联邦高速公路政府已要求德克萨斯州推迟发布提案请求，并在休斯顿大都会休斯顿进行了70亿美元的三步高速公路扩建项目，暂停签约，因为它评估了投诉，该投诉最多可谴责1,000家房屋和多户住宅和350家企业。建立项目。

The agency sent the March 8 notice to the Texas Dept. of Transportation as Harris County sued the state in federal court on March 11 to halt contracting of the Interstate-45 project, pending a new environmental impact review.

The project, to be built over 10 years on a 24-mile stretch of I-45, is one of the the city’s largest infrastructure projects in a generation, according to TxDOT.

“We are in contact with FHWA seeking clarity around what a pause might mean as far as timing is concerned for future contract solicitation efforts,” agency Executive Director James Bass said in a statement to ENR.

TXDOT于2月4日完成了去年的最终环境影响声明后，选择了该项目的范围。发言人没有提供有关合同奖励状态的其他详细信息。

The expansion, set to improve traffic congestion around Houston, includes four new managed express lanes from downtown to Beltway 8 North, and rerouting I-45 to parallel I-10 on the city’s north side and parallel I-69 on the east side of downtown. Sections of I-10 and I-69 would be rerouted. The approved project also includes reconstruction of main lanes and frontage roads and added bicycle and pedestrian capacity along streets that cross freeways.

FHWA在给州DOT官员的信中说，它已收到有关第六章违反《联邦民权法》的投诉，由民主党众议员希拉·杰克逊·李，休斯顿的空中联盟和另一个社区团体提出了投诉。标题VI禁止在联邦资助的项目和计划上基于种族和其他形式的歧视。18luck官网

联邦机构指出，其有权评估对联邦援助项目的VI标题关注的权力，它在未来的合同行动中寻求暂停，直到完成其审查为止。18luck官网EIS的最终州表示，首选的替代项目路线将影响低收入和少数民族。

在该县的3月11日诉讼中，根据德克萨斯州南部地区的美国地方法院提起的《国家环境政策法》提起诉讼，哈里斯县检察官克里斯蒂安·梅内菲（Christian Menefee）声称，TXDOT在选择最终项目之前未能研究替代方案，并要求法院要求更多影响审查。

The suit says the TxDOT project plan "ignored serious harms, disregarded concerns of communities impacted and brushed off the numerous comments they received" during the environmental review. It says officials "already made their minds up about what they were going to do and then simply did it."

The county wants the project "more carefully considered and designed to meet the diverse needs of the region’s future," reflecting altered work patterns and new transit initiatives, and to "learn from the region's past experience that wider freeways cause more traffic, not less, and without unnecessarily displacing hundreds of families and businesses."

TxDOT has not yet received a copy of the lawsuit, said Bass. “We were looking forward to continuing our work with stakeholders on refining the plans for the project, but these plans may now be in jeopardy due to the lawsuit." he said. "We look forward to discussing our efforts to mitigate concerns.”

I-45高速公路都位于德克萨斯州，从加尔维斯顿（Galveston）延伸到休斯敦（Houston）到达拉斯（Dallas）。