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Improvements Coming To Allen Parkway


Urbannizer

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With the improvements to Buffalo Bayou Park and the increase in visitors, this makes sense. I'd love to see Allen Parkway become more of a street and less of a high-speed thoroughfare. We already have Memorial Drive for pass through traffic.

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With the improvements to Buffalo Bayou Park and the increase in visitors, this makes sense. I'd love to see Allen Parkway become more of a street and less of a high-speed thoroughfare. We already have Memorial Drive for pass through traffic.

But given the connectivity of downtown to buffalo bayou and onto memorial park, if one of the two thoroughfares was going to turn into a slower speed street, would not memorial drive make more sense?

Memorial drive is a straight shot to memorial park and already has lots of signals on it. Slowing it down east of Shepard would not be a big deal.

Allen parkway, east of Shepard has large office tower complexes that likely need less lights to move traffic.

If one or the other was to turn into a street, to me, it would be memorial.

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But given the connectivity of downtown to buffalo bayou and onto memorial park, if one of the two thoroughfares was going to turn into a slower speed street, would not memorial drive make more sense?

Memorial drive is a straight shot to memorial park and already has lots of signals on it. Slowing it down east of Shepard would not be a big deal.

Allen parkway, east of Shepard has large office tower complexes that likely need less lights to move traffic.

If one or the other was to turn into a street, to me, it would be memorial.

How dare you. Memorial is a great alternative when the freeways are clogged. It only gets super congested by Bayou Bends, and then close to the loop.

That being said improvements could be done to both. Both are dated and need to get in on this bayou revitalization/beautification.

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I agree with Montrose. I love how fast these thoroughfares are, and quite frankly I wish we had more of these to help our inner city infrastructure, but they are extremely dated and are from an era that doesn't represent the direction Houston is going. These roads can be more than just thoroughfares. They could be the new main street which both celebrates the bayou and can become a way to stitch back together the surrounding neighborhoods which have been sliced and diced by these two parkways for so long. I think a compromise can be made to keep elements of the old (make the inner most lanes speed lanes that go under intersections and have the outer ones engage more with the bayou and rest of the Houston framework).

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Allen Pway to southbound 45 is one of the best heart-pounding, white-knuckle experiences to be had in our otherwise bland city. For best effect, make the trip when 45 traffic is light and really moving, and have a raging guy with doolies on your back bumper.

 

Im gonna miss it.

 

It was even more fun in an old school, air cooled VW with its forty or so raging horsepower, and a zero to 60 time best measured with a sundial.

 

Then again, nobody had cell phones then - just a legal longneck in the cupholder.

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I am torn on this one. I think this is an important thoroughfare for commuters from Upper Kirby, River Oaks, and Montrose to get to downtown, 45, 59N and 10E. The one light at Taft that is red for a short time causes a backup of 20+ cars all morning long. Downtown commuters could shift over to W Dallas which could handle some traffic. But it would make freeway access really painful.

 

On the other hand I have a 6 month old, and having better access to walk to the bayou would be nice. Last weekend with the dog park opening, people were parked along Stanford and other side streets, and it was great to see people parking and actually walking more then a block or two. But knowing Houstonians, I'm sure people were annoyed and it turned them off, cause God forbid not being able to park 20' from your destination in Houston.

 

Ideally I would want to beautify Allen Parkway to reflect the work on the trails, attempt to squeeze in some parking, and add a pedestrian bridge over Taft, create a safer ped crossing at Montrose, but keep the stop lights limited.

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I am torn on this one. I think this is an important thoroughfare for commuters from Upper Kirby, River Oaks, and Montrose to get to downtown, 45, 59N and 10E. The one light at Taft that is red for a short time causes a backup of 20+ cars all morning long. Downtown commuters could shift over to W Dallas which could handle some traffic. But it would make freeway access really painful.

On the other hand I have a 6 month old, and having better access to walk to the bayou would be nice. Last weekend with the dog park opening, people were parked along Stanford and other side streets, and it was great to see people parking and actually walking more then a block or two. But knowing Houstonians, I'm sure people were annoyed and it turned them off, cause God forbid not being able to park 20' from your destination in Houston.

Ideally I would want to beautify Allen Parkway to reflect the work on the trails, attempt to squeeze in some parking, and add a pedestrian bridge over Taft, create a safer ped crossing at Montrose, but keep the stop lights limited.

Agreed with most of your points. And the desire to keep at least one of the roads more of a parkway.. I just think Allen Pkwy makes more sense to do this removation to than Memorial. Allen has a large residential population just to the south who would probably like to cross Allen safely to get to Buffalo Bayou, so additional lights (a pedestrian bridge or two across Allen would still be cool, a la the Tolerance Bridge connectivity to the north side of Memorial) might not be too terrible. But all of this made me think of a design for an upper Kirby to Memorial rail connection I made a while back in my mass transit/improvement fantasies for Houston.

