HOUSTON \u2013 The city of Houston is weighing approval of a $13 million project to overhaul Telephone Road, addressing long-standing safety and infrastructure concerns that have made the corridor one of the city\u2019s most dangerous stretches for drivers and pedestrians alike.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 has reported 32 crashes on Telephone Road this year, including two fatal crashes this month alone. The proposed $13 million investment \u2014 which still requires council approval \u2014 in part would fund street repairs, crosswalks and sidewalks along a portion of the road.<\/p>\n
Funding gap leaves south section behind<\/p>\n
If approved, millions would be directed toward one end of Telephone Road. However, south of Loop 610, no funding has been secured yet.<\/p>\n
Houston City Council Member Joaquin Martinez, who represents District I, is pushing for the improvements.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you can see, these are east-west streets, three going west, three going east, several cars coming throughout the conversation that we\u2019re having \u2014 that is a public safety [issue],\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Two seniors killed in August<\/p>\n
In August, two senior men died while crossing Telephone Road. The most recent victim was a 62-year-old man.<\/p>\n
Francisco Villareal, who works at an auto shop on Telephone Road, said the losses hit close to home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was horrible, that was very sad,\u201d Villareal said.<\/p>\n
Martinez said crosswalk markings, signage and lighting are among the most urgent needs on the corridor. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s folks that are walking and crossing the street right now, we have this much amount of traffic, with probably 4 feet of sidewalk \u2014 that makes it challenging, right?\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Potholes compound the danger<\/p>\n
The problems on Telephone Road don\u2019t begin and end with pedestrian infrastructure. Potholes are also a persistent issue for businesses and motorists in the area.<\/p>\n
Villareal said the road\u2019s condition has a direct impact on his customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see a lot of blown tires \u2014 they make it to the shop. We have faith that we are going to see improvements down the road,\u201d Villareal said.<\/p>\n
Martinez acknowledged the scale of the challenge, noting that routine maintenance isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately the city does that every day \u2014 we maintain, every day we maintain \u2014 but when we know there are big challenges like this on Telephone, we need to do a full reconstruction,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Construction on the north side of Telephone Road is set to begin in the fall. People should plan for alternative routes<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 The city of Houston is weighing approval of a $13 million project to overhaul Telephone Road,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,66,223],"class_list":["post-419713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-local","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}