morrchr1

If Houston really wanted to commit to this, complete the University and Uptown lines that have already been voted on and extend the Green/Purple lines through the Washington corridor and out Hempstead HWY (the first option on the maps posted a few pages back) to meet the NW Mall station. Even if the train came into downtown it would almost certainly have to slow down as it traveled through the densely populated neighborhoods anyways. By building these three lines, nearly every major business center (and most neighborhoods BTW) of inner Houston would be connected by rail, as well as giving the option to riders of the TCR which part of town to travel to. As for later expansion, add heavy commuter rail to the major corridors (Hardy Toll & 59 N from the North Redline station, I-10 West from the NW Mall Station, Westpark from the Westpark TC, 45 S fromt the Palm TC, Etc.) once HWY construction is maxed out and Houston is truly a mobile city. Now all of that is more of a pipe dream, but the 3 light rail solutions have all been studied already, are all in desperate need of street renovation and add more flexibility than a downtown station would considering how spread out our major business centers are.

I was a big supporter of the downtown route before seeing some of the numbers associated with it, but now why not go to the NW mall site and put pressure on the city to make good on its own 2040 plan to have rail out to that area to come to downtown? See Pg. 15 on the link below, it would have a light rail service going from that area to downtown. The biggest upheaval in what could really be a very mobile Houston in my eyes is the blocking of the University line in the Galleria/Afton Oaks area. With this line and the line shown on the 2040 plan map (first I had seen of this Washington/NW mall line) you could reasonably get from that train to any business district in Houston excluding the Energy Corridor. http://www.h-gac.com/taq/plan/2040/docs/Appendix%20A%20Map%20Book.pdf

Well all of those (myself included) that saw a possibliity for Houston to really get it right and have a true central station can stop hoping. Hardy Yards first development is now under construction. http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/5521-hardy-rail-yard-project/page-12 The problem with this is that while the Post Office site is still available downtown, this was the only location where you could easily see the ROW to the site, as well as it easily tied into the in town transit systems (Light Rail already has a stop there and Busses could easily be added to the area). Now any downtown station will not have convienent access to the in town rail system, it will be a several block walk through downtown.

I understand how it could cut in half by the use of the Utility line, though if no more property is taken how much claim do they have (not sure exactly how the property works with the utility line ie do the land owners just lease the use or is that actually owned by the utility operator)? This concern was particularly brought up by multilpile people concerning the BANSF line, thus my confusion.

So, I went to last nights Houston meeting. I unfortunately didn't get to attend much of the open house before the short presentation and had to leave before the public statement time was over so I did not get to ask TCR as many questions as I wanted. The meetings were strickly to go over and get input on the EIS, however there was some good information on how that works as well as possible stations. I didn't take pictures of the visuals because almost everything was from the dallashoustonhsr.com site. First off, I was somewhat disappointed to hear that currently there are no plans to have more than one station per city. In other words the 3 Dallas stations and the different Houston stations based on route selection are simply alternitives. This was dissapointing to me because it almost guarantees that there will not be a downtown station since the "last mile cost" and available land are considerations. The one encouraging other side of this is that the connectivity to other forms of transit is a factor in the decision of where to place the stations so at the least there should be the ability to get to the downtown areas quickly and cheaply from whatever locations are chosen for stations. Also, this was the first that I heard of an intermediate station. This was being discussed as a near certainty, and its location was in Ciro between B/CS and Huntsville. As an Aggie, this is exciting because CS already has a pretty extensive bus system and I suspect that they would run a route that corresponded with the train schedule during most of the day. This also opens up the use of this for a pretty strong commuter base in that area. The major concern that came of the meeting was from land owners in the rural areas was this "cutting their property and/or roads in half" which is simply a vast overstatement, as this was a larger concern if the BANSF route was chosen. It can take some of the land but I don't see how expanding an EXISTING ROW could possibly isolate a portion of someones property that is not already isolated. Can anyone with this perspective help me out here? Regaurdless it seems that TCR, TxDOT, and the FRA (the latter two are the ones actually doing the EIS and choosing the routes and possible locations apparently which surprised me) have a good system for inputting the concerns and desires of the public, but have been horrible in executing the information flow. I, like most of you have been constatnly following this issue for years, but to most people the first they heard (if at all) of this being a real possibility was a little blurb on the chronicles website about the route finalist. Even then I don't think it mentioned the meeting series. Anyone else go last night see anything different?