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DNAguy

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Everything posted by DNAguy

  1. DNAguy
    This picture alone should win a Swampy award. IDK what category, but it needs one....... 'Best farewell of a structure to be torn down' Winner: Skylane Central Apts. / Elan Heights
  2. DNAguy
    I notice that as well. LOTS of people were out on Saturday. My guess is that the park will become a lot more solitary the higher the mercury goes... We've been blessed w/ unusually cool weather this year that's lasted longer into the year. I could go on but you get the idea. This is all on the NOAA's website. Always a cool resource if you're into that kind of thing... nerd. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/?n=climate_graphs_iah
  3. DNAguy
    Isn't FPH Summerfest in like 2 weeks? After walking the park last weekend, IDK if the park is going to be ready. That thing is going to be a dust bowl.
  4. DNAguy
    So is downtown going to have a 'monkey wrench' district?
  5. DNAguy
    @kbates2 My thoughts exactly. I'm pretty sure you can't camp in a public park.
  6. DNAguy
    Truly game changing comment.
  7. DNAguy
    True. However, never underestimate the power of developers and the access they get by giving lots of $$$$$ to politicians. The sections of the Grand Parkway from 1-10 south to 59 and 290 east to 45 make sense to me. !10-290? I've driven it. There's nothing out there. Blatant developer welfare. The 45/Hardy to 59 section sort of makes sense. The Baytown section (I think's it's given the I2 section designation) seemed odd to me. Instead of building a road in a field, why didn't they just upgrade 146 to highway standards to I10? Oh yeah, developers. So now we have a section of the loop from 59 south all the way to 59 north and a stub from 146 to I 10. I really think that that's all that's needed. Who is clamoring for a road in the middle of nowhere in Northeast / east harris county and liberty county? What is the traffic count for those needing to travel from the Woodlands to say Mont Belveiu. Is highway 6 from I45 to 288 and 288 to 59 so overloaded that we need to build a tollway from 45 to Alvin and from Alvin to Sugar land? Really? Those billions would be better spent on making our current roads better. An example is the highway 6 I mentioned. Why not upgrade multiple sections to be grade separated? The answer again comes down to $. Developers have politicians int heir pockets. Politicians in addition don't want to raise taxes. Therefore, the only new $ for roads can only be had by floating bonds and to get that you'll have to toll lanes to pay back the bonds. By state law you cannot toll lanes that already exist. So what do we do? We've actually set up a system that incentivises toll roads and developers exploit it. Crazy.
  8. DNAguy
    If the issue is that we shouldn't dismantle things until they've reached the end of life, then we probably don't need to go through the exercise of the 45 project at all. However, that prevents us fro making almost all the freeways in Houston better due to the fact that almost all highways have been redesigned since the 90's and we get roughly 50 years out of them (right?). I'm not a fan of truck bypasses. I get the idea of them but I don't see it as really enforceable. If you have to police them, you don't help traffic b/c the sight of a police car increases congestion. Just the sight. Crazy. I also don't really think it'll do much to relieve congestion. The 45 along 59 idea as TxDOT presented it sucks. It's almost as if they were late turning in their homework and thought something was better than nothing at all. I understand your objection. I object to it as well. But if done right, it can be very beneficial. From the 45/59 intersection to Polk, TxDOt has a full block-wide of ROW to work with. After Polk, you're right, the ROW is tight. You can work with this by doing 3 things: 1.) Trench 59 up to Franklin 2.) Cut Chartes to 2 lanes and / or have it overhang the trench 3.) Deck 45 over the trench After Franklin, the 45 deck would have to split to the east and west side of the 59 elevated freeway. Additional ROW would have to be acquired there. So the section of low income housing project on the bayou west of West Dr would have to be purchased as well as the Star of Hope on the west side of 59. Both of those actions would be a tight rope act of politics.
  9. DNAguy
    I saw this too! However, I also saw a couple homeless guys who 'washed' his shirts in the Bayou and had them hanging on a clothes line. I've seen him b/f and his little camp seems to be a semi-permanent addition that wasn't necessarily on the master plan..... So whatever the guards are doing, they're not running off the homeless (not that they should, I just assumed that's what they'd do).
