehicles that make up 0.42% of all vehicles in the county. While electric cars are becoming more accessible, the issue lies with making charging stations more available, said Harry Tenenbaum, director of commercialization and infrastructure at Evolve Houston. The nonprofit works with entities to facilitate installing and developing electric vehicle infrastructure. The nonprofit’s Regional Infra- structure Strategy for Electrification report—or RISE Houston—released in March, said as of September 2021, 1,200 public chargers for electric vehicles are in the Houston area. That amount supports the electric vehicles on the road today, but the projected electric vehicle growth can quickly outnumber the existing chargers, the report said. “The first step is learning more and finding out how many people don’t have access to charge at home,” Tenenbaum said. The federal government and the state have invested in infrastructure to meet the growing demand and improve accessibility. Health effects The Electric Reliability Council of Texas estimates Houston will have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2028, according to TxDOT’s plan. Ebrahim Eslami, a research scientist at the Houston Advanced Research Center, said there are 528 2351
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in alternative- fuel vehicle ownership
North Landing Boulevard extension The extension will provide an additional crossing of Clear Creek and aims to al- leviate congestion on FM 518. The new roadway would extend Landing Boule- vard and the NASA Bypass to intersect at a roundabout. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said wetland mitigation will take several more months. Timeline: late 2023-early 2026 Cost: $67.1 million Funding source: TxDOT, League City, Webster
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over the past five fiscal years statewide
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96 President Joe Biden’s administration aims to have 50% of new car sales be electric vehicles by 2030 .
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SOURCES: RELIANT ENERGY, DALLAS-FORT WORTH CLEAN CITIES, THE NORTH CENTRAL TEXAS COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS, WHITE HOUSE, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES/COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
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Electric infrastructure Electric vehicle infrastructure requires generating enough power, transmitting energy across the grid and bringing energy through electric chargers, Tenenbaum said. Under the federal Bipartisan Infra- structure Law passed in November, Texas is expected to receive more than $400 million from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program over the next five years, said Thomas Pommier, senior staff analyst at Mayor Sylvester Turner’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability. This is part of President Joe Biden’s admin- istration’s goal for 50% of new car sales to be electric vehicles by 2030, according to a June White House news release. This year, TxDOT will deploy chargers at 55 new locations around Texas. They will be mostly near interstate highways. Beginning in 2023, an estimated $42 million-$43 million is expected to flow through the Houston-Galveston Area Council to deploy more electric vehicle chargers in the region. “Fortunately, there are a lot of people and a lot of organizations that are not only interested in this, but passionate as well and provide whichever resources they can ... to investigate the impacts of the human health and environmental impacts of transportation,” Tenenbaum said. LEAGUE CITY
between 7 million-10 million cars in Houston, but even if there is a small amount of electrification, there can be an improvement in air quality. “Assuming 100% of [vehicles] are going to be electric by 2040, we need electricity,” he said. “We need the infrastructure for [electric cars] to emerge as the main source of electric production sources.” Although it is unclear how much carbon is reduced if more residents switched to electric vehicles, there would be a decrease in ground-level ozone—a harmful air pollutant that can cause health problems—if more electric vehicles are on the road, Eslami said. “At the end of the day that’s what counts,” he said. “We want to reduce the health impacts.” Health impact results show that increased ozone and particulate mat- ter will lead to 122 premature deaths annually if there are no changes to air quality in the Greater Houston area, according to a December 2019 report from the Center for Transpor- tation, Environment and Commu- nity Health. Eslami said he believes zero emissions from cars is possible. “In the two weeks during [corona- virus] lockdown there were almost no emissions,” Eslami said. “[This] shows the potential of having better air quality in a big city like Houston.”
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Hwy. 3, FM 518 improvements League City began land acquisition for a project to improve traffic flow at the Hwy. 3 and FM 518 intersection without any major impacts to nearby businesses. The project includes dual left-turn lanes at the northbound and southbound ends, a southbound right-turn lane and a longer westbound left-turn lane. Timeline: 2024-TBD Cost: $4.14 million Funding source: League City
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ALL INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE WAS UPDATED AS OF SEPT. 1. NEWS OR QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE OR OTHER LOCAL TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS? EMAIL US AT BAYNEWS@COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM. Timeline: 2024-TBD Cost: $2.40 million Funding source: League City Winfield Road construction League City will construct Winfield Road, a new I-45 frontage road to pro- vide traffic relief at FM 518 and Hobbs Road. A consultant will provide the city two preliminary routes.
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BAY AREA EDITION • SEPTEMBER 2022
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