ADCS

Amazon just snapped up Whole Foods. Wonder if that changes anything about this project?

54 minutes ago, samagon said:

 

I agree with everything else you said.

 

Someone said they had mentioned it to txdot and txdot said that they need to recuperate some of the costs by selling the land. Do they need to sell all of it though?

 

I would like to see this happen, but as I'm sure you know, the freeway cover parks for the east side of downtown, and other locations are NOT paid for as part of the freeway realignment, that money has to come from elsewhere.

 

So with that in mind, one caveat I would have would be all of the freeway cover parks be paid for first, then we pay for this.

Agreed. I'd be fine with a portion of the SkyPark plan if the caps were fully funded. They are not, so I'm opposed.

10 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

So you're telling me if the car hadn't been produced, White Flight wouldn't have happened? I doubt it. It definitely helped push people further away from the core, but Houston was already experiencing a form of White Flight in it's early days. 

Yep. You'd have redlining and neighborhood segregation like in Chicago, New York, Boston and Philadelphia around the turn of the last century, but you wouldn't have the mass exodus to newly manufactured suburbs with big, sprawly single-family houses if everyone was still relying on the trolley to get around, and no one could afford a house because 10-15 year mortgages were too expensive.

Edit: you also wouldn't have the leaded gasoline that led to the massive crime wave that convinced many/most white families to pack up and get on out of the city.

3 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

Actually it wasn't the automobile specifically that pushed people from the city core, it was White Flight. The car was an accessory to this movement but not the cause. 

White flight wouldn't have happened without cars, freeways and subsidized 30 year notes.

Sure. But master plans are rarely developed to their original specifications.

Houston's arranged like a giant spider's web, with nodes that developed at the intersection of transportation corridors (primarily the freeway system). To produce an effective rapid transit structure, what's primarily important is connecting those nodes (with commuter rail/bus). Once you're at those nodes, lower-intensity forms of transit like buses, light rail, full subways, or cars at park-and-rides (where densest) can take you through that "last mile".

It's better to think of Houston as a region of interconnected cities (Downtown, Uptown/Greenway, Medical Center, Westchase, Energy Corridor, Willowbrook, The Woodlands, Sugar Land, Kingwood/Humble etc), rather than a single city itself. Each one of these "cities" have their own transportation flows that nevertheless interact with one another. The trick is trusting these "cities" to handle their local flows while coordinating the regional flow, something that Metro has struggled with in the past.

18 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

I think the idea was more park land, not room for development.

No doubt there will be park land on the south side of Memorial, along with the area adjacent to Spotts Park, but I'd be shocked if the northwest side weren't developed. It's already isolated from the rest of the Buffalo Bayou Park system, and would be one of the most prime plots of land for a residential tower.

21 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

standard entrance and exit ramps, traffic signals, left turns...  I think the idea of removing the cloverleaf interchange has been pretty much abandoned.

I'd say that would be the perfect spot for a SPUI. Only question is if you keep running Waugh over Memorial, or elevate Memorial, keeping Waugh at surface level and facilitating development in the areas freed up by the removal of the outside ramps.

Obnoxiously suburban, but having a Nordstrom Rack there will be nice.

On 5/21/2017 at 8:45 AM, Tumbleweed_Tx said:

trains don't work in low density areas, especially in a place like Houston where people live 8 directions from downtown and work in 6 areas spread away from downtown.

It's been said here before, and it's getting said again.

 

if you take everyone in the world an put them all in the same spot, if the population density is the same as NYC, they will all fit within the borders of Texas.
If you take everyone in the world an put them in the same spot with the same density as Houston, , it takes all the land west of the Appalachians to fit everyone.

Rail actually works quite well in multicentric municipalities. Tokyo and London are two that come to mind. The key is to have plenty of lines that connect nodes outside the historic city center. Our freeway system is essentially designed with this in mind, so the corridors are there.

The difficult part is having the infrastructure in place to connect you to the rail stations. You would have to drastically rework the Metro system to prioritize bus service that carries people to the rail stations, and that is quite the political fight to be had.

