SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF ELEVATED, DEPRESSED, AND AT-GRADE LEVEL FREEWAYS IN TEXAS

To answer questions being raised by abutting residents and businesses about proposed elevated and/or depressed freeway improvements in the urban and suburban areas of Texas, a four year study has been conducted to estimate the social, economic, and environmental effects of such freeway designs. Eight existing, two under construction, and one approved for construction freeway sections have been studied on a before, during, and after construction basis. The sections selected for study range from being in predominately residential-suburban areas to predominantly commercial-industrial downtown areas. The specific effects of the three types estimated for each study section are as follows: (1) social impacts: population changes, neighborhood accessibility, neighborhood cohesion, and community services; (2) economic impacts: relocation and mitigation costs, business sales, property uses and values, tax revenues, employment and income, and user costs; and (3) environmental impacts: aesthetics, drainage and erosion, noise and air pollution, vibration, and hazardous spills. The literature review and a survey of highway agencies in other states were used to determine the appropriate procedures or models and mitigation measures to implement in estimating the social, economic, and environmental impacts of elevated and depressed freeways. Appropriate study site, local, state, and federal agency data were collected, reduced, and analyzed in the conduct of this study. The findings of the study, presented in five separate reports according to types of effect and summarized in this report, can be used with the recommended estimating procedures to estimate the social, economic, and environmental effects of proposed elevated and depressed freeway projects in urban and suburban areas. Then, transportation planning and designing engineers can use such estimates to prepare environmental statements and conduct public hearings on the recommended grade level of each of the proposed freeway projects. The findings from prior studies indicate that freeway grade level differences in selected measures of social and economic activity are statistically significant. However, these differences are negative or positive, depending largely on various locational factors. The results of this study tend to confirm those findings.