A 'ConnDOT Super 7-like' case in the making, or merely ignorance of lessons from the economic crisis?

According to a news release in Next American City this weekend, the Sierra Club recently charged that the sponsors of a third orbital motorway for Houston, the Grand Parkway, "purposely constrained “the purpose and need” section of the plan to preclude the no-build option" and that "the environmental assessment ignored the impact of induced growth" (Schmitt). Schmitt also notes that the proponents of project, while acknowledging that the new motorway is not necessary, make a 'build-it-and-they-will-come' argument in its favour, quite unabashedly making the case that sprawl is inevitable in a few decades due to people moving to Texas to buy larger houses and hence enjoy a higher quality of life. We can only hope that they assume the federal government will succeed in its attempts to resuscitate the housing market and return the economy to the debt, consumption, and sprawl-based growth trajectory of the past three decades, a scenario that the triple convergence of rising energy costs, demographic change, and unsustainable debts and deficits would render highly unlikely.