Cyclists head downhill on the White Oak Bayou Trail in 2016. Wider lanes for cars and no shared-use path for cyclists and pedestrians — those are the main changes driven by Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s administration for the upcoming reconstruction of Antoine Drive.
Over the next eight years, the $137 million project will rebuild 5 miles of the bustling thoroughfare in northwest Houston, stretching from U.S. 290 through West Mount Houston Road. The bulk of the project sits within the City of Houston’s jurisdiction, which runs from U.S. 290 through West Gulf Bank Road.
The initial plans called for four 11-foot-wide car lanes, up from 10 feet, with a 1-foot curb offset as well as two 10-foot-wide, shared-use paths with 6-foot buffers from the car lanes. Whitmire’s administration paused the project to consider expanding the number of car lanes to six.
During a virtual community presentation on Tuesday, Muhammed Ali with Gauge Engineering, the project management group, said data collection didn’t support additional lanes.
"The new administration wanted us to confirm that the four lanes are adequate, so they recommended collecting additional data," he said. "We conducted the analysis and determined that the counts that were received in 2024 have demonstrated that four lanes are adequate, and there is no need to widen to six lanes."
The updated project calls for expanding car lanes to 12 feet with a 16-foot median, removing sections of existing 3-to-4-foot bike lanes, which Ali described as "very unsafe," and the nixing of the proposed shared-use paths. Instead, each […]
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