wilcal

*clutches pearls*

The parts that were demo'd were due to flooding damage. If the 59 realignment happens, all of Clayton Homes will be removed, so it's doubtful anything is built in the near term.

Did they seem to "get it" at all? Even the guy running their petition said that it wasn't that they were against the changes, it was that they didn't know how it would affect their neighborhood. "Where will we park?" So disingenuous. They have already put in a special parking application that's some borderline BS.

Not the case, evidently. Austin just voted last week to drop all speed limits in their neighborhoods to 25 MPH (along with many other speed drops). Counties, (cut not cities evidently?) have the ability to drop speed limits to 20mph, but it must be contextual in line with a church, school, or some other approved metric.

I saw that. Unfortunately I don't think that I can watch the Midtown SNC on Thursday. Will be interesting to see what they plan to change. There are not currently any minor collectors designated in Midtown, except for Tuam ending at Bagby. Def of Minor Collectors: I'm not actually sure what changes when the streets are deemed a Minor Collector. Here is the current map: Solid purple: sufficient width transit corridor (lol, close Main St to cars) Red: sufficient width major thoroughfare (lol, we took away one of the lanes of Gray for the bike lane this year, so also too big) Blue: Sufficient width major collector. Full size: https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/transportation/MTFPMap/2019_MTFP_Map.pdf And to read the policy statement about the MTFP system: https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/transportation/docs_pdfs/2015_PolicyStatement.pdf

I thought that the parking lot across the street from SeaSide could be used by their customers? Pretty sure I saw a sign that said that.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/retail/article/Luby-s-to-sell-restaurant-business-and-assets-15315357.php RIP

I felt it odd as well. I was planning on following up about it after the Elysian was rebuilt to see if anything happens first. Sometimes these things fall through the cracks and whoever is responsible doesn't know that they are. After some flooding in Kingwood, the city was going through to see which of the drainage ditches needed to be cleaned and someone had to go through the process of figuring out which were city maintained and which were county maintained. IIRC something like 10% of the system was unclaimed by either and the city voluntarily offered to maintain it while they figured out who had to.

This may be an option for you: https://www.glo.texas.gov/land/land-management/gis/aerials/1940s/harris/index3c.html These photos I saw in a Chron article about the destruction of the Lyons/Jensen area by the construction of the interstates. I asked Houston TxDOT about it on Twitter awhile back, and they said that it wasn't their bridge. Just like an hour with a weedeater would make a good bit of difference. The other issue is that it doesn't really go anywhere. No sidewalks on either side.

From my extremely limited understanding from people very much in the know, city council is not on-board with expanding market-based parking city wide... YET. It's a little much to turn the key on the city as a whole. They expanded it into Midtown, it will be expanded with TOD, and it's written into the (non-binding_ Climate Action Plan to expand it inside 610 by 2030. This is also the crux of TOD. Director Brown talked about how they are using criteria (from outside the department) to determine if streets should be secondary or primary TOD and that they are met and automatically triggered whenever the transit facilities are built. I can definitely see the more progressive Harris County easing their restrictions, but good luck with Montgomery County doing something like that up towards 99. I was pretty unimpressed by the city councilmember comments. Especially Shabazz. The whole basis of their complaints were that they didn't know what was going on. Well, this is been on the table for a pretty long time, and trying to find out what is even the difference between Walkable Places and TOD should probably have been handled up until this point. Even the guy who was presenting the Museum Park homeowner petition said that they weren't against it, but they feel that they didn't understand how it would affect their community. I'm not sure if it's a boomer vs younger generation thing, but the supporters that live in MP all understood and realize that this increases their property values. One guy even said that he owned a lot on a primary TOD corridor and he would have significantly more flexibility to develop. I do understand the plight of the MP residents who are scared, and the planning department really should have done a better job with outreach. They received the same chastising over the Bagby Spur Park boondoggle. They are definitely going to have to do some smoothing over with some council members (and some residents) before a supposed vote this summer.

Progress on Austin St in downtown:

Pretty sure that could be HAIF's motto at this point.

13 year study found that painted (non-separated bike lanes do nothing. Sharrows are actually more dangerous. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/05/29/protect-yourself-separated-bike-lanes-means-safer-streets-study-says/

If only it extended down to Hermann Park as well It'll just be "community bikeway" south of HCC with painted sharrows and wayfinding signs.

Looks great! Bring on the EaDo residents. Just a block from the Eadog Park and two blocks from 8th Wonder and then all sorts of other stuff 4-6 blocks away. Love seeing more infill in this area.