A Spring Resident's E-mail to TxDOT
(This e-mail was sent to TxDOT's Transportation Commissioners in care of their secretary at the address listed below. If you would like to have your letter posted to this website, please feel free to send them to me at the address listed at the bottom of the home page.)
To: 'dsulliva@dot.state.tx.us'
Subject: Grand Parkway Segment F-2
Ric Williamson, Johnny Johnson, Hope Andrade, Ted Houghton, and Robert Nichols:
Imagine moving your family to Texas from New England in 1998. It comes time to buy a house and you are looking for a neighborhood in which to invest. When researching neighborhoods you hear about a proposed project called the Grand Parkway. You know it may be convenient, however you certainly do not want to live right next to it, so you look for neighborhoods that are within reasonable distance to it. Based upon available knowledge you go to current maps to see where the highway is proposed to be located and you choose your house based upon the information that you have at hand.
Go forward a few years. Your community starts voicing concern about the Grand Parkway being built. You go to one of the public meetings and find that there is now a new alignment added to the map that was not there when you bought your house. This alignment now moves the Grand Parkway within a quarter of a mile of where you live - right over the train tracks and right next to the high school where your daughter now attends and within a half of mile from the intermediate school that your other
two children attend. While you are not happy with this newest development, you continue to live in your house and live your life because you are told by the Grand Parkway Association that Alignment E is not the proposed alignment. As an involved resident you go the public meetings and write letters voicing your concerns over the project while hoping that the proper
environmental studies will be conducted and the information in the DEIS will be updated to properly show how the community has changed over the past few years.
Go forward again to this past Tuesday (January 25, 2005) when HCTRA received the green light to proceed with the Grand Parkway project. Now you visit the websites that you have used to keep informed about the Grand Parkway to find that a map is now circulating in the meeting showing Alignment "E" as the Preferred Alignment for the Grand Parkway. In addition you learn that HCTRA will not be
held to same environment regulations that TxDOT would be held to if they continued to proceed with the Grand Parkway project.
As a homeowner you would probably feel frustrated at this point. Your quality of life has been compromised by a group of people's decision. This group does not really want your input and will not realize the impact of this project upon your life. Your children's health and education have been compromised. The quality of life and house values of people in your community will diminish because people who have moved into your subdivision and surrounding subdivisions chose their homes in an effort to
move away from the highway and the development associated with it-- not toward it. Many residents will find it very hard to sell their property with bulldozers outside the exit of your subdivision and by their children's schools. Even before the first bulldozer comes through it will become harder to sell property at a reasonable price because the shadow of the project will be
upon the neighborhood.
I am urging you to do the following:
- Please continue with the studies started by TxDOT and the Grand Parkway Association. They will give you an updated picture of what the community really looks like out here and perhaps you can find a route that will cause the least negative impact to our Spring community.
- Please provide some forum for public information. Please provide us with honest information of what is happening on the project.
- Allow the public some form of input. We are the people who will be affected by this project and will have to live with it day after day after the construction has been finished. Many residents will work with you as we were with TX Dot and the Grand Parkway Association. We are only trying to preserve our homes, neighborhoods, and quality of life - just like you would do for yourself and your families. Thank you and I look forward to your response,
Concerned Resident of Spring, Texas
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