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IHB2

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  1. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    right now we shouldn't build any more rail than what is currently completed and under construction b/c the agency that does that can't pay for it for the foreseeable future with the revenues available.
  2. IHB2
    .
  3. IHB2
    you believe introducing a discussion of subways is in some way germane to a discussion of building a freeway roundabout for automobiles traveling on an existing interstate highway? you believe that a subway could in some way be relevant to the problem of several freeways merging in the same spot in the CBD?
  4. IHB2
    this thread is about through automobile traffic, not fixed guideway mass transit.
  5. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    and the whole munchies thing would revitalize the flagging bbq businesses that the 290 bypass ruined - thus providing Niche's reparations in a way that even a libertarian could support
  6. IHB2
    my idea also has the virtue of being a hell of a lot cheaper than other ideas presented here, especially sinking or double decking - just closing on/off access ramps, build a few flyover ramps to get people off before the elevated, redesign the 610/45 north & south interchanges...
  7. IHB2
    exactly - that's why you've got to keep moving the traffic straight through until you've removed the bottleneck from the CBD. A roundabout is a 360 degree bottleneck-in-waiting.
  8. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    Hard to compare to Hempstead - Marfa is a plaything of the art-patron rich, a very recent development and one that likely will last only until the rich turn their gaze elsewhere.
  9. IHB2
    I've posted this before, but one possible solution to the 45/59/288/Spur mess is to make the Pierce Elevated portion of 45 straight through from the Scott exit past 10 to 610 - no on/off access except before and after the elevated. make the 59 & 288 traffic exit to surface streets for CBD destinations, or travel to 610 in either direction to access 45 n or s. with all roads forced straight through, that might remove the continual jam at 45/59/288 and move it to the 610/45 interchanges where at least there is room to redesign/expand to handle ever-increasing volume.
  10. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    my interpretation of "luciaphile" indicates the poster is Ricky Ricardo, so not a she.
  11. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    At the risk of offending the "you didn't build that" English grammar illiterates, "the government" is what made Hempstead prosperous in the 1st place no matter how far back in Anglo Texas history you want to go. Regional winners and losers were chosen from the beginning whether it was the granting of land or RR ROW, choosing the county seat, the building of roads there instead of somewhere else b/c previous choices had made a town a regional commercial center, etc. Niche your universe, like mine, is "turtles all the way down" and it is pointless to consider "reparations" for some artificial construct like "Hempstead" or "the African American population." What we are left with is defending our own micro spaces in an attempt to protect our unalienable right to property - ich bin ein NIMBY. and that's why, to return to topic, affected Houstonians should fight METRO for everything it wants to do until those Houstonians get the maximum amount of justice possible from a government agency acting to disrupt their lives.
  12. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    Niche tends to argue from the macro perspective, discounting any of the individual micros that make up the whole as expendable, as though "the Houston economy" had any meaning beyond the collection of the 10s of 1000s of individual economic actors from 1 person operations to the biggest chemical plants.
  13. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    having been a small business owner myself - and I still am one - I'll just respectfully disagree. with everything you said in the post. travelers used to stop for bbq, gasoline, whatever in Hempstead. then the 290 bypass got built. travelers still ate bbq, stopped for gasoline, whatever. just not in Hempstead.
  14. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    then what in your opinion did?
  15. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    Red Line + Lee Brown tearup of the downtown grid shut down a thriving downtown cafe scene and the collateral small businesses that scene created. most small businesses operate on margins so thin that removing a big % of customers for even a month is death. that some % of the projects that kill them are paid for with their own tax $$$ is ironic. and it's all those small businesses that provide the fabric for general economic success in any part of town, so your "core employers" may survive but they alone can't create a thriving business culture. IMO these big construction projects that make people avoid an area until it's finished have an effect more like a hurricane or some other natural disaster rather than being the moral equivalent of a taking.
  16. IHB2

