Houston Traffic Wednesday: All Westbound Lanes of I-10 at Barker Cypress Shut Down After an 18-Wheeler Crash - and Two Eastbound Lanes Stay Closed at Houston Avenue
The Katy Freeway carries both of the morning's problems: a full westbound shutdown out west, and a bridge inspection downtown that has held two eastbound lanes since an oversized truck struck the Houston Avenue bridge on Tuesday afternoon.
The Wednesday morning drive starts with a full shutdown on the Katy Freeway. KPRC 2's traffic alerts, checked this run, lead with all westbound lanes of I-10 at Barker Cypress shut down because of an 18-wheeler crash. The alert does not state injuries, a cause or a reopening time, and this desk is not adding any - drivers heading inbound from the Katy area should expect the closure to shape the early commute and build in an alternate route.
Downtown carries the second problem, and it is a holdover from Tuesday. Two lanes of I-10 eastbound at Houston Avenue remain closed while TxDOT crews inspect the Houston Avenue bridge over the freeway, after an oversized truck struck the bridge on Tuesday afternoon. A bridge strike inspection is exactly what it sounds like: engineers look before traffic gets the lanes back, and until they finish, the eastbound side runs two lanes short through the downtown interchange.
The two closures sit on the same freeway in opposite directions, which is what makes this morning awkward in both directions: westbound traffic is stopped outright at Barker Cypress, and eastbound traffic squeezes at Houston Avenue. The Veterans Day parade closures downtown, which this station filed earlier today, layer on top of the bridge work for anyone driving into the center of the city this morning.
Houston TranStar's incident and lane-closure feeds remain the live check through the drive, and this desk will update the file when the Barker Cypress lanes reopen or the Houston Avenue inspection clears. Nothing else on the morning feed rose to a full closure in this run's check.
