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Improvements Coming To Allen Parkway


Urbannizer

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A 5 minute walk?? Even when I lived in one the most "urban" parts of College Station (yeah, it was still CS, but still) it was still like at least 3-4 blocks to a crappy convenience store where me and my housemates would buy beer sometimes.

Even in a far more dense area like Houston, a 5 minute walk would mean you have a supermarket within a 2 block radius, and that's still very rare.

There are a decent amount of people that live walking distance from Randall's and fiesta in midtown, and Kroger and heb in montrose.

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This is going to sound uncaring and impersonal but I strongly dislike cars and so I am supportive of any actions that impose additional costs on cars or drivers, especially if the actions benefit pedestrians.

Houston is a car-centric city today and some may claim that we should have policies and planning in place that reflect and support the car model. I believe that if you make driving in a car painful enough, you will incentivize people to live next to rail lines or close enough to walk to work. This type of shift will happen slowly - who knows maybe driverless cars will occur prior to the shift and reduce traffic / the cost of driving.

This. The changing of this road is a shift in vision. If all streets were made for cars only, and the city was designed in a way for the convenience of cars only, well then what most of houston is today is what it would always be. But there is a shift particularly in young people and people from other cities that want walkable environments and have made their voices heard, and Parker has similar opinions so this is the first step of many that will help achieve this vision.

Do people not want to live in Manhattan or Vancouver or Paris or San francisco because freeways and fast roads don't plow through them? In fact it's just the opposite they and other like them are the most in demand areas in the world.

So if joe th plumber is mad that he has to wait at a light or can't get on the freeway right away, deal with it. It's not about you if you cared about the city and not getting where you have to be as fast as possible to make your sons soccer practice then this wouldn't even be an issue.

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Maybe we could increase all speeds on every street to 80 MPH, that way we can be maximally-efficient and save a ton of time, and kill each other in the process.

 

That would also help with overcrowding issues...  :ph34r:

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In 5 minutes you should be able to walk over a 1/4 mile closer to 1/3 mile. I consider myself in a grocery store deadzone, and I can walk to 2 Krogers and a Randalls each in less then 15 minutes. I usually bike or stop on my way home. Sorry a little late on that rebuttle.

 

Also I was just able to see that detailed 33 page pdf that someone linked (it was blocked at work for some reason). Earlier I was under the assumption that they were taking away from the main lanes to add diagonal parking. That in addition to adding lights, based on what I see everyday, would have been a much bigger impact that 1 minute. I didn't mean to compain about adding 1 minute to my precious time. I was thinking that the current backup at taft eastbound in the morning would have a longer light, and less lanes. The way I was imaging it, I thought that a backed up Allen would drive people to take W Dallas, Washington, W Gray, etc to downtown and those roads are already pretty full (well not W Dallas).

 

I'm pretty happy with this design as proposed, looking at it from the perspective of a daily Allen pkwy commuter, biker, dog runner, and father of a future biking kiddo who will be accessing the bayou trails - even in August.

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In 5 minutes you should be able to walk over a 1/4 mile closer to 1/3 mile. I consider myself in a grocery store deadzone, and I can walk to 2 Krogers and a Randalls each in less then 15 minutes. I usually bike or stop on my way home. Sorry a little late on that rebuttle.

 

Also I was just able to see that detailed 33 page pdf that someone linked (it was blocked at work for some reason). Earlier I was under the assumption that they were taking away from the main lanes to add diagonal parking. That in addition to adding lights, based on what I see everyday, would have been a much bigger impact that 1 minute. I didn't mean to compain about adding 1 minute to my precious time. I was thinking that the current backup at taft eastbound in the morning would have a longer light, and less lanes. The way I was imaging it, I thought that a backed up Allen would drive people to take W Dallas, Washington, W Gray, etc to downtown and those roads are already pretty full (well not W Dallas).

 

I'm pretty happy with this design as proposed, looking at it from the perspective of a daily Allen pkwy commuter, biker, dog runner, and father of a future biking kiddo who will be accessing the bayou trails - even in August.