    METRORail Green Line

    IHB2 replied to a topic in Transit

    mfastx has it right. Frank Wilson swore all new rail lines after the Red Line would be built in small segments so as not to devastate businesses along the entire route at once as happened downtown. unamused merchants at the meetings referred to the policy as the death of a thousand cuts as opposed to the shock and awe Red Line project :-)
  17. IHB2
    4:30ish PM after football and basketball practice at BHS, the Chuck Wagon on Bellaire just west of Chimney Rock and later the one on Bissonnet & Beechnut (now El Pupusadromo Numero Dos), for a Wheel with Cheese, Fries, and a Tub o' Coke (a quart I think) then home for mom's big dinner at 7PM... it was good to be a teenager in the mid-60s :-)
  18. IHB2
    1. those Rebelettes in post 1 are pretty dang hot 2. in 64,65,66 Bellaire HS stole the Rebel mascot once and the Lamar Redskin mascot 2 yrs in a row - we may have discussed nullification, states' rights, and secession on the way to break into the campuses, but if we did I don't remember. can't remember why we didn't ever try to steal Gen Lee too, but I'm almost certain it wasn't b/c we had been indoctrinated in the myths of the Cult of RE Lee that had been the South's project in the postwar decades. 3. we never discussed in class, nor were we ever quizzed on the fact, that Brown v. Board had been decided 12 years earlier, or what could be the cause of the continued segregation of HISD and every other school district in all of the former secession states one full K-12 generation after the decision 4. the combined birthdays of RE Lee and Jefferson Davis was an official state and HISD holiday in January (might have been February), no days off for Lincoln or Washington bdays 4. when we wanted to play real basketball we would drive over to the 3rd or 5th Wards and find a game. the rest of the time our HS coaches made us run the weave, make 8+ passes per possession, and take set shots outside of 10'. had our parents known we were in the wards we would have been grounded. to summarize, we were neither indoctrinated in Southern myth nor very well-educated in historical fact. we were high school kids with much more serious things like cars and members of the opposite sex on our minds. black folks lived on the other side of town (even though that could be any of several directions from southwest Houston/Bellaire). our most common interactions with blacks was in service jobs - maids, grocery sackers, busboys, yardmen, etc, or riding on the bus.
  19. IHB2
    For years in the mid-late 50s the west side of the Chimney Rock ditch from Beechnut past Jason was piled maybe 10-15 ft high with dirt with small volunteer trees and weeds growing on it - any elevation for a kid growing up on the southwest side of town was catnip, and biking the trails was too fun - and Meyerland stopped at Jason with the remaining distance to Brays Bayou a grassy savannah all the way to the dense oak forest lining both sides of the winding bayou, which like Buffalo Bayou today had sandy, hilly terrain along the banks. Then they cut down the trees and straightened out the curves and poured concrete. It was still fun to bike along the mostly dry concrete bottom, but nothing like when it was natural.
  20. IHB2
    lots and lots of high dollar lawyers in Southampton and Boulevard Oaks. I'm sure they've developed a strategy to keep the harassment well within 1st Amendment rights.
  21. IHB2
    yes, that was my point, move the congestion further away from the interchange, which theoretically would allow for smoother, faster flow through the interchange itself. if you have traveled northbound 610 over 59 almost anytime of day since the rebuild what you find is radical differences in lane speeds caused by both exiters and last-second lane changers (both cutting into the line or moving out at zero mph into 60mph lanes). it's even worse on the southbound side b/c of the Westheimer entry and Richmond exit only yards apart and so close to the 59 exit, although better than it was before the redo. the difference in speeds is not just a primary cause of congestion, but insanely dangerous as well, as the ridiculously high accident count at 610 northbound to 59 illustrates. the notion that drivers must be allowed to exit freeways at every major surface street is just stupid in a town with as rational a n/s/e/w surface street grid as Houston.
  22. IHB2
    until they decide to delete the Westheimer exits (both sides) and the Richmond/Hiidalgo exit (southbound) it will continue to be fubar. then consider deleting the Chimney Rock exits both ways on 59 so traffic has to flow further from the interchange before being able to get off. that worked pretty well to increase traffic flow on northbound 610 to northbound 59 and on 59 itself when the Newcastle exit was deleted. might also consider forcing northbound 610 exiters to n&s 59 to get to the right much further south than at present, maybe around the Bellaire overpass.
  23. IHB2
    if that's mom...mom's a babe
  24. IHB2
    and I suspect those being critical of any or all of the small municipalities' and the COH's desire to avoid a certain tax increase also believe that politics, specifically the politics of reelection, is not the primary determinant of all municipal policy decisions regarding METRO. my guess is we'll need boom times again before any elected official even considers restoring the 25% to METRO. and since the Univ & Uptown lines are probably dependent on the restoration of that % and on fed transit dollars before any ground is broken, I think we're going to have a LRT grid with no east-west axis for many years to come.
  25. IHB2
    In the 50s my cousin married his daughter, and the reception was at the house. I was a bored little kid, Ted Kennedy made me a peanut butter sandwich...
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