page_title: Interstate 45
section_title: North Freeway (Houston to Conroe)
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 45 / History / North Freeway (Houston to Conroe)
caption_attribution_description: English: Southbound on IH-45 in Houston, TX
context_page_description: Interstate 45 is an Interstate Highway located entirely within the U.S. state of Texas. While most Interstate routes ending in "5" are cross-country north-south routes, I-45 is comparatively short, with the entire route located in Texas. It connects the cities of Dallas and Houston, continuing southeast from Houston to Galveston over the Galveston Causeway to the Gulf of Mexico.
  I-45 replaced US 75 over its entire length, although portions of US 75 remained parallel to I-45 until its elimination south of downtown Dallas in 1987. At the south end of I-45, State Highway 87 continues into downtown Galveston. The north end is at Interstate 30 in downtown Dallas, where US 75 used the Good-Latimer Expressway. A short continuation, known by traffic reporters as the I-45 overhead, signed as part of US 75, and officially Interstate 345, continues north to the merge with the current end of US 75. Traffic can use Spur 366 to connect to Interstate 35E at the north end of I-345.
  The portion of I-45 between downtown Houston and Galveston is known to Houston residents as the Gulf Freeway.
context_section_description: The last alignment of US 75 before the North Freeway was built left downtown Houston to the northwest on Main Street, turning north at Airline Drive, and then northwest along the present alignment of I-45, then known as Stuebner Airline Road, Shepherd Drive, and East Montgomery Road. The freeway replacement was authorized in stages between May 1945 and June 1952, when the Texas Transportation Commission adopted plans for a freeway all the way between Houston and Dallas. The North Freeway name was adopted in 1956; an unsuccessful proposal in 1965 would have renamed it the Dallas Freeway. The first short piece of the freeway to open crossed Buffalo Bayou, connecting the two one-way pairs from the north end of the Gulf Freeway with the south end of Houston Avenue. This was opened on December 12, 1955, and allowed US 75 to bypass its run on Main Street; it included interchanges with Allen Parkway and Memorial Drive. The next piece near downtown opened on July 24, 1962, leaving the 1955 freeway in the Allen Parkway interchange, passing east of Houston Avenue, and connected to an already-built portion at I-610. The six-lane Pierce Elevated, which occupies half a block on the southwest side of Pierce Street, required the acquisition of a number of commercial properties; the cost prevented the full block from being used. This portion opened on August 18, 1967, connecting the Gulf and North Freeways and bypassing the "four-street distribution system", which remains in its original form to this day.
  The first piece of the North Freeway to be built outside I-610 was an upgrade of existing US 75 on Stuebner Airline Road, between Airline Drive and Shepherd Drive, opened in December 1959. In April 1961, this was completed to the interchange with I-610, and on July 24, 1962 the downtown section was extended north to meet it. As each section opened, US 75 was moved to it, temporarily using I-610 to Airline Drive for about a year. At the other end, US 75 was upgraded from Spring Creek at the north edge of Spring north to the San Jacinto River south of Conroe in 1960. In between, the upgrade was completed from Farm to Market Road 525 to near Richey Road in December 1961, south to the 1959 segment in February 1963, and north to the 1960 segment in March 1963, completing the North Freeway except for the Pierce Elevated (1967). The freeway as initially built had eight lanes (four in each direction) between downtown and I-610, six to Farm to Market Road 1960, and four north of FM 1960.
  Like the Gulf Freeway, the North Freeway soon became congested. The oil boom of the 1970s resulted in large-scale residential development along the highway, most notably The Woodlands. Since the corridor was strongly directional, with 65% of peak-hour traffic going in the peak direction, a 9.6-mile (15.4 km) contraflow lane for buses and other high-occupancy vehicles (HOV) was implemented later that decade, opening on August 28, 1979 between downtown and Shepherd Drive (exit 56B). The facility, operating during both rush hour periods, occupied the leftmost lane of the other direction, and was separated from the other lanes with a movable pylon every 40 feet (12 metres). In 1980, the existing center breakdown lanes were restriped for HOV traffic for about two miles (3.2 km) from the north end of the contraflow lane. However, off-peak traffic was increasing, and construction began in 1983 on a more permanent reversible transitway in the median. This, the second transitway in Houston (a month after the one on the Katy Freeway), opened on November 23, 1984, replacing the contraflow lane.
  Reconstruction of the main lanes and frontage roads to handle increased traffic began in 1982 just north of downtown. No lanes were added south of I-610, but the eight-lane cross section, with room for a transitway, was continued north as construction progressed. Work was completed south of Airline Drive (exit 53) in about 1985, to Shepherd Drive (exit 56B) in 1987, and to Farm to Market Road 525 (exit 60A) in 1990; this last opening allowed the transitway to extend to just south o
caption: Southbound on the North Freeway
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