2 hours ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

And that is the main problem right there. You want to change hearts and minds. I'm not a social justice warrior, I don't want to change cultures. My wish is only to provide cheap affordable public transportation to Houstonian's who 1) can't afford an automobile and 2) are physically handicapped and can not drive themselves. In Houston buses are the best option to meet those two goals to the most amount of people. If anything, our culture should be more open minded to buses. I don't need mass transportation to spur development or cure parkinsons, it just needs move people. I don't care what may or many not work in NYC or SFO, I only care about Houston, and in Houston buses have the greatest potential for the least amount of money. 

Lets face some hard facts here:

1. Taxpayers do not like spending money on the poor and disabled. This is especially true in a Republican-dominated state

2. If transit solely serves these populations, they will forever be underfunded, as the vast majority of taxpayers will not feel like stakeholders

3. Your goals will inevitably lead to them not being fulfilled

4. Higher-end services like metros and commuter trains lead to more overall transit funding, including that which serves your preferred population, as more people consider themselves stakeholders in the system

Life isn't fair, but systems can be developed that combat the inequities. However, as long as transit remains ghettoized, this will never occur with mobility.

43 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

I'm not sure it's progress actually. Businesses are not being affected by some awesome magnetic levitation train or a hyperloop system. Instead they are being affected not by progress but by actually regressing to a 19th century technology. That's the insult to injury. Rail existed on main street more than a hundred years ago. In time we progressed from rail on main street to buses. Now we're going back to light rail. I don't view that as progress, nor "progress" that local businesses should pay dearly for.

Automobiles and buses are also 19th Century technology. Your point is meaningless.

On 5/17/2017 at 11:29 AM, H-Town Man said:

 

No worries, I know you weren't. I too would like to see more transit. Unfortunately for us, TXDOT has a voter mandate to build as many roads as they possibly can.

 

Truth is, outside of the very center of cities, people tend to see transit as inherently un-Texan. Wide open spaces, every man with his own horse, all that. Figuring out how to change that is the tricky part.

6 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

It's also fair to note that the light rail red line replaced existing bus routes and consolidated them into the rail line. It's also fair to note that the routes the light rail replaced were the most boarded bus routes at the time for Metro. So essentially the rail line has added a few more riders compared to what already existed but at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The cost will be recouped by the tax revenue from those developments that would likely not have been built next to Main Street if it were not for the train line. People simply do not see a bus line as an amenity.

New schematics on the ih45northandmore site. Things I noticed:

1. Tunnel cross sections are not to scale. Cut should be no deeper than 30 ft.

2. 45 will remain closer to ground level through the 10-59 interchange.

I went to the soft opening last night. Really cool vibe, and the cocktails are good. 

1 hour ago, samagon said:

I used some post-it notes to measure about 550' from commerce to canal. at the 4.6% grade,  assuming my 6th grade geometry is correct, the freeways would already be 25' higher than they were at commerce. so logically, canal would have to be 25' in the air to provide the necessary clearance.

 

I didn't want your math to be right, but there you are

 

if it were just streets and entrance ramps it would need to intersect with, I don't think it would be that hard to elevate those intersections, but there's a railroad crossing it would need to cross that's less than 150' from the freeway ROW. that I think is the biggest issue.

It would likely also require takings of the Star of Hope Men's Center, along with the Canal Place apartments. For a project with such controversy over takings already, this is a likely non-starter.

Great idea, but feasibility can be a pain.

I've been pretty opposed to the skeptics on here, but I will say this - TxDOT has been very selective on the angles they are using to present the project. Selective to the point of being misleading, perhaps. The 45-10-59 interchange will be a massive, imposing piece of infrastructure, and yet there have been few mock-ups portraying it. The most recent models make it look as if 45 will not be above ground level at that point.

I hope the next set of schematics have more vertical information included.

57 minutes ago, samagon said:

I wonder how many feet the freeway part would be elevated by the time it got to Canal? Could they maybe raise Canal enough to make up the difference?

Well, if my numbers are right, you'd have to elevate Canal by 10 feet just to get to freeway level, and then another 16-18 feet to get to standard clearance. It would take some engineering to get the job done.

