TEI prepared engineering plans for construction of new bicycle and pedestrian trails along White Oak Bayou and Buffalo Bayou in Houston, Texas. Funding for these trails came from a 2014 TIGER grant awarded to the City of Houston and the Houston Parks Board.
TEI designed two major trail segments that provide vital multimodal connections to the Bayou Greenways regional bikeway system:
- Trail connections at White Oak and Buffalo Bayous providing continuity between the two bayou trails;
- First-/last-mile connections to the University of Houston Downtown campus and the METRO light rail station above, linking more people to transit; and a
- Direct access to the White Oak Bayou trail from the Near Northside community through Hogg Park.
The alignments of these trail segments presented several unique design challenges including:
- Extensive coordination with the City of Houston, Harris County Flood Control, and Army Corps of Engineers;
- Drainage considerations to maximize usability of the trail while minimizing impacts to the bayous; and
- Steep slopes at Hogg Park and UH-Downtown that required innovative design and expertise with ADA accessibility requirements.
TEI also provided construction phase services. Construction of TIGER 3 cost $3.2 mm and completed in January 2018.
