ADCS

Shinkansen means "new trunk line". The concept is specifically that they're separate from legacy lines. Amtrak just updated their 280 mile line from Chicago to St. Louis to handle 110 mph operation, and it still takes 4:30, about the same as driving. A 125 mph line on I-45 would likely still take ~3:45 to go the 245 mi, making it uncompetitive with air for business travel (especially last-minute business travel).

Given all the IAH concessions are operated by Delaware North (last time I checked), there's probably not a whole lot of effort that goes into running that store. The rest are all in the SE side of town.

Owner had said the rent was too high, but I get the sense that he's now living in Pearland, and it's not worth it to him anymore to drive all the way to the Heights on a regular basis.

Highway construction, at this point, is just a jobs program for the massive construction industry. Local firms and contractors don't have the expertise to build transit, so they will always push for highway construction, lest Texas dollars leave the state. Auto dealers back them up, because their bottom line depends on car dependency. Developers don't care (they'll build whatever's profitable for the form factor around them), insurers would likely prefer fewer cars on the roads, and energy companies would love to have amenities like fix mass transit to attract high-end talent. It doesn't matter, though, because the local guys who actually have to build the infrastructure don't know how to do high-quality transit, and don't want to spend the time and money to figure out how to do high-quality transit.

The "freeway fetishists" oppose this project, because they think the teardown of the Pierce is giving the "urbanists" an inch too far.

More greenspace around UHD is a good thing. Likewise, installing ivy and other crawling plants (akin to 59 in Montrose) can provide an attractive landscape to the bridge columns within the greenway

It's all about the local reporters trying to break into the big time

Dug gets on my nerves with how slanted his reporting on NHHIP is.

And that's the problem - sometimes, you've got to suck it up for the greater good, and rural landholders around here think they're entirely exempt from that. It's a completely toxic notion of freedom.

The reactionary psychos in the hinterland who killed this are a main reason I'm not sad about leaving the state.

Good for them. They get just compensation. There's no constitutional requirement for them to be happy about it.

Only so far as every sales tax is regressive, but I don't think you'll see much political will here for a wealth/income tax or ad valorem tax on vehicles.

Honestly think it would be easier/more efficient/more progressive to convert the gas volume tax to an energy quantity tax (per gigajoule or kilowatt-hour sold).

It's easy to blame HCTRA, but the real issue is the Lege being entirely unwilling to raise gas taxes (can't anger the trucking companies), and having little-to-no interest in properly funding transit (rural and suburban voters don't like it).

After years of argumentation, the only coherent argument made is a purely NIMBY one - that the East End (and only the East End) should be forever preserved against any sort of potential public development whose benefits to the city and region at large may exceed those to the neighborhood itself. The grounds are purely moral - a justice-based argument stemming from the historical wrongs perpetuated against the community by admittedly racist and sectarian local governments, separated in place and time from the proposed development. The arguments become disingenuous when they stray from these grounds. It's clear when the arguer does not actually care about the points being made, and that they're only being made to buttress the core argument, whose merits the arguer is not confident enough to support on their own.