The plan completes a multimodal examination of the I-45 corridor between Houston/Galveston and Dallas. I-45 is considered the busiest freight corridor in Texas, as well as one of the busiest in the nation. Five of the top 100 Freight Bottlenecks identified by FHWA are located in the I-45 Corridor. The project included the development of a corridor needs evaluation framework using a balanced score card approach. The score card evaluation assembled data for seven performance metrics across four performance areas:
- Safety
- Asset Management
- Mobility
- Economic Competitiveness
The I-45 Corridor was broken into ten segments and performance metrics were developed for each segment to guide the identification of project needs. A case study approach was also developed for the purpose of matching potential solutions to the freight needs in each segment of the corridor. A master matrix was developed containing a mix of strategies for each of the four performance areas across three timeframes:
- Quick-start
- Multimodal Enhancement
- Horizon Strategies
