West Alabama Public Meeting Summary
The public meeting for the West Alabama Improvement Project was held in person on Tuesday, August 17 at 5:30pm at the Upper Kirby District office, 3120 Southwest Freeway, Suite 101, Houston, TX 77098. Following the meeting, a narrated, virtual presentation was made available to the public on the project web site (Documents Library), which will also include the public engagement summary.
Outreach Methods
The public meeting was advertised through various means, including:
Print media – The public meeting notice was published in the Houston Chronicle and multiple Community Impact papers on 8/11/21. The notice was also added to the Community Impact web site on 9/9/21.
This project web site which included project information, details regarding the public meeting, and a comment form.
Upper Kirby Newsletter – The Upper Kirby Newsletter was released on 8/12/2021 which promoted the public meeting.
Outreach to project stakeholders – We also reached out directly to project stakeholders, including elected officials representing the project area, concerned businesses and citizens.
Public input was facilitated through the following channels:
Comments via email – We received 15 total emails with comments about the project
Google Voice – On August 19, we received 1 Google Voice comment
Comments via web site – We received 33 comments from the comment form on the project web site.
Comments via USPS Mail – No written comments were received by mail.
Response Results
The comments were initially examined and sorted into four primary groups:
Those who support the project facilitating enhanced roadway access and address congestion issues
Those who support the project providing safer pedestrian and ADA access
Those who support the project providing dedicated or enhanced bike infrastructure.
Those who generally oppose the project or any changes to the corridor
The table below summarizes the comments by percentage, based on the four primary groups. Please note that some comments were not clear regarding their position on the project or what group they fell into:
Based on an analysis of the comments generated from the public meeting, while the majority of people supported redevelopment of the project corridor, there was a clear split on the nature of the improvements. 31% were equally for roadway enhancements that would maintain travel lanes with the same number against additional bike infrastructure that commenters perceived would promote better traffic flow and less congestion. While 22% of commenters were for enhanced bike infrastructure and 27% were for enhanced pedestrian infrastructure, only 12% were against roadway enhancement.