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So I was having dinner with my cousin (among others) at Black Walnut Café yesterday at Rice Village. We started talking about school, leading to statistics, leading to things like induced demand, which I thought was rubbish, but he countered with valid points, saying that adding extra lanes just causes more cars to go there and de-incentivizes other routes (or something like that) and spoke of the needs for other types of roads. Specifically, roads like Allen Parkway, which has limited access but allows you to go at a good 45 mile per hour clip consistently, which is great--unfortunately, it's the only real Houston road that does that. We discussed that even if Kirby was extended down to Pearland (connecting to the stub at Beltway 8), it'd still be a slow and ineffective way to go from his home in Pearland to the Village.

I thought about the parkways...they're from a pre-freeway age and are a pretty good hybrid of freeways and surface streets: definitely not for long commutes but an effective way to get around within cities. Robert Moses built a lot of them in New York, but there just aren't that many in Texas. Neither of us proposed doing anything stupid like replacing freeways with parkways, but I thought that parkways (like Allen Parkway) would be a great way to augment the freeway system (and keep traffic flowing) without expanding them more.

Thoughts?

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Allen parkway and memorial drive are two of my favorite roads in Houston for those very reasons.. Why aren't there parkways along the other bayous? Then we would just need a few north south parkway connectors and we would have a nice little grid of parkways. Unfortunately I don't know how new parkways would be implemented though.

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The Woodlands Parkway should be parkwayified.

 

On a side note, wasn't there some sort of street naming ordinance recently passed? You shouldn't be able to call a roadway "_____ Parkway" if it doesn't meet certain design guidelines. I mean come on, "Cypress Creek Parkway" (i.e. FM 1960). Not a chance in hell that that roadway will ever be a true parkway--even if that would be a plus for the community. Cypress Creek Avenue or Cypress Creek Boulevard, sure. Parkway?? No.

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Yeah, parkways are often misnamed. A good "true parkway" could be created by extending 35 the way it was supposed to be...an overpass at University but other than that a divided four lane road with overpasses/underpasses at major roads and minimal interaction with smaller ones. A tunnel at Griggs, Mykawa, Long, and those railroads, merge with Mykawa south of I-45, interface with Wayside but flyover Bellfort, make the roads south of that cul-de-sacs, and merge in with the existing TX-35 and with McHard, which will then extend parkway-style to Cullen Blvd. and connect that segment. Main Street (US-90A) seems to be another good candidate for a not-quite-freeway and seems like a good alternative to the real freeways.

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Likewise, an extension to McHard seems tailor-made for a new parkway design instead of a traditional four lane road lined with stoplights and streets. It's too bad that the whole parkway name was hijacked by developers a long time ago, it's really an effective component of the road system that is sadly underutilized.

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Total agreement.  And I definitely think The Woodlands needs to upgrade a couple of arterials to parkways, starting with Woodlands Parkway.

 

The one I've wondered about for a long time in Houston would be Hillcroft/Voss between 59/Westpark and 10 (maybe even extend it up Bingle to 290).  I think it would be a manageable upgrade (sunken below cross streets, same as Allen Parkway) and a great reliever for the West Loop.  But even if Houston wanted to do it, I think Hunters Creek Village would quash it.

 

Another great upgrade would be Braeswood as a pipeline from the southwest into the medical center, to take load off of 59.

 

Thoughts?

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Yeah... that's ridiculous... it's FM1960...no parkway. Who allows this stuff? And what's the difference between a park way and an expressway? more landscaping?

I've always thought that expressways were basically freeways. Parkways won't have the high speed, width, wide shoulders, etc. that freeways do.

They're not for moving large amounts of people for miles nor for businesses to crowd around and residential streets to pop off of either...and it would be impractical to retrofit many roads to parkways.

One project that might work is extending Post Oak Blvd. along the north side of the bayou (doing all that work they were planning to do) and the south side of Memorial Park and have that connect to Memorail Drive somehow but I can't see that being an especially popular option.

The major problem is that inner loop is basically impossible for retrofitting, especially around Uptown (though Uptown needs it the most)

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The best "parkways" are Allen Parkway, Memorial Drive, and to an extent TC Jester. It should be noted that Houston doesn't really follow a certain street format for how each street functions. If you name a street (Street, Road, Drive, Avenue, Boulevard, Speedway, Highway, Parkway, etc...) then it should function and actually be what it is. Not just calling a road a Blvd for the sake of the name! So Memorial Drive functions like a parkway (at least until it reaches memorial park and then becomes more of a Boulevard and then a regular Avenue of sorts). We have no real stratification or hierarchy of roads. We have Highways and surface streets....thats it. We should have more streets that function like an Allen Parkway which help bypass traffic lights that connect major areas of town or take you beyond the city which could help lessen the need to take the highway. This of course would require ACTUAL effort on the part of whoever calls themselves city planners in our city. Also just because a street has Esplanade or medians or even four lanes doesn't make it a major road, or keep it with it's name association. Most of our roads become four lanes out of necessity because....traffic.

