Houston METRO riders: Plan for potential delays!

If you ride the metro, some of you might, you know, start having to plan a little extra couple of minutes there in your day because you might have a longer ride to work or heading to a friend's house or a longer trip home in general because we got a major HOV lane closure near downtown. Let's get over to Leslie Delisport to explain what exactly is changing. Yeah, that's right, Anthony. So here's the deal. TxDOT is raising I-10 right above White Oak Bayou. Why? To reduce flooding. So what does that mean? Two things. One, that HOV connector right there between Katy Freeway and downtown, that's going to be closed. Second thing, you're going to have some different route changes and some impacts. And here's a prime example. These are some of the local routes that are going to be affected, routes 161, 162. And then later on, we're going to get into some alternate bus routes for you. But here's some more details about what Metro's saying. So Metro says seven affected routes coming from the Katy and Cypress area along I-10 and Highway 290 will continue running. But they'll have to take a different way in and out of downtown. So that means using the main I-10 lanes or alternate routes, including Washington and Memorial Drive, depending on traffic. The local bus routes, as I just mentioned, 161 and 162, are also impacted. So Metro says allow an extra 15 to 30 minutes to get to and from to where you're going. But we also spoke with the communications director, who says that she even takes the Route 222 from the Katy area, and she even gave some advice to riders. So the delays are going to be felt everywhere, including for commuters that are coming in on their cars, because our buses are going to have to take the main lanes on I-10 or detour on Washington and Memorial if that's needed. The two local routes that are going to be affected are the 161 and the 162. We don't expect to have to move a lot of stops except for one of our stops, which is on Louisiana, right before taking that CBD ramp. I would actually encourage people to look at the park and rides because for most of the commute in, it is on the HOV lanes except for on that ramp. Whenever you hear this type of announcement, right, where it's gonna impact your commute, the first thing you wanna know is how long is this gonna last? Because to some folks, it's gonna be an inconvenience, right? So how long is it gonna last for this to wrap up? And then what can you expect if you're a commuter? So here's the thing, I'm gonna be honest, it's gonna last a while, okay? So the first part is going to be finished in fall of 2027, and the next part, the entire project, will be finished in summer of 2028. But TxDOT says this, they want drivers to be safe, they want drivers to pack their patience and look out for their crews, but also be in the know of the routes. And again, I want to show you one more thing really quick. This all started October 9th of this year, so we have a long way to go before this project is completed. But I do want you to hear from TxDOT on what they had to say about when all of this will be done. Hurricane Harvey, if you remember how the water reached to the top over the freeways, to the lights on the freeway. So yes, that's the whole point of the project is to alleviate that issue. The biggest push is safety, safety, safety. Practice your patience, pay attention on the roadways, pay attention to the crews, keep up with the closures. This is just a quick example, again, I wanted to show you some local routes, 161 and 162 that are going to be impacted. And also here as well, these are some of the affected bus stops. So if one of these four affected bus stops are yours, you're gonna wanna pay attention and go to our website at fox26houston.com to find some of those alternate bus routes so you can get to and from where you need to go. Back to you. All right, thank you so much for that report there, Leslie.