dug begley

Standing in the front yard, ringed by family and friends that are practically family, Bryston Ferguson knew Thursday morning that he had landed a $20,000 scholarship that will help him realize his dream of becoming an orthodontist. The scholarship and his 4.1 high school GPA are impressive, bittersweet achievements, coming as they do just 16 Continue reading

Houston is a faraway place on FM 1413 in southern Liberty County, where a driver is more likely to see a pony munching on grass than a shop on the corner. If not for the trees and an electrical transmission line, the sky would be unbroken, horizon to horizon. Everything changes about three-quarters of a Continue reading

Resilience to heavier storms requires freeways that can handle flooding without becoming impassable, leading a local group to demand more of state and federal transportation officials. Bayou City Initiative, a nonprofit aimed at raising awareness of the challenges as Houston faces more frequent and stronger storms, sent letters Wednesday to the Texas Department of Transportation, Continue reading

Strip away the enormity of rebuilding Interstate 45 and the promise of speedier trips along downtown Houston freeways, and two questions about the once-in-a-generation project remain: How many negative effects are acceptable in one neighborhood for other people’s faster commutes? And, how far should transportation officials go to reduce those impacts, to secure support and Continue reading

Plastics Road at Dow Chemical’s Lake Jackson campus is now, perhaps, the most plastic road in America. If it holds up, drivers could find themselves rolling atop discarded shopping bags in no time — and with little notice. As a test of its own polymer resin, the company repaved about 2,600 feet of the two-lane Continue reading

Transit officials have a starting point for $7.5 billion in investments to Houston’s roads, bus systems and rail lines meant to move the region in a new direction — with the stated goal of moving some of those future commuters out of private automobiles. What they ask voters to approve as a first step to Continue reading

Locomotive 4141 can pull 1 million pounds across most of America with ease, but its biggest job will be a 70-mile trip Thursday from Spring to College Station to take President George H.W. Bush to his last stop. Bush, who died Friday, will be interred on the grounds of his presidential library in College Station Continue reading

The tight curves of older freeway intersections such as Loop 610 and Interstate 69 northeast of downtown, for example, force motorists to lean on the brakes to avoid a barrier or railing. In the merge lanes along frontage roads parallel to Interstate 10, veteran drivers know that a speeding car could suddenly appear from any Continue reading

“People think for some reason people dying on highways is natural,” said Jay Crossley, who as former executive director of Houston Tomorrow advocated for slower speeds and safer crossings for pedestrians and bicyclists. “It’s not. We remain dangerous because we are not fixing it.” Above all, many drivers appear not to care. They ignore warnings Continue reading

Birds flitting in and out of the grass and trees along this strip of marsh pay no heed to the roar from interstates 45 and 10 on the horizon, but to Houston Parks Board officials the sound is an ominous reminder of what could come. Defenders of this long-sought “linear park” that leads from the Continue reading