Leave it to Calvin and Hobbes to be able to perfectly translate my feelings into words!
A couple of weeks ago I came across information that TxDOT is seeking input on several alternatives being proposed for a bypass route around US 69 between Lumberton and Kountze in southeast Texas, near Beaumont. Knowing this area because of its proximity to the Big Thicket and several other natural areas, I was very interested in what was being proposed. I was also suspicious because this came on the heels of TxDOT backing out of 5 years of negotiation to keep the forested median along the northern area of U.S. 69 from Kountze to Warren, called the Big Thicket Parkway, in efforts to expand the highway in the area for hurricane evacuation and other reasons. To me, this effort along with this proposed relief route, and then adding in the proposed I-14 corridor which will run east-west in the Big Thicket region from Livingston to Woodville to the Louisiana border (and beyond all the way to Augusta, Georgia), are all symptoms of future sprawl into a currently rural area. And these areas have many protected lands and sensitive habitats within them, the Big Thicket National Preserve being the main interest in the expansion of the US 69 relief route.
I did hear from an acquaintance who lives in the Lumberton area who did lament that there is heavy traffic on US 69 during peak hours, so I’m not discounting the concerns for easing some of these issues. But I’ve done enough reading in the last few years from Houston area anti-road expansion advocates that expanding highways and building more roads generally does little to ease congestion and instead creates more because it invites drivers who would have never used the original road to use the new road, thus creating more traffic. And pair new roads with new developments and then you have still yet another increase in traffic and congestion. Don’t take my word for it, a quick Google search will show you report after report on how building and expanding roads does little for easing traffic. I’m watching the consequences of a small new road opening up near me in the last few years, and all of the large tracts of forested land that were previously inaccessible are now being clear cut and leveled for development. One in particular is a mess of terrible stormwater best management practices, with soil be hauled from the site falling from trucks onto the roadway and into the nearby ditches, and thus when heavy rain events occur, it flows downstream into a nearby creek, thus eventually ending up in the San Jacinto River.
We can see the effects of road expansion everywhere in Texas. We sit and lament the sprawl that occurs, and notice how little planning is involved in saving green spaces, repurposing empty storefronts, or proposing thoughtful protections and buffers for our streams and wetlands so that we can have clean water in our cities and flooding protection during heavy rain events. But for this project, the time is now to submit your concerns. This project is slated to begin scoping work within the next year with an ultimate plan of being built starting in 2035. Yes, 2035. Road projects like this are typically planned many years in advance and if you aren’t staying on top of the projects, when the bulldozers come to raze the land you are often too late.
You can read the flier below to get more information and look more in depth at the project and submit comments here. Even if you don’t live in the area but use the area for visiting the state’s natural areas, please submit your comments.