June 2005 Update: The US 59/IH-10

Downtown Freeways 131Critical bottleneck: The six-lane Pierce Elevated, named after the street immediately adjacent to it, has become the most criticalbottleneck in the downtown interchange complex. Designed to carry 75,000 vehicles per day, the freeway was serving approximately200,000 vehicles per day in 2003. As this photo shows, large structures alongside the freeway make a major expansionvery difficult. In the foreground is the interchange with US 59. The US 59 main lanes are depressed below grade and are not visiblein this view. (Photo: May 2002)