Department Overview  

Copyright © 2001
Department of Transportation Studies
Texas Southern University

Impact of Katy Freeway Reconstruction on City’s Traffic Network and Alternative Traffic Re-Routing, Detouring and Control Strategies

Principal Investigator:    Dr. Lei Yu

Sponsoring Agency:    City of Houston

Period:    September 1, 2001 ~ August 31, 2003

Research Background:

The Katy Freeway (I-10), which extends 40 miles from the Central Business District of Houston West to the Brazos River, was originally designed to carry 79,200 vehicles per day.  After more than 30 years of service, the freeway now carries over 207,000 vehicles per day, which causes traffic congestion for almost 11 hours each day.  There is even congestion for long periods during the weekends.  In order to improve the traffic conditions along the Katy Freeway corridor, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is planning a major reconstruction project, which is scheduled to begin the construction in 2003.   To manage and oversee the reconstruction project in all its detail, TxDOT has hired a consultant, Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas (PB), which has devised a strategy for the reconstruction process to keep open the number of lanes that currently exist on the Katy Freeway.  Maintaining this number, however, will require each lane to be reduced in width from 12 to 11 feet, and the speed limit to be lowered by 10 to 15 miles per hour.  These changes will reduce the overall capacity of the freeway.  Because traffic demand will not decrease along with the decrease in capacity during construction, some of the traffic that normally uses the Katy Freeway will have to be diverted onto alternate routes.  These routes will primarily consist of city’s major arterial streets to the north and south of the freeway.  At the present time, however, it is not known whether these arterials will be able to carry the additional traffic diverted from the freeway and continue to operate effectively.  Neither is it known what traffic re-routing, detouring and control strategies should be adopted in order to minimize the disruption to the city’s network due to the reconstruction. 

Research Objectives:

In order to make the city fully prepared for this Katy Freeway major reconstruction project, there is an essential need to conduct a thorough analysis of the Katy Freeway reconstruction project.  The objectives of the proposed project are fourfold:

1. To quantitatively determine the impact of the Katy Freeway reconstruction on city’s traffic network, especially the surrounding arterials and the associated traffic signals;
2. To identify the feasible detouring routes;
3. To optimize traffic control strategies to minimize the disruption due to the diverted traffic; and

To recommend additional traffic control/Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies that can help accommodate the diverted traffic due to the Katy Freeway reconstruction.

Research Information

For further information about the research, please contact Dr. Lei Yu by telephone at(713) 313-7282 or by e-mail at yu_lx@tsu.edu.