wilcal

Relatives place in Kingwood went down by about 10% (non-flooded part). Land stayed the same and it was the improvement that dropped. No increase from 17 to 18 and now it has dropped to right at 16.

It's a CIP project so I'm assuming it would be similar to the Patterson bikeway, which would mean almost immediately. Pretty sure they would have to spend the funds this year.

I'm really not coming at this in a form of poor taste, but you have to wonder how the bike fatality just a few blocks away from here will affect thinking of residents. Even people with right of way in bike paths are getting killed.

Haven't seen it yet. And yes, they said no pecore and nothing west of shepherd at this time.

They have been typically using painted separation/addition of armadillos of a few feet on higher traffic streets. So a little better, but not wonderful.

Lets also be clear that those federal funds were our money to begin with. It's sad that we run the biggest negative in terms of receiving federal road funding. We send out about 110% of what we get back. Yes, that's how being in the federal government works, but still annoying. Brightline is 100% private (well, they almost just had an IPO after collaborating with Virgin), but getting to utilize some existing government/train ROW. I understand what you are saying, and I don't necessarily think the state should be paying for high-speed rail to connect cities (although I wouldn't be against it) but the funds should certainly be available for other transit projects. Just the option! But it's been designed so there is no option, and that is heartbreaking.

They administer $25 billion/year. I think they could figure it out if Brightline can. Isn't this why they changed their name from Texas Department of Highways? To be more all-encompassing? (an honest question here) As I showed above, it's the only path they have. Then you'll never have access to state funds or the federal funds that are given to the state, and that's a shame.

TN.222.001 requires that funds in the State Highway Fund must be used to improve the state highway system or mitigate environmental effects of such system. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/TN/htm/TN.222.htm#222.001 The State Highway Fund takes constitutionally dedicated taxes and fees, Prop 1 Oil and Gas Taxes, Prop 7 taxes, and federal funds. Here is your breakdown on State Highway Fund Revenue: Only Special Vehicle Permits Fees, Sale of Publications/Advertising, Supplies/Equipment/Service, and Other Revenue are not dedicated purely to highways. Those total to just under 3% of state revenue. And both of you may know more than me, but it's certainly possible that not all of the federal dollars ($11.31B for next year) heading into the State Highway Fund don't have to be tied to road construction/maintenance, but TXDoT is not treating them that way to my knowledge. So no, there is nothing written into the state constitution that TXDoT must spend 97% of their revenue on highways, but they way that they have written constitutional amendments for funding via the props and other taxes have that effect. By all means, they could sell tens of billions in advertising and they could, at their discretion, choose how that money is used, but the other funds equal tied hands. I could be wrong, but to my knowledge, they are only administering federal funds, not their own (TASA stuff).

Sorry, you are right technically. It was texas voters who approved it, but it was placed there by the legislature via a legislatively referred constituional amendment. The most recent one was 2015 Prop 7 which diverted more billions specifically into the State Highway Fund. They could have put those funds at the discretion of TXDot entirely, but they were locked into highway usage.

I believe high comfort is anything with separation between the bike lane and regular lanes. That can be paint-only. Also, this project is listed as a CIP, not a Rodney Ellis $10 million project (like the Patterson bikeway). This means that it probably doesn't have the ultra-rapid implementation like the county-funded projects. When the presentation does appear online, it should appear on this page: http://houstonbikeplan.org/11th-street/

The legislature wrote into the state constitution one or two sessions ago that 97% of TxDOT funds have to be spent on roads. So they can't even do public transit if they wanted to.

I wasn't able to go last night. Can you give us any other comments/info from the meeting? I'm surprised that they said Pecore didn't trigger on-street due to traffic count, but the numbers are the numbers. Basically, they want to paint sharrows there? Did they want to split the bike lane across the median on the west side?

Shouldn't be a problem with a household full of drivers for all of those cars, right? 😁 Even if you didn't momentarily park in the bike lane like the other commenter suggested, the furthest house from a side street intersection is about 400 feet. We're not exactly talking about parking pandemonia like Philadelphia or something.

It's Polk. I road it this weekend and it really really is. It's also scheduled for proper bike lane infrastructure soon and the Lanier bike gutters will be replaced. The quality of the concrete is absolutely atrocious, so not sure what they plan on doing.

I asked an industry professional, and any stripe creates a lane separation. The only way a rider would have to ride "in the bike lane" would be on a street that is > 14' in a lane. No way for a bike lane to be part of a lane like that unless it was just sharrows.