While it's true they are expanding IH-45 north of downtown, the rest of the project (IH-69 reroute/rebuild, IH-10 reroute/rebuild, and the downtown portion of IH-45 reroute/rebuild) is generally a zero-added-capacity project.

The work being done for the downtown freeway loop will instead make it safer (with less weaving) and allow traffic to move faster, while also making impossible the most popular homeless camps, removing the visual barrier of the freeways, and reducing noise pollution for nearby neighborhoods.

Yes, it's unfortunate that about 15 blocks (I'm guesstimating here) will be lost due to the downtown portion of the reroute, but most of that is underdeveloped, and only a couple newish buildings would be lost

Putting the freeway in a tunnel close to the bayou is a non-issue. After all, the vast majority of the downtown tunnel system didn't even flood in Harvey, with the Theater District flooding only because of a forgotten opening in a building (they only had drywall protecting one section of the tunnel from the bayou!), and the Civic District flooding because of a poor design.

TxDOT has been very up-front about the cap parks needing outside funding. However, there are very strong suggestions that the business community will come through with the funding for the park by George R Brown. Agreed that the other cap parks probably won't get funding, though.