Arboosto

1 hour ago, samagon said:

not to mention that time sitting on a train is now productive time on calls, answering emails, doing normal business that would otherwise be impacted by having to concentrate on the whole driving thing.

In my opinion, this is the biggest factor. If an engineering company needs to send an SME for a critical meeting in Dallas, they're going to bill their travel time. 8 hours of driving at $200/hr is $1600. Losing that much productive time heavily tips the scales to a travel option where they can be productive.

On 2/26/2023 at 12:15 PM, hindesky said:

I just drove over it on Heights Blvd, you are definitely forced to slow down for it.

Upon leaving Melange Creperie last night I heard a bus hit the new raised crosswalk at speed. The crunch of the suspension as the rear of the bus caught air and then slammed back onto the road was so loud. I imagine that was very unpleasant for any riders.

I'm impressed with how quickly the culvert was graffitied. I think it happened within days of the concrete being placed.

This would be an ideal spot for $7 all day parking! /s

Sorry, I'm still bitter about Fitzgerald's. It'd be a shame to see the Heights lose another celebrated local music venue.

23 hours ago, sapo2367 said:

Woot! I think the long term plan is for this to continue and cross over I10 to get all the way to Memorial Park. I recall seeing some mockups somewhere on HAIF a while ago.

Here they are:

On 6/2/2022 at 10:02 PM, steve1363 said:

You think people use 11th Street to avoid I10 and 610?  That's absurd.  These changes to 11th, along with the planned changes to White Oak will absolutely change traffic patterns into the neighborhood.  Brace yourself for more speed bumps on interior streets.

As a Heights resident, I occasionally use 11th St instead of I-10 whenever Google tells me it's faster (basically if I-10 is at a standstill). If 11th St didn't move a high volume of cars at high speeds, the algorithm would send me a different way, either to 14th, 20th, or around on I-610.

EDIT: removed speculative statement

On 4/23/2022 at 9:27 AM, Houston19514 said:

What used to be where CVS is?  

There also used to be a dog shelter (K-9 Angels) and vet in the two houses at the west end of the current CVS lot. I would foster and walk dogs with K-9 Angels back when they were at that location.

Just my two cents...

Right now the Heights has OK bus coverage. It was better when we had three high-frequency routes (#26, #27, #56) pre-Covid. But even with high frequency buses there are still big connectivity gaps in the Heights transit network to and from the Red Line east of I-45 and the Silver Line at the NW Transit Center. The latter will kind of be addressed by the Katy BRT for a small portion of residents.

To me, you could cut out the west-most north/south portion (between I-10 and 18th St) and make the route into a big backwards C-shape. Extend the north section of the line west along 18th St to the future HSR station and extend the south section to the NW Transit Center using the future Katy BRT infrastructure (or through Eureka Yard and also connect the Railway Heights Market). I'd also be inclined to run the route farther east on Cavalcade (or Link) to tie into the Cavalcade (Lindale Park) and Moody Park stations.

What's not to love about the Katy Freeway? In fact, it has my favorite application of TxDOT pedestrian friendly infrastructure. /s

I wonder why these developments just south of I-10 keep opting for the inefficient land use of suburban style big box stores and strip malls. Between the Target, Walmart, and now Home Depot / Kroger developments, that's a lot of valuable land used for parking in an area well-connected by pedestrian-friendly infrastructure.

I was curious about the population statistic and enjoy looking at census data. Taking "Heights" to mean the Greater Heights super neighborhood, as of 2020 the census tracts in this area had a total population of 48,077 and an average density of 6,510 /mi^2. Unfortunately I didn't easily find 2010 census data by tract and the population change shown in the interactive map is for the county.

Data was pulled from this 2020 Census interactive map and tabulated:

I'm excited to see what the protest signs will look like. The No Dian Street Villas signs were boring. The Stop Big Tex Storage signs were short-lived and mostly copied the Ashby Highrise signs. Fun, but not original. Hopefully we'll get something original and clever, but still artistic and tasteful.

I'm disappointed they kept the routing around Afton Oaks from the gold University LRT alignment. The neighborhood concerns for LRT running through Afton Oaks just aren't as valid for BRT. Richmond is a 6-lane major thoroughfare there and BRT is perfectly appropriate along that road. Wealthy neighborhoods shouldn't be able to inconvenience all transit users just to maintain the "neighborhood charm" along a road that is laid out like a divided highway. Routing BRT south of 610 before Galleria makes the Newcastle stop almost worthless (there is a wall along the 59 feeder that blocks all foot-traffic north of 59 and rail corridor that blocks all foot-traffic on the east). They need to get the BRT into Galleria along Richmond. Use the existing Silver Line infrastructure (saving some money) at Richmond and LUTC so that University Line users can actually get into the Galleria without having to transfer to another line or foot it across a highway.

TxDOT is planning to build a new trail connector to Memorial Park and pedestrian bridge over I-10 from the Cottage Grove neighborhood. The attached slides were presented in a recent neighborhood meeting. Along with concurrent projects by TIRZ 5 and CoH to extend the MKT trail under TC Jester and designate on-street bikeways along Radcliffe, this would improve access to Memorial Park for pedestrians and cyclists coming from north of I-10. Some project highlights from the meeting were:

• New 14 ft wide pedestrian bridge over I-10 from Cottage Grove Park parallel to the existing pedestrian/utility bridge.
• A new 10-12 ft wide trail to Memorial Park running approximately 0.4 mi parallel to the south side of I-10 to Washington Ave. It would run under the Southern Pacific rail and be cut into the sloped concrete embankment.
• Significant reworking of the Washington and I-10 frontage road intersection to improve pedestrian safety.
• Landscaping and beautification along the trail.

720122757_MemorialConnectionProject-SN15.pdf

Yes, the scope of this project ends at Shepherd. The section of 11th St between Shepherd and Durham falls under the scope of the Shepherd and Durham Major Investment Project.

Part of the answer is that decades ago the city placed landfills in the Black suburban development of Sunnyside. This article highlights present day reclamation of some of that land for a solar farm and provides historical context, particularly in the 5th paragraph. 
In Houston's Sunnyside, overburdened from decades of discrimination, you learn to provide for yourself