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Many early neighborhood boulevards were actually designed to be grand, exclusive promenades. No zoning, lapsed restrictions, and rapid city growth have stripped their true identity. 

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I will say that's a good assertion. Good examples of this are Heights Blvd, Rice Blvd, and Bellaire Blvd to name a few. I would say that the closer you go to the center of town the more logical naming is. The further out you go the more nonsensical it is.

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I should also probably further clarify that I'm simply promoting a rational Street NAMING hierarchy, and not simply Street Hierarchy which is quickly becoming an extremely unpopular urban planning mechanism.

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The best "parkways" are Allen Parkway, Memorial Drive, and to an extent TC Jester. It should be noted that Houston doesn't really follow a certain street format for how each street functions. If you name a street (Street, Road, Drive, Avenue, Boulevard, Speedway, Highway, Parkway, etc...) then it should function and actually be what it is. Not just calling a road a Blvd for the sake of the name! So Memorial Drive functions like a parkway (at least until it reaches memorial park and then becomes more of a Boulevard and then a regular Avenue of sorts). We have no real stratification or hierarchy of roads. We have Highways and surface streets....thats it. We should have more streets that function like an Allen Parkway which help bypass traffic lights that connect major areas of town or take you beyond the city which could help lessen the need to take the highway. This of course would require ACTUAL effort on the part of whoever calls themselves city planners in our city. Also just because a street has Esplanade or medians or even four lanes doesn't make it a major road, or keep it with it's name association. Most of our roads become four lanes out of necessity because....traffic.

Four lanes is more to carry more traffic. In another thread I thought that the HOV/HOT lanes should be two lanes in any given direction because not for capacity purposes but for passing (and breakdowns). And yes, the parkways are few and far between...Allen, Memorial, and (to extents) South Main and TC Jester.

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Lets not forget  the short "Way"...(ex.) S. MacGregor Way. 

 

Another Houston habit is its ending of a street and then continuation of the same name/ street further along the same alignment. Recipe for much confusion before the days of online map searches.

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Allen parkway and memorial drive are two of my favorite roads in Houston for those very reasons.. Why aren't there parkways along the other bayous? Then we would just need a few north south parkway connectors and we would have a nice little grid of parkways. Unfortunately I don't know how new parkways would be implemented though.

 

Putting the name aside for a second, what about Braeswood / McGregor?  Same basic format no?

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 And what's the difference between a park way and an expressway? more landscaping?

 

A parkway is a controlled access road that goes through a park-like setting. An expressway is a controlled or limited access road, meaning it can have intersections and driveways, unlike a parkway. U.S. 90A between 610 and I-69/US 59 in Sugar Land would be considered an expressway since it has driveways and some intersections are signalized.

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Memorial and allen parkway are redundant to an extent

 

As someone who's driven both of them for longer than I care to think about, they are less redundant than one might think.  Memorial's more of a route to points west, Allen Parkway favors the southwest - and they come in at more or less opposite ends of downtown.  I definitely choose one over the other based on the points of origin and destination.

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Lets not forget  the short "Way"...(ex.) S. MacGregor Way. 

 

Another Houston habit is its ending of a street and then continuation of the same name/ street further along the same alignment. Recipe for much confusion before the days of online map searches.

 

Never forget.

 

Baby,_I_Love_Your_Way_(Peter_Frampton_al

 

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Putting the name aside for a second, what about Braeswood / McGregor?  Same basic format no?

 

I'm pretty sure the home owners that have driveways that line the street(s) will object. By getting rid of lights, you'd increase the average speed on the roads.

 

Those houses are worth some $ so their objects will be heard and addressed. McGregor has a better shot (due to the fact that Riverside / 3rd ward has been slower to gentrify), but it really doesn't address any real traffic need.

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Total agreement.  And I definitely think The Woodlands needs to upgrade a couple of arterials to parkways, starting with Woodlands Parkway.

 

The one I've wondered about for a long time in Houston would be Hillcroft/Voss between 59/Westpark and 10 (maybe even extend it up Bingle to 290).  I think it would be a manageable upgrade (sunken below cross streets, same as Allen Parkway) and a great reliever for the West Loop.  But even if Houston wanted to do it, I think Hunters Creek Village would quash it.

 

Another great upgrade would be Braeswood as a pipeline from the southwest into the medical center, to take load off of 59.

 

Thoughts?

 

A.) There doesn't seem to be any strategy or metric that would necessitate the upgrade of a surface road to a semi-highway / expressway status. Maybe a new designation needs to be concocted to address the need for grade-separated, but not limited access roads. When OST, Memorial Drive, Heights Blvd, Lyons avenue, and Upper Lake Dr (in Atascocita) all have the same COH road designation (Major Thoroughfare), you realize there is a problem. Until streets like Lyons avenue and Memorial have different designations, there is no hope.