  10. DNAguy
    As in the previous cases, I agree. However, getting rid of a freeway will already cause a fire storm. This is Houston. People think more lanes = better traffic. An option kind of middle road option is what I proposed b/f: Instead of a blvd, I think you can tie Houston ave to the depressed section of 45 (the part that goes under W Dallas) and then tie the depress section back into St. Joseph's parkway / Pierce street. This accomplishes the same result as a parkway and it uses existing streets. And it's possible to get a nice signature bridge over BB that's right next to downtown! Heck, maybe even cap that section of depressed freeway w/ some green space! The problem w/ the selling the ROW back to the city / developers is that (from my understanding) TxDOT's process doesn't have a way of capturing that in the costing of a project. So while we intuitively know that getting rid of the Pierce elevated would free up land to sell or that the properties close to the PE section would be more valuable w/out it, there is no value capture that is taken into account when grading / costing / vetting these options. The traffic on the Pierce doesn't come from lack of lanes. I don't know how txdot doesn't see this. It comes b/c everyone on the Pierce elevated aren't staying on 45. Hear me out. If you're SB on the Pierce, most people aren't going to stay on 45 toward Galveston. Most people are actually trying to go to 288 south / 59 south. If you're NB on the Pierce, people are most likely going to get on I10 west. So the issue isn't really lanes at all, its the CONNECTIONS w/ the other freeways in the area. Re-routing along I-10 and 59 makes a lot of sense b/c of this. Having straight aways merging with longer site lines from freeway to another helps the merging of traffic / reduces back ups / reduces congestion. The issue comes down to the fact that west downtown has less direct access to 45 (and subsequently I10) if we get rid of the downtown section of 45. Even though north downtown has direct access to both freeways, people will resist the removal of the freeway b/c it will take them 10 minutes longer to get home by having to travel 8 blocks north on the downtown grid rather than 3 blocks west. for those 10 minutes, people are willing to put up w/ a less overall efficient and uglier freeway option that costs us more and cuts off downtown from the gem of Buffalo Bayou park.
  11. DNAguy
    Meanwhile, back at the........
  12. DNAguy
    TxDOT isn't doing their job unless their answer to the problem at hand is acquiring ROW and adding lanes.... Oh and tolling said lanes.
  13. DNAguy
    Adding a sky light enclosure over a freeway essentially turns it into an elevated tunnel. So you have the downsides (such as reduced access of emergency vehicles like Life flight) of a tunnel w/ the blight of an elevated freeway. Literally, the worst of both worlds (I say that with all due respect). Remember, the Pierce elevated already suffers from skinny shoulders that don't allow for emergency vehicle to drive along. Although, I wouldn't mind seeing that in a conceptualization. Would be pretty cool looking actually.
  14. DNAguy
    You're right. It'll need a new topic. Sorry for going on a tangent like that.
  15. DNAguy
    From my conversations with the engineers, this is what they came up with. It doesn't take into consideration what the public wants. Take for instance the idea of the street level blvd that would replace the Pierce elevated. [From what I was told by an engineer] The city engineering office voiced concern about increased street level traffic if this were to come to fruition. TxDOT took note. And thats how we get an 'U' under vehicle miles traveled on city streets. I mean, where is the proof? What models show that this will actually take place? If anything, our downtown grid can absorb traffic. We have streets WIDER than the freeway downtown. This traffic will also not be passing through. It will be trying to get somewhere like midtown, Eado, the Spur. I don't buy what they're selling. And what's up with the 'U' for constructibility? What are the metrics? How is that 'U', but expanding the existing Peirce elevated is a 'neutral'?! Come on. Both would take significant ROW (although the re-route option wouldn't have to). Are they talking about cost? Who knows. Better to use vague semi-technical terms to distract us while they go with the option that they've already chosen. It's obvious that they either will expand it or go with a 'split' option. If you're truly going to mock some alternatives, I'd like for you to take some things into consideration. 1.) The Spur 5 elevated freeways on I 45 south. These weren't taken into consideration b/c the boundaries of this project end at the 45/59 intersection. However, these can be a real asset - either as direct 59 connectors or downtown exits (as they already are). The thing is though, if 45 is rerouted along 59, why would we need them as DT exits. The freeway would most likely route along 59 w/ a DT exit right there at 59. 2.) [Like you said earlier] Widen and continue the 59 trench withing its current ROW (can accomplish b/c walls are sploped currently or have Chartes 'overhang' the trench) past the GRB. Have 45 re-routed withing that trench ROW as an elevated section. This would lessen land acquisition cost. 45 exits to I10 East can then tie into the current 59 to I 10 east ramps as well. 3.) Urban blvd. / DT exit from the SB I45 north. Instead making a whole new street where the Pierce elevated is, why not just use St Joseph's prkway and Pierce. TxDOT can re-coup some of the projects cost by selling the ROW it owns / is being taken by the elevated freeway for development. The trenched section that's on the west side of DT needs to be tied into Houston Ave. with a bridge over the Bayou. 45's DT exit ties directly into Bagby and .... well I don't know exactly how to preserve the west side of DT to I 45 north I 10 access right now. Thoughts?