 

Essentially they are flipping the frontage road that runs from Sabine to Montrose from the south side to the bayou side and using that new frontage road for the parks.

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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.

 

in addition to the raging guy on your back bumper, have an overly timid driver in front of you who decides to come to a complete stop at the top of the ramp. This really completes the effect and makes it seem more realistic.

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in addition to the raging guy on your back bumper, have an overly timid driver in front of you who decides to come to a complete stop at the top of the ramp. This really completes the effect and makes it seem more realistic.

 

This is why I always go for excessively powerful engines.  Safety, ya know.   <_<

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  • 5 months later...

We take a crap on the City Government for being incompetent about...well....everything when it comes to urban planning, but there is no denying that they are doing everything possible to make this bayou as awesome and accessible as possible. Just a taste of the vast possibilities if that type of attention was given to other areas of urban planning in Houston.

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I thought this was still in the proposal/review stage. Very impressive how quickly they are moving. I still don't see the need for the light at Gillette, i could just see the lights being timed poorly and traffic backing up severely in the morning. If it is a crosswalk only light (no left turn for cars) that would be perfect.

 

Looking forward to this overall.

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http://houston.culturemap.com/news/city-life/07-28-15-extreme-makeover-for-allen-parkway-expect-slower-commute-but-more-parking-spaces-and-easier-access-1/

 

Work on the project — which has an anticipated end date of May 23, 2016, just in time for Free Press Summer Fest in Eleanor Tinsley Park — means fewer lanes will be available to motorists and access to certain streets may be limited for several weeks.

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http://houston.culturemap.com/news/city-life/07-28-15-extreme-makeover-for-allen-parkway-expect-slower-commute-but-more-parking-spaces-and-easier-access-1/

 

Work on the project — which has an anticipated end date of May 23, 2016, just in time for Free Press Summer Fest in Eleanor Tinsley Park — means fewer lanes will be available to motorists and access to certain streets may be limited for several weeks.

 

I love the one math wizard in the comments section lol. that one from 'uncsig'. Sounded like this:

 

umm umm excuse me I don't know how it would ONLY be 20 secs...according to my armchair mathematics measurements using GOOGLE MAPS it will actually be 30 secs in more time traveled. Certainly in my 2mins looking on google maps I was able to figure out precisely this instead of the thousands of dollars and man hours it took real people out in the field to do studies on this before they did the design over the past several months.

 

Seriously, where do people get off and being like that?

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I love the one math wizard in the comments section lol. that one from 'uncsig'. Sounded like this:

umm umm excuse me I don't know how it would ONLY be 20 secs...according to my armchair mathematics measurements using GOOGLE MAPS it will actually be 30 secs in more time traveled. Certainly in my 2mins looking on google maps I was able to figure out precisely this instead of the thousands of dollars and man hours it took real people out in the field to do studies on this before they did the design over the past several months.

Seriously, where do people get off and being like that?

Lum, you obviously don't see the travesty of gaining 6.08 hours a year on your commute due to this project. I'm surprised there isn't more outrage. ;)
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Having driven on the Allen Parkway, let me inject my thoughts on this:

 

 

- To me, 35 mph is too slow and too much like any other surface road. But since drivers tend to go faster, it would tend to balance it out to the 40 mph which is the exceeded posted speed. 

- Eliminating the frontage road is kind of bad, because then you introduce people turning directly on and off the road, which tends to defeat the purpose of a parkway and make things (actually) slower. I would hope that some things (like Gillette Street) are actually closed off altogether.

- Stoplights should be fine as long as they're timed correctly. Anything else would make it a pain.

- The Taft stoplight was really nice in evening traffic flow, though the design of the stoplight would force people to merge onto Allen Parkway, which is a bit difficult when cars are zipping by at 40 mph at a minimum.

 

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http://houston.culturemap.com/news/city-life/07-28-15-extreme-makeover-for-allen-parkway-expect-slower-commute-but-more-parking-spaces-and-easier-access-1/

Work on the project — which has an anticipated end date of May 23, 2016, just in time for Free Press Summer Fest in Eleanor Tinsley Park — means fewer lanes will be available to motorists and access to certain streets may be limited for several weeks.

