On Monday, July 19, AAH and partners sent a letter to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) expressing concerns about the substance and timing of TxDOT’s decision to re-open public comments on the North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP) and the underlying intent of the move.
TxDOT is seeking this new input as part of the annual public comment period on the state’s 10-year transportation plan (Unified Transportation Program). The agency has stated that it will consider removing funding for the I-45 Project depending on the results of the open comment period. We encourage you to make your voice heard on this project: Let TxDOT know that they can’t bully our region into accepting a bad project.
The unprecedented threat to pull funding from this project leads us to believe this threat is retaliation for the Title VI Civil Rights complaints filed against the agency. A state agency threatening to remove transportation funding from an entire region in response to civil rights concerns would be unconscionable, discriminatory, and amount to little more than institutionalized coercion.
We are asking the FHWA to take these recent developments into consideration during the ongoing Title VI investigation.