  16. DNAguy
    The St. Regis is very nice. However, the location sucks.
  17. DNAguy
    How can I like this comment more. I 100% agree. TxDOT is served by poor engineers. I'm sorry. Most work is done for the lowest cost to a contractor. You get what you pay for. I went to the November public meeting. To say that I was 'unimpressed' by the 'engineers' that presented this information is like saying that WW2 was a 'difference of opinion between us and Germany+Japan'. I put in a public comment that expressed your view after the November TxDOT meeting about this. Here's the thing, all of TxDOT's alternatives that they presented have not been costed out yet. That's right. They've eliminated all the original ideas without taking cost into account. So saying that tunneling isn't desirable has no bearing in reality other than they don't want to do it. They didn't cost it. They seriously don't have the expertise or the contractual resources to look at it so they just say that its not doable. What else is ridiculous is their spreadsheet showing 'Pros' and 'cons' of the alternatives they did present. They just give it an arbitrary 'Desirable', 'Undesirable', or 'Neutral'. Seriously?! WTF. That's the engineering equivalent of pulling stuff out of your a$$. If I tried to present that at project meeting without any data to back it up, I'd get laughed out of the room. http://www.ih45northandmore.com/docs3/I-45%20Segment%203%20Renderings_Final.pdf http://www.ih45northandmore.com/docs3/NHHIP%20Secondary%20Screening%20Matrix%20Draft%2012-19-13.pdf
  18. DNAguy
  19. DNAguy
    Well, you'll also have a real Alamo Drafthouse at Reagent Square, but that's still years away.
  20. DNAguy
    City Centre 5
  21. DNAguy
    You have to imagine that eventually Memorial City and City Centre will merge together to form a large mix-use / urban like environment. The existing residential, Beltway 8, and I-10 will be natural barriers, but I can see it expand along the frontage of I10. I think we can talk about rail when that happens. Anything b/f then is wishful thinking. Does Metro's new bus plan call for a Frequent bus route between these two areas? I'll have to look again to see.
  22. DNAguy
    No kidding! Look at all the additions to this area going in! (Sheraton not really an addition in a 'new building' sense).
  23. DNAguy
    Add the capital improvements with the new METRO bus plan, and we could get a true walkable neighborhood http://tei-houston.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index.html?appid=2832e4e9d2fb4ff1a01a4bac26078ac2
  24. DNAguy
    Actually, the new TIRZ should be closer to the area in yellow in this pic (disregard the difference in yellow hues). That would include all of the development between San Felipe and Westheimer, Highland village, and pretty much anything south of Westheimer
  25. DNAguy
    Considering Houston's tendency to liberally use Heights (as in Heights Wal mart) and River Oaks in all new development, I nominate River Oaks Heights. In all seriousness though, I think the Uptown TIRZ will eventually expand to deal with street improvements and the same accents (silver ring street signs) will follow. We can have a greater Uptown and call this section Uptown East. I would, however, like a totally organically new district to fill in between 610 and Upper Kirby / Greenway to fill the gap. There is already a lot of density along Richmond and Weslayan and more going in. If this becomes a thing, I like Highland Oaks. http://www.houstontx.gov/ecodev/tirzmap.pdf
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