So FPSP is going to be back at Elanor Tinsley again next year?

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Heh, true.. I just wasn't aware they came to an agreement with the city to have it at Elanor Tinsley after this year..? Last I had heard they hadn't worked out all the details with the city, but that was before this years line up came out I believe. Did they get the extended hours they wanted or anything like that?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Started eastbound lane closures this week. The "feeder" east of Taft is partially closed, and with just one main lane closed from Montrose to Taft, the light at Taft caused a backup almost to Dunlavy.

 

I'm still very weary of adding lights to the Parkway and maintaining current loads. I think the impacts to travel time will be much larger than predicted.

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Started eastbound lane closures this week. The "feeder" east of Taft is partially closed, and with just one main lane closed from Montrose to Taft, the light at Taft caused a backup almost to Dunlavy.

 

I'm still very weary of adding lights to the Parkway and maintaining current loads. I think the impacts to travel time will be much larger than predicted.

 

One of the purposes of the project is to reduce the load by shifting through traffic to Memorial.

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I've mentioned this before, but I just don't see how much load will be reduced. From my experience (daily weekday mornings), well over half of the people traveling on Allen take the direct connector to 45 N/S which Memorial doesn't provide. For the people headed downtown, of those coming from the Montrose area, how many will back track to Waugh to be able to get on Memorial? So its really the people coming from Kirby, Shephard, or Waugh AND headed downtown only, that have an option that may decide to take Memorial over Allen.

 

And on the other side of that argument, I'm looking forward to easy pedestrian/biking access to the bayou =)

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Should they of repaved Memorial first/possibly raised the speed limit by 5mph or so before doing this to Allen Parkway?

 

Depends on where the money's coming from. Memorial's also 50 mph in the middle of an urbanized area - that's plenty fast enough for its purposes.

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Started eastbound lane closures this week. The "feeder" east of Taft is partially closed, and with just one main lane closed from Montrose to Taft, the light at Taft caused a backup almost to Dunlavy.

 

I'm still very weary of adding lights to the Parkway and maintaining current loads. I think the impacts to travel time will be much larger than predicted.

I say this with all respect, but who cares if travel time increases? This city has bottle fed motorists for so long that we worry about travels times on Allen Parkway. People speed up and down that road and completely ignore pedestrians. If travel time is an issue, I have an answer, wake up earlier. Cities are built on people, not cars, and it's about time this road was dedicated to the safety of people trying to cross it. 

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I say this with all respect, but who cares if travel time increases? This city has bottle fed motorists for so long that we worry about travels times on Allen Parkway. People speed up and down that road and completely ignore pedestrians. If travel time is an issue, I have an answer, wake up earlier. Cities are built on people, not cars, and it's about time this road was dedicated to the safety of people trying to cross it. 

 

I agree. Travel time always seems to be a strawman argument. Even if this was just by the numbers. The logic collapses because the time increase pilled together with normal driving times of people once they have even reached Allen Parkway is so minuscule and negligible that it doesn't make sense to bring it up in any worthy debate. The fact is that Allen Parkway is very unsafe compared with Memorial Drive which already makes it known that it isn't a place for pedestrians. Allen Parkway has way more access to pedestrians. Plus Downtown isn't the sole commercial center anymore. Maybe if we had this argument in the 1970s I would maybe agree you needed two main uninterrupted throughfares out of downtown, but we not only have highways, but Memorial Drive which serve that main function. Allen Parkway doesn't even really get you that far. It only gets you to River Oaks and then abruptly terminates. If the other guy wants to improve driving times.....then talk to those people in River Oaks first because that 35mph is what really slows everything down. Not a few lights on Allen Parkway. The city is more diverse than it once was and so Allen Parkway needs to adapt. Plain and simple.

 

EDIT: not trying to slay anyone arguing with travel time...I've heard people trying to argue it before using that only as their argument. I think we can all agree that the changes are very much welcomed! I say its a fair compromise for both sides. Motorist get more parking spaces. Pedestrians get more access!

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