The Cullen Boulevard improvement project is providing a new look with additional accessibility for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders. The project is being built with three main goals: to improve safety and mobility for pedestrians and bicyclists; to enhance the image and character of this “front door” to the University of Houston campus, and to improve stormwater drainage.

Extending from North MacGregor Way to I-45, the Cullen Boulevard improvement project includes narrowing the street to slow traffic and reduce the crossing distance for pedestrians, locating new 14 – 16 foot sidewalks away from street curbs and passing vehicles, incorporating shared-use paths and connecting to the City’s growing bikeway network, adding new safety gate arms at the light rail crossing at Wheeler Avenue, as well as adding smart signaling at major intersections, new drainage, lighting, and landscaping. The project also incorporates a curbless, plaza street design in front of the stadium, from Cougar Place to Holman Street.

The project improves local drainage by exceeding the City’s required two-year rainfall event standard, designing the run-off from a 100-year rainfall event, installing new and larger concrete piping to store stormwater in the segment from N. MacGregor to Cougar Place, and incorporating an innovative system of porous pavers and underground storage tanks to detain stormwater in the segment from Cougar Place to Holman Street. 

The project is being constructed in two segments:

• Segment A, between N. MacGregor and Wheeler Avenue, and
• Segment B, between Wheeler Avenue and I-45.