Memorial Drive is an arterial road in the western half of

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It runs from

Interstate 45 Interstate 45 (I-45) is a major Interstate Highway located entirely within the U.S. state of Texas. While most primary Interstate routes which have numbers ending in "5" are cross-country north–south routes, I-45 is comparatively short, ...

west to State Highway 6, a distance of approximately 20 miles (32 km). A section goes through several predominantly higher-income residential neighborhoods in the cities of

, Bunker Hill Village, Piney Point Village, and Hunters Creek Village, in addition to Memorial Park. Memorial Drive was named in the memory of the men who served in Camp Logan.

History

Memorial Drive was established in the 1920s. In the 1940s and early 1950s, Memorial Drive was originally intended to be one of ten

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...

spokes extending outward from

Downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, Interstate 45 ...

. Despite the explosive population growth in the Houston area in recent decades, the heaviest traffic on Memorial Drive was in the early 1960s. Nearly 47,000 vehicles per day traveled on the section at Waugh Drive in 1960. When the Katy Freeway opened in 1968, the road's importance as a high-speed corridor decreased.Ch. 4-Spokes
. ''Houston Freeways'', Erik Slotboom. In contrast to its earlier days, between 30,000 and 36,000 vehicles per day traveled along this section in 2001. Houston City Council member Pam Holm announced in May 2007 that a large portion, roughly one fourth of the Memorial's length, will be expanded and beautified. The stretch of road from

George Bush Park George Bush Park is a county park in Houston, Texas, United States, located on the far west side of the city. Situated entirely within Barker Reservoir, a large flood control structure, the park covers , most of which is undeveloped forest used f ...

eastward to Gessner Road, about 6.2 miles (9.9 km), will be renovated to meet the population boom in the west Houston area. The first part of the expansion was slated to begin in 2009.

Path

Parkway section

This limited-access portion of Memorial Drive was opened to traffic in early 1956. The 2.3 mile (3.7 km) portion between Houston Avenue and Shepherd Drive is a

limited-access A limited-access road, known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, partial controlled-access highway, and expressway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a contro ...

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare. The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or connecting to a park from which trucks and other heavy vehicles are excluded. Over the years, many different types of roads have been labeled p ...

. There is an

underpass A subway, also known as an underpass, is a grade-separated pedestrian crossing running underneath a road or railway in order to entirely separate pedestrians and cyclists from motor or train traffic. Terminology In the United States, as ...

at Heights Boulevard/Waugh Drive with a large

cloverleaf interchange A cloverleaf interchange is a two-level interchange (road), interchange in which all turns are handled by slip roads. To go left (in right-hand traffic; reverse directions in left-driving regions), vehicles first continue as one road passe ...

. There are also exit and entrance ramps at Shepherd Drive. Motorists can enter Memorial Drive from northbound (by way of the I-45 northbound/Pease Street

distributor A distributor is an electric and mechanical device used in the ignition system of older spark-ignition engines. The distributor's main function is to route electricity from the ignition coil to each spark plug at the correct time. Design ...

ramp) or southbound Houston Avenue, Prairie Street, and Capitol Street. Motorists exit either to I-45 southbound and Pierce, Jefferson and Bagby Streets (by way of the Heiner Street

elevated ramp), Rusk Street, or Texas Avenue. Most of this parkway is three lanes in each direction. This section of Memorial Drive hugs the north bank of

Buffalo Bayou Buffalo Bayou is a slow-moving river which flows through Houston in Harris County, Texas. Formed 18,000 years ago, it has its source in the prairie surrounding Katy, Texas, Katy, Fort Bend County, Texas, Fort Bend County, and flows approximately ...

, crossing over it twice near Glenwood Cemetery, while

Allen Parkway Allen Parkway is an arterial road west of Downtown Houston, Texas. It has a distance of approximately 2.3 miles (3.7 km), running from Interstate 45 west to Shepherd Drive, where it becomes Kirby Drive. Originally known as Buffalo Parkway ...

follows the south bank of the Bayou. There are continuous bike paths and jogging trails along the road, which passes by Buffalo Bayou Park, Cleveland Park, Spotts Park, and the Houston Police Officers' Memorial.

Memorial Park

Memorial Drive is the only major road in Memorial Park (except for a short section of Woodway Drive) and the only road that traverses the entire park. Like the parkway section, there are many bicycle and jogging trails along the road. The annual Chevron

Houston Marathon The Houston Marathon is an annual marathon usually held every January in Houston, Texas, United States, since 1972. With thousands of runners and spectators, it is the largest single day sporting event in the city. It is run concurrently wit ...

is held on this section of Memorial Drive each January.

Memorial Villages

After passing under Interstate 610, the road slowly winds north, through wooded but densely populated neighborhoods. The road later turns south through three of the Memorial Villages: Hunters Creek Village, Piney Point Village, and then Bunker Hill Village. The Memorial Villages are upscale neighborhoods, populated mainly by corporate executives, and feature some of the more expensive homes in the Houston area. For all but the westernmost edge of Bunker Hill Village, the road is only two lanes wide. Between Gessner Road and State Highway 6, Memorial Drive has four lanes.

West end

West of Beltway 8, Memorial Drive is considered a major road in the area, making its way through numerous residential neighborhoods on the westside and usually bordered by retail shops and strip malls, many of them serving the surrounding higher-income residential population. The upscale shopping center Town & Country Village borders this segment. This segment also passes through the northern portion of the

Energy Corridor The Energy Corridor is a business district in Houston, Texas, located on the west side of the metropolitan area between Texas State Highway Beltway 8, Beltway 8 and the Texas State Highway 99, Grand Parkway. The district straddles a stretch of ...

management district. The western end of Memorial Drive is at Highway 6, at the edge of a large earthen dam on Barker Reservoir,Satellite image and map of western terminus of Memorial Drive
Google maps. Retrieved November 26, 2006. next to

References

{{Reflist Roads in Houston Arterial roads