TxDOT, the Lake Houston Redevelopment Authority (LHRA), City of Houston and Tax Increment Redevelopment Zone (TIRZ) 10 will solicit public comments at a Northpark Phase II Input Meeting, from 5-7PM Thursday, March 7 at the Kingwood Community Center.

A significant part of the effort to provide an all-weather evacuation route from Kingwood in the event of another superstorm, such as Hurricane Harvey.

Phase II will run from slightly west of the Kingwood Diversion Ditch to slightly east of Woodland Hills Drive. Part of the mile-long project falls in Montgomery County and part in Harris County. 

Purpose of Project

The purpose of the project is to address current and increasing traffic congestion. Utility and drainage features will also be upgraded.

And to improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians, the project will include a new pedestrian underpass and 10-foot wide sidewalks that connect to the Kingwood trail system.

The TxDOT announcement provides a few of the details:

• To improve commute times, the roadway will expand to three lanes in each direction and include turn lanes.
• To improve safety, lane width will also increase.
• The proposed reconstruction will include new signals at the Woodland Hills Drive and Hidden Pines Drive. 
• To improve drainage and make Northpark passable in high water events so Kingwood residents have an all-weather evacuation route.

No Home Or Business Structures Expected to be Impacted at This Time

TxDOT does not anticipate impacting any home or business structures at this time. But strips of property that front on the roadway will need to be acquired. For additional details, see this TxDOT page or a schematic drawing on this LHRA page.

Meeting Details

LHRA and TxDOT will discuss plans for the next phase of the project. It will reach past Woodland Hills Drive. 

Thursday, March 7, 2024
from 5-7 p.m.
Kingwood Park Community Center
4102 Rustic Woods Dr.
Kingwood, TX 77345

The Northpark Expansion project will not only move traffic faster, it will create an all-weather evacuation route for 78,000 people in the Kingwood and Porter areas. During Harvey, other evacuation routes were cut off.

Pictures of Major Features

The pictures below show the way things exist now. Captions will describe the changes.

The underpass will improve safety for thousands of Kingwood Park High School, Kingwood Montessori, Creativity Shell, and Village Learning Center students.

In addition, the road will be widened to at least three lanes, from US59 until approximately 1,000 feet east of Woodland Hills Drive.

Who Should Attend?

• Any whose evacuation route was cut off during Harvey
• Anyone who commutes along Northpark
• Parents of Kingwood Park High School Students
• Business owners in the Northpark Place Commercial Association
• Anyone who flooded along Northpark, North Woodland Hills
• Anyone who flooded downstream because of Bens Branch
• Anyone who flooded along the Kingwood Diversion Ditch.

That’s because Northpark drainage is intricately connected with Diversion Ditch and Bens Branch Drainage.

Your input is vital to ensure the project remains consistent with your needs and community norms.

Please come. Speak now or forever hold your peace, as they say in wedding ceremonies. Many will to have to live with this project for the rest of their lives.

For More Information

For more information about the project including construction plans, visit the project pages of the LHRA/Tirz 10 website. Or see these posts on ReduceFlooding:

• 24/02/27 February ’24 Northpark Expansion Update Including Lane Closures
• 24.02/24 Save the Dates: Public Input Meetings for Diversion Ditch, Northpark Expansion Phase II
• 24/02/20 Entergy Escalates Battle with COH over Northpark
• 24/02/16 Excavation of Second Northpark Detention Basin Well Underway
• 24/02/10 Entergy in City’s Crosshairs, Lane Closures Announced
• 24/02/02 Northpark Tree Transplantation Finished, Drainage Updates
• 24/01/13 Excavation of Northpark Detention Basins Starts
• 24/01/07 What Some Utilities Don’t Understand About the Northpark Expansion Project
• 24/01/04 Northpark Tree Moving Starts; Pond Excavation Next
• 23/12/03 Northpark Expansion Presses Forward While Fighting Entergy Obstacle
• 23/11/17 Contractors Strike Oil at Entry (Illegally dumped years ago)
• 23/11/05 City Approves Northpark Expansion Agreement with Union-Pacific.
• 23/10/26 Project moving forward on multiple fronts
• 23/10/12 Transplanting first tree
• 23/10/02 Clearing of south-side entry for second pond
• 23/09/30 Clearing north-side entry for first pond
• 23/09/23 How plan balances flood mitigation, costs, saving trees
• 23/09/02 New entry design, change in construction plans forced by utility conflicts
• 23/08/17 More drainage for Northpark
• 23/08/02 Ditch clearing stretches halfway to 59 in less than week
• 23/07/25 Northpark construction starts in earnest
• 23/04/13 Groundbreaking
• 22/02/19 Update on expansion project
• 21/07/28 Plan details

Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/5/24

2380 Days since Hurricane Harvey