 

B.) Upgrading a surface street to handle more expressway traffic is to concede that the 'just-build-more-lanes' philosophy of TxDOT is incorrect. TxDOT already has the answer to your problem. It's to build more lanes. What's the question? Doesn't matter. 

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Another great upgrade would be Braeswood as a pipeline from the southwest into the medical center, to take load off of 59.

 

Thoughts?

 

A Brays Bayou Parkway could be fitting on many fronts: flood mitigation, traffic flow, as well as recreational opportunity.

 

Brays Bayou is already channelized from roughly 59 all the way to Spur 5. Increase stormwater capacity of the bayou all along this stretch by eliminating the banks and build retaining walls in their place--the banks reduce the maximum potential volume. At the same time install weirs every so often along the course of the bayou to slow the flow toward the bay while creating a waterway with a higher constant minimal water level.

 

Put the new parkway inside of the retaining walls thereby reducing construction costs and time. Putting the parkway inside of the retaining walls will allow for a reduction in the traffic lanes at grade. Westbound parkway lanes should be on the south side of the bayou and eastbound lanes to the north to facilitate smooth ingress and egress with the surface. 

 

The additional land made available with the removed at grade lanes can be converted to park land or promenade depending upon the existing surrounding land use. Major cross streets would see traffic flow improvement as stoplight wait time would be reduced with the new parkway below grade. Still want greenery along the bayou instead of concrete or rock walls? Plant ivy along the parkway walls. Of course hike and bike trails would have to be included inside of the retaining walls as well.

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I will say that's a good assertion. Good examples of this are Heights Blvd, Rice Blvd, and Bellaire Blvd to name a few. I would say that the closer you go to the center of town the more logical naming is. The further out you go the more nonsensical it is.

 

And St. Joseph Parkway (formerly Calhoun) is the exception that proves the rule. As I've stated before, streets in the downtown grid running parallel to Texas Avenue are all avenues. This includes Franklin, Prairie, Rusk, Polk, Jefferson, etc. So the thoroughfare should be called St. Joseph Avenue. I have no quarrel with the St. Joseph part since I am not fond of the Calhoun I believe gave rise to the previous name.

 

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Unfortunately, parkways aren't designed for high traffic flows like freeways are supposed to carry. Hell, the Pierce Elevated is over capacity as it is. The idea of road networks are supposed to make things flow better, not worse.

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More parkway madness. One of the proposals from TxDOT regarding the Pierce Elevated is to tear it down and replace it with a 10-12 lane at grade parkway. Looks a lot like an arterial boulevard to me.

http://offcite.org/2014/07/28/the-rebuilding-of-i-45-a-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity-to-improve-houston

 

Bravo to poster Thomas Colbert in the linked article for noticing that road construction in Texas is driven neither by needs nor wants, but by the magically reinforcing nexus of an agency (led in turns by a buddy of Rick Perry, or by some woman who used to bring him his coffee) with hundreds of billions of dollars of contracts in its gift, and a huge consulting and roadbuilding industry, with job offers and campaign contributions in its gift.

 

(Please note that Bubba, whatever else he may be, is not an ideologue, and this is an utterly non-partisan rant; 25 years ago it likely would have concerned Bob Bullock, to whom it is tempting, as the anecdotes pile up, to apply the word "amoral." Nor of course is it exclusive to roadbuilding: healthcare, education ...  but those things, though lucrative, bear no particularly Texas stamp.)

 

The governorship might as well be an appointed position. It's TxDOT chair that people should be voting on, as it's TxDOT that largely determines what Texas becomes.

     

Until then, I don't think parkways (in Colbert's words,"serious attention being paid in the design of the roadway to the scenic and spatial experience of drivers and the development of meaningful relationships between roadway, landscape and urbanism") are something you need to seriously fear.

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If this is the Tom Colbert I think it is I know him as a very wise and insightful individual. Just to focus on a single point, that of the definition of a parkway, I think his description says it best: serious attention being paid in the design of the roadway to the scenic and spatial experience of drivers and the development of meaningful relationships between roadway, landscape and urbanism."

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More parkway madness. One of the proposals from TxDOT regarding the Pierce Elevated is to tear it down and replace it with a 10-12 lane at grade parkway. Looks a lot like an arterial boulevard to me.

http://offcite.org/2014/07/28/the-rebuilding-of-i-45-a-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity-to-improve-houston

 

Again, there would be no need for a parkway on the south side of downtown.

 

If you demolish the Pierce elevated and either upgrade 59/10 or re-route 45 along those two freeways, then you'd only need to put a 'parkway-like' section along the west side of downtown.

 

You place a spur to the north side of downtown from 45 north. You then use the trenched section of 45 to connect w/ Houston avenue and create a grand bayou bridge. You then tie the new parkway trench section w/ the existing downtown grid system of Pierce street and St. Joseph's parkway. Both of those roads can handle the traffic. 

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