Trench 2 lanes of Kirby/Allen, under the Shepherd/Kirby intersection.. One in each direction.

(This part I'm not sure of. The 2 bypass lanes might have to come up through the middle of Allen instead of on the north side)

While still underground/trenched on the east side of Shepherd veer the 2 lanes northeast and out from under Allen (or up the middle of Allen?), spanning a 2 lane bridge across the bayou (obviously somewhat controversial.. But there really isn't much to Buffalo Bayou Park past Lost Lake except the trails, which can go under/over) before joining up with Memorial Drive and heading straight into downtown. We get much better connectivity to the Bayou from Allen "Drive", and we still maintain a parkway for the people of River Oaks/Upper Kirby have an even straighter shot into downtown by means of Memorial "Parkway".

9FB144C6-0D9D-48C4-AD4A-57213A1A81E1_zps

Ignore the red BBP-MP boardwalk trail, along with the Memorial Line west of the split/junction with this new Allen-Memorial connector bridge. Those were part of my pedestrian & mass transit improvement plans that don't relate.

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we still maintain a parkway for the people of River Oaks/Upper Kirby have an even straighter shot into downtown by means of Memorial "Parkway".

 

Interesting ideas, in a lot of ways it does seem make sense to have Memorial be the main parkway if we were to only have one. The big thing that would be missing is a direct entrance ramp to 45. I take Allen pkwy every morning, and I would say about half the people head to 45 and half downtown. My other concern is that fact that there isn't much access (none whatsoever from the south) to Memorial east of Waugh, so all of the residential near Allen/Montrose/Taft/Gray would have to backtrack to get to Memorial, or take surface streets that are already congested to get downtown and for 45 access.

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While they are at it, how about a pedestrian/bike bridge (or three) so we can cross safely from south of Allen Parkway to the newly renovated Bayou parks.

May I ask a question? I honestly don't know the answer......

Why would not only minor pedestrian improvements to the existing overpasses be sufficient?

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May I ask a question? I honestly don't know the answer......

Why would not only minor pedestrian improvements to the existing overpasses be sufficient?

 

 

Well, for one thing, the only existing overpasses are at Montrose and Waugh, which leaves two large sections of the bayou without access across Allen. For another, both Waugh and Montrose are somewhat problematic (safety-wise) for casual cyclists. I am hoping that the bicycle plan adds bike lanes to Waugh, but in the meantime, Taft, Stanford and Dunlavy are all much more natural access points to the bayou for people who actually live in the neighborhoods, and all three dead end into the parkway. 

 

For another thing, Allen's twin Memorial has a number of pedestrian overpasses. Us south of the bayou folk get jealous.

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An early thoroughfare plan showed Allen Parkway continuing west of Sheperd (inside River Oaks) then crossing Buffalo Bayou connecting with Memorial Drive in the curve below the Delpelchin Girl's Home. I'm sure the Tiel Way residents in River Oaks stopped that plan dead in it's tracks before it got too much traction.

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Amusing that the dent in the railing from when a car hit it about a year or two ago is still visible on the left side of the rendering...

 

Hey dude that dent is historic! I appreciate these guys preserving our local history...

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The dent is in keeping with the scruffy, faded, mid-00s GM-ish looking coprolite in the foreground and what appears to be a cop car behind the tree.  All of this pays homage to this being a park FOR the people...  :ph34r:

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While we are poking fun at the render. Look at the way the people are running lol. They are jogging in the most impossible way.

 

How normal people run:        How render people run:

 

   Feet direction      Feet direction

            | |                        \ \

 

             |                          |

             |                          |

            V                         V

      Direction              Direction

        Moving                 Moving

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The dent is in keeping with the scruffy, faded, mid-00s GM-ish looking coprolite in the foreground and what appears to be a cop car behind the tree.  All of this pays homage to this being a park FOR the people...  :ph34r:

 

It never occurred to me previously, but I find it a little surprising that "coprolite" hasn't been a more frequently-used term on an architecture forum that tends toward the critical. 

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Allen Pway to southbound 45 is one of the best heart-pounding, white-knuckle experiences to be had in our otherwise bland city. For best effect, make the trip when 45 traffic is light and really moving, and have a raging guy with doolies on your back bumper.

 

Im gonna miss it.

 

:D

Funny you mention this because when I bought a nice sporty car that's where I was taken on the test drive and the second time. It definitely sold me on the drive and car!

 

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from Cohen's enewslette

The Downtown Redevelopment Authority (TIRZ #3) will host a public meeting to discuss their proposal for improvements to Allen Parkway and Buffalo Bayou Park. Through the TIRZ's capital improvement project list, they hope to enhance the traffic flow, functionality, aesthetics, and pedestrian and auto safety of Allen Parkway. They also seek to create better access to Buffalo Bayou Park through the implementation of protected crosswalks and the creation of additional parking. The meeting will take place on Thursday, February 5th at 6:00PM at the Neighborhood Resource Center Auditorium.r

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