Information AboutInterstate 45 |
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| interstate highways in texas | |
| transportation in houston | |
| highways in dallas, texas | |
Interstate 45 (I-45) is an Interstate Highway located entirely within the U.S. State of Texas . It connects the cities of Dallas and Houston , continuing southeast from Houston to Galveston on the Gulf Of Mexico . Despite the second digit of 5, which implies that I-45 is one of the ten major north-south routes, it stretches only one-fifth of the way across the country. I-45 replaced U.S. Highway 75 over its entire length, although portions of US 75 remained parallel to I-45 until its elimination south of downtown Dallas in 1987. At the south end of I-45, State Highway 87 (formerly part of US 75) continues into downtown Galveston. The north end is at Interstate 30 in Downtown Dallas , where US 75 used the Good-Latimer Expressway . A short continuation, known by Traffic Reporter s as the "I-45 overhead",Tony Hartzel, The Dallas Morning News , Road names honor Texas leaders, July 7 , 2002 signed as part of US 75, and officially Interstate 345, continues north to the merge with former US 75. Traffic can use Spur 366 to connect to Interstate 35E at the north end of I-345. The portion of I-45 between Galveston and Downtown Houston is known as the Gulf Freeway. The short '''Pierce Elevated''' connects this to the '''North Freeway''', which leads to Conroe . I-45 and I-345 in the Dallas area, north of the interchanges with Interstate 20 and State Highway 310 (old US 75), is the '''Julius Schepps Freeway'''. The Gulf Freeway and North Freeway both include Reversible Transitways for Bus es and other High-occupancy Vehicle s to and from downtown Houston. ROUTE DESCRIPTION In addition to the official Control Cities of Galveston , Houston , and Dallas , American Association Of State Highway And Transportation Officials , List of Control Cities for Use in Guide Signs on Interstate Highways, 2001 I-45 serves a number of other communities, including La Marque , League City , Spring , The Woodlands , Conroe , Willis , Huntsville , Madisonville , Centerville , Buffalo , Fairfield , Corsicana , and Ennis . U.S. Highway 190 joins I-45 for 26 miles from Huntsville, Texas to Madisonville, Texas . U.S. Highway 287 joins I-45 for 18 miles from Corsicana, Texas to Ennis, Texas . U.S. 287 signs are only posted (with I-45) from the northern end of Business Loop 45 in Corsicana to the Ellis County line. evacuation from the Louetta Road (exit 68) overpass]] Interstate 45 gained notoriety during Hurricane Rita in 2005. Thousands of Houston area evacuees jammed the roadway trying to leave. As a result, the freeway became a parking lot. Gas stations ran dry and hundreds of people's cars simply ran empty, their occupants having to spend the night along the shoulder. Four-hour drives suddenly became 24-hour drives. Even though the Texas Department Of Transportation started Contraflow Lane Reversal at FM 1488 , it didn't alleviate the traffic jam deep into the city, as that starting point was even north of The Woodlands , which is close to Conroe , the northern terminus of the greater Houston area. Gulf Freeway The stretch of I-45 connecting Galveston with Houston is known as the Gulf Freeway. It was the first , 1939 After several , 1939 ) The Gulf Freeway generally parallels ( Farm To Market Road 1764 ), NASA Road 1 Bypass (freeway under construction) and the Sam Houston Tollway , meeting the north end of State Highway 3 in southeastern Houston . (This part of SH 3 — on Winkler Drive and Monroe Road — is not part of old US 75.) A center Reversible HOV Lane begins just south of the Sam Houston Tollway. next to Downtown Houston ]] In Houston, I-45 meets , a short freeway spur to the University Of Houston , elevated Collector-distributor Road s (also part of Spur 5) begin. The C/D roads and the HOV lane end at Dowling Street, the original end of the Gulf Freeway. Just past Dowling Street is an interchange with U.S. Highway 59 (Eastex Freeway and Southwest Freeway) and State Highway 288 (South Freeway), after which I-45 technically becomes the North Freeway Clearing up confusion of multiple highway names ''Houston Chronicle, November 20, 2005.'' as it runs along the northwest half of the block between Pierce Street and Gray Street as the Pierce Elevated. The Reversible High-occupancy Vehicle Lane begins in downtown Houston at the intersection of St. Joseph Parkway and Dowling Street, with easy access inbound to St. Joseph Parkway and outbound from Pierce Street. It runs down the Median of the Gulf Freeway, mostly at the same level as the main lanes. Ramps are provided for access to and from the following roads:
North Freeway The North Freeway HOV begins in downtown Houston near the U of H Downtown campus, with easy access inbound on Milam Street and outbound on Travis Street. Ramps and entrances are provided for access from the following roads:
