After 12 years of planning, a $1 billion expansion of the Houston Ship Channel will begin. Twelve years.

"The expansion, dubbed Project 11 marks the 11th time the port has made major improvements to the 52-mile waterway since it was carved out of Buffalo Bayou more than a century ago. The Ship Channel, opened in 1914, brought ocean-going ships and international commerce to Houston as it established itself as the capital of a new oil industry, just 13 years after the Spindletop gusher."