The State of Montrose Streets and How You Can Help
The poor road quality in Montrose is no secret. It’s difficult to drive a mile without seeing potholes, broken curbs, and other hazards. It’s commonplace to hear locals and people visiting complain, asking what can be done.
As a District, we are concerned with this problem too. Because we are not the City, we do not have direct control over repairing these problem streets. We can only advocate, educate, and encourage residents and business owners to do the same.
Our biggest project is our Comprehensive Mobility Plan which we have submitted to the city. Two of our most-trafficked and most hazardous streets are certainly Richmond and Alabama, and the report highlights that. We bring this study to every open forum on Rebuild Houston and improving the city and make sure they know Montrose needs to be a priority.
We are also working to promote use of the 311 App by Montrose residents and business owners. According to the City, those issues most reported are the ones addressed in the swiftest fashion. If we all report hazards we see, and continue to report them on a regular basis, we increase the chances of the City seeing to our needs.
The Montrose District cares deeply that the infrastructure in our neighborhood gets addressed, and we welcome any and all suggestions on how to get this done even faster.
These are great efforts! One way we can help reduce the wear on our streets (and the need for repairs) is to encourage more walking and bicycling. This would also help solve neighborhood parking issues. If we could add dedicated bike lanes to any pair of our major E-W and N-S thoroughfares, we could make biking a much more attractive option for people not willing to brave sharing the road with SUVs at 30mph while providing easier bike access to businesses. We could also take it upon ourselves to start policing sidewalk maintenance (since the city can’t be bothered) and encourage businesses to maintain usable sidewalks in return for District support.
If people don’t need to hop in their cars for every local errand, we can save a lot of headache and resources. What I really appreciate about our neighborhood is that there are so many businesses within walking distance and the beautiful street trees create a canopy of shade to make walking in the Summer more pleasant. We have a real asset here in this neighborhood that can help us lessen our dependence on (and public expense of using) cars.
There is a huge pot hole about 4-5 inches deep just as you
turn off Westheimer, onto the secondary street that runs between
Uchi and Theo’s. It favors closer to the entrance of Uchi as you must drive past or into it to gain entrance to the parking lot behind Uchi. If at all possible can some ashphalt be placed into it as a temporary fix.