The HOV ends approximately one mile north of the FM1960 exit. Schepps Freeway The stretch of I-45 along the Julius Schepps Freeway in Dallas, from the Trinity River to Downtown Dallas, is elevated above the surrounding areas. As such, when ice storms hit the Dallas area (usually on average 1-2 times per year), the freeway is shut down, and traffic is diverted to State Highway 310 and U.S. Highway 175 which parallel I-45. I-345 is just 1.4 miles (2.3 km) long and connects the end of I-45 to the end of US 75 along the east side of downtown Dallas. It is signed northbound as US 75 and southbound as I-45. HISTORY In the initial assignment of state highways in 1917, (Dallas). Gulf Freeway (Houston to Galveston) The Galveston-Houston Electric Railway began operating an Interurban between those cities on December 5 , 1911 , and last ran on October 31 , 1936 , though the Houston Electric Company , operator of Houston's city transit system, continued to run trains on the portion between downtown and Park Place . A proposal for a "super-highway" between the cities was first made in 1930, and Houston Mayor Oscar Holcombe began to work towards it later that decade. He announced an agreement with the Houston Electric Company on April 12 , 1940 , through which the company could convert its four remaining lines to Bus es, in exchange for the Right-of-way used by the Park Place line. This line was last used on June 9 , 1940 , the last day of streetcar service in Houston;1 the replacement is still operated by METRO as the 40 along Telephone Road. Before the new highway was built, The first freeway dedication in the state took place at 7 p.m. on was dropped from the state highway system, while the remainder became State Highway 3 , connecting to the Gulf Freeway via Winkler Drive, effective August 20 , 1952 . Texas Department Of Transportation , Highway Designation File: State Highway No. 3 The first major change was made in preparation for the North Freeway connection, when the directions of Calhoun Avenue and Jefferson Street were swapped so that they would alternate. A bridge, dated 1954, was built to carry traffic from Jefferson Street over traffic to Jefferson Street, and US 75 was moved to Calhoun Avenue northbound,, 1961 ) this marked the completion of the Gulf Freeway as an actual freeway. distributor lanes, completed in 1988, are to the right]] As the first freeway in Texas, the standards of the Gulf Freeway soon became inadequate, with poor sight lines and little room to merge when entering. It also attracted development, such as Gulfgate Shopping City , the first mall in the Houston area, the Manned Spacecraft Center , and many Residential Development s. Heavy Congestion began to affect the freeway by the early 1960s; two roughly parallel freeways - the Harrisburg Freeway and Alvin Freeway - were proposed at that time to relieve the traffic, but were not built. A short project to widen the road to six lanes between I-610 and Sims Bayou was completed in 1960, and Ramp Meter s were installed in 1966. The I-610 interchange was rebuilt with direct connections for most movements in 1975. Plans to reconstruct the freeway near downtown began in 1972, taking about 170 houses and 22 businesses from the southwest side for the room to expand the main lanes and add parallel lanes for the Alvin Freeway. Local opposition was unsuccessful at stopping the project, and construction on this segment, and others to the southeast, took place in the 1980s. The lanes were shifted outward to make room for the transitway, which opened to I-610 on May 16 , 1988 . These lanes were inspired by the similar ones on the Shirley Highway in the Washington Metropolitan Area .3 That year also marked the end of the reconstruction inside I-610, along with the elevated distribution lanes alongside the main lanes near downtown; the first short piece of the Alvin Freeway was finally connected to these in 1999. This project gave I-45 its current configuration, mostly eight main lanes wide, from Sims Bayou past I-610 to Griggs Road in 1981, to Telephone Road in 1982, to Lockwood Drive in 1985, and finally to downtown in 1988. However, this was not the end of construction on the Gulf Freeway. The highway beyond I-610 to FM 1959, which had just been upgraded in the 1950s and 1960s, saw an extension of the transitway to a temporary end near FM 1959, widening to eight lanes, and a large , 2007 North Freeway (Houston to Conroe) The last alignment of US 75 before the North Freeway was built left downtown Houston to the northwest on Main Street, turning north at Airline Drive, and then northwest along the present alignment of I-45, then known as Stuebner Airline Road, Shepherd Drive, and East Montgomery Road. The freeway replacement was authorized in stages between May 1945 and June 1952, when the Texas Transportation Commission adopted plans for a freeway all the way between Houston and Dallas. The North Freeway name was adopted in 1956; an unsuccessful proposal in 1965 would have renamed it the Dallas Freeway.4 The first short piece of the freeway to open crossed Buffalo Bayou , connecting the two One-way Pair s from the north end of the Gulf Freeway with the south end of Houston