he Texas Department of Transportation is allegedly threatening retaliation against the whole Houston region because advocates continue to fight a highway expansion that the agency knows will have a harmful impacts on communities of color — but if the advocates successfully get the initiative shut down, it could be a model for other communities fighting bad road projects of their own.
In a Dec. 16 civil rights complaint filed with the Federal Highway Administration, a coalition of regional advocates accused the Texas DOT of continuing to press for the North Houston Highway Improvement Project, despite the fact that the notorious highway expansion is already the subject of an ongoing federal civil rights investigation that has prevented the agency from soliciting contracts to build it since March. [Read more.]