As the process of selecting the route and obtaining approval for the freeway began, neighborhood activists proposed an alternate route from the one tentatively proposed. The alternate route would skirt the neighborhood, running near the Houston Ship Channel and Buffalo Bayou. As planning continued, opposition developed over both the original route and a short-lived proposal to make the freeway a tollway. The competing routes remained under study until 1973, when the original route was announced as the recommended alignment. The route was approved by the Houston-Galveston Area Council, despite appeals from neighborhood activists.