Avenue. This was opened on December 12 , 1955 , and allowed US 75 to bypass its run on Main Street; it included interchanges with Allen Parkway and Memorial Drive . The next piece near downtown opened on July 24 , 1962 , leaving the 1955 freeway in the Allen Parkway interchange, passing east of Houston Avenue, and connected to an already-built portion at I-610 . The six-lane Pierce Elevated, which occupies half a block on the southwest side of Pierce Street, required the acquisition of a number of commercial properties; the cost prevented the full block from being used. This portion opened on August 18 , 1967 , connecting the Gulf and North Freeways and bypassing the "four-street distribution system", which remains in its original form to this day.5 The first piece of the North Freeway to be built outside I-610 was an upgrade of existing US 75 on Stuebner Airline Road, between Airline Drive and Shepherd Drive, opened in December 1959. In April 1961, this was completed to the interchange with I-610, and on In between, the upgrade was completed from Farm To Market Road 525 to near Richey Road in December 1961, south to the 1959 segment in February 1963, and north to the 1960 segment in March 1963, completing the North Freeway except for the Pierce Elevated (1967). The freeway as initially built had eight lanes (four in each direction) between downtown and I-610, six to Farm To Market Road 1960 , and four north of FM 1960. Like the Gulf Freeway, the North Freeway soon became Congested . The Oil Boom of the 1970s resulted in large-scale Residential Development along the highway, most notably The Woodlands . Since the corridor was strongly directional, with 65% of peak-hour traffic going in the peak direction, a 9.6-mile (15.4 km) Contraflow Lane for Bus es and other High-occupancy Vehicle s (HOV) was implemented later that decade, opening on August 28 , 1979 between downtown and Shepherd Drive (exit 56B). The facility, operating during both Rush Hour periods, occupied the leftmost lane of the other direction, and was separated from the other lanes with a movable Pylon every 40 feet (12 m). In 1980, the existing center Breakdown Lane s were restriped for HOV traffic for about two miles (3 km) from the north end of the contraflow lane. However, off-peak traffic was increasing, and construction began in 1983 on a more permanent reversible Transitway in the median. This, the second transitway in Houston (a month after the one on the Katy Freeway ), opened on November 23 , 1984 , replacing the contraflow lane. Reconstruction of the main lanes and frontage roads to handle increased traffic began in 1982 just north of downtown. No lanes were added south of I-610, but the eight-lane cross section, with room for a transitway, was continued north as oonstruction progressed. Work was completed south of Airline Drive (exit 53) in about 1985, to Shepherd Drive (exit 56B) in 1987, and to , 2006 Schepps Freeway (Dallas) and to Richland The , City Seeks Freeway Project, June 22 , 1958 By the time construction reached Hutchins, in about 1955, the state decided to build further segments to full freeway standards. By 1961, the freeway was complete between Hutchins and the State Highway 14 split at Richland , except for the bypass around Corsicana , which was built ca. 1964. This freeway was mostly built along the existing US 75; one of the projects in Navarro County , near Corsicana, was the first Interstate project in Texas approved under the Federal-Aid Highway Act Of 1956 . Federal Highway Administration , Previous Interstate Facts of the Day , accessed August 2007 " plan for Interstates in Dallas]] It was not until 1964 that I-345, extending I-45 north along the proposed Central Expressway bypass, was added as a proposed state highway., 1976 . Dallas Morning News , Interstate 45 to Open Feb. 25, February 15 , 1976 At the north end, before it merged into the Central Expressway (which continued to carry US 75), I-345 straddled the bridges over Bryan Street and Ross Avenue, the latter the location of the opening ceremonies in 1949. Dallas Morning News , North Central Turns 35 Today, August 19 , 1984 Because of their location, these two bridges were not replaced in the 1990s reconstruction of the North Central Expressway, and are the only surviving grade separations from the initial construction north from downtown. Federal Highway Administration , National Bridge Inventory , 2006 Reconstruction and widening to six lanes, from the Ellis - Navarro county line (between exits 243 and 244) north to State Highway 310 (exit 275), began in 1991.Tony Hartzel, Dallas Morning News , Road to Better Driving, October 29 , 2000 The last section, near the north end, was completed in 2002. Between Conroe and Richland The first part of I-45 between Conroe and Richland was the bypass around Huntsville . The final piece of I-45 between the cities opened on October 13 , 1971 , for 12 miles (19 km) between Fairfield and Streetman . EXIT LIST REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS |
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