They don't have enough police personnel (and some of the local support outside Houston just hasn't responded) to cover 290, so they're keeping it open. Plan B - and yes, there is a Plan C, D, and E.
There needs to be hell to pay for that in those uncooperative pissant counties. I can understand the troubles west of Brenham, and perhaps Hempstead, where the limited access highways turn into at grade highways. But that should have been identified years ago as unable to be implemented into contraflow. Just doing contraflow to the Hempstead split would make a big difference. An issue emerging is that the Houston area is NOT getting the cooperation needed from some other areas that was set forth in the plan. Of course nothing at this scale is going to go without hitches,and most of the inland municipalities have gone way out of the way to help out. And the media are already trying to whip up a hysteria over the gas situation. But I'm hearing more and more that some central TX municipalities are dropping the ball.