The Canal Street connector is a good idea. It's also one that's pretty easy to see in the schematics. As such, my guess is that it's not there on account of highway geometry.

Elevating out of the tunnel requires a safe grade to maintain visibility and prevent slowdowns from drivers being unable to see more than a few hundred feet in front of them. This is particularly important going into a massive interchange where two of the roadways will be engaging in a hard turn.

The engineers know better than I do, but it appears that the crown of the road will be 56' below grade by GRB, per last year's schematics. The Dallas High Five tops out at 140 ft, and I would expect the 45 lanes to be of similar height when turning. So, there's 196 ft of elevation in ~4,200 ft if the rise starts from Commerce,  or ~3,600 if it starts from Canal.

Starting at Commerce would give you a 4.6% grade - steep, but not excessively so, and allows for good sight lines. Canal, on the other hand, would require a 5.4% grade. This is steep enough to usually be restricted to hilly or mountainous areas, and close to the Interstate design maximum of 6%.

Along with this, there's the issue of vertical clearance in the depressed section once the cap is built. If the rise must start at Commerce for geometry's sake, and the clearance is 18 feet including fans, there is no way to construct a cap over Canal that will not interfere with the roadway - the rise over the 590 feet between Commerce and Canal would be 28 feet.

TL;DR: the numbers don't work for a cap over Canal, IMO.

How about let's look at loop expansion while keeping the 45 reroute project. Both are needed. But I'm afraid a larger West Loop express lane would be a non-starter, as you'd have substantial opposition due to nuisance and park impact concerns. That's something I often see missed - no one likes els in their neighborhood, period. Removing an el is far more politically viable than adding one, even if the el is much cheaper than excavation.

We'll have to wait 20-25 years before the West Loop is reconstructed in line with what they did with North LBJ in Dallas. It's a near-miracle that we're getting the express lane now.

What I see missed about the 45 reroute is that capacity is indeed added. The Downtown Connector is new capacity that draws traffic away from the thru traffic. 

15 hours ago, Sparrow said:

Gonna go a bit off into left field here, but how effective would it be to just re-sign I-10, I-45, and I-69 to portions of I-610 around the city's central core and designate the portions of those freeways inside of 610 as spurs (i.e. I-345, I-569, and I-910)? The thinking is that thru traffic is more likely to simply stay on course than to jump from one highway to another and back again.

 

Re-signing I-45 to the North and East Loops would add about 3 miles. Re-signing I-69 to the West and North Loops would add just 1 mile. Re-signing I-10 to the North Loop adds about 2 miles to the trip. Not really all that significant extensions to thru traffic trips.

 

If simply re-signing the routes could take just 5 or 10% of the thru traffic from the central core, would this expensive project even be necessary? Perhaps spending those funds on West Loop thru lanes and North Loop expansion would be more cost effective and less economically disruptive than in Downtown.

 

Surely TxDOT would have already modeled such though, right?

I've been pushing for something similar for a long time. TxDOT does regional traffic a great disservice by not signing 610 for thru traffic.

For example, 610 at the North Freeway SB could be signed:

610 West: Austin, San Antonio

610 East: Beaumont, Pasadena, Galveston

45 South: Downtown

My guess is that TxDOT operates off the assumption that most people navigate by route number, rather than control city. However, in the age of GPS navigation, it would seem to me that control cities are a much more potent navigation tool than route numbers.

That does nothing to address the through traffic from the North Freeway to the Gulf Freeway. There simply isn't enough space to expand the Pierce without expensive disruptions to surrounding existing property. This is TxDOT we're talking about here - they would not even entertain the notion of permanently relinquishing right-of-way unless engineering constraints made it a particularly viable option.

2 hours ago, Nole23 said:

Geez. Hopefully this was reported to the HPD. I wish they would just blow this thing up.  It is beyond an eyesore and dangerous to the public.

Of course not. After you've been held up, are you going to go report, just to get popped for trespassing? You've had a bad enough day already.

^^ Simply untrue.

The biggest issue with the Pierce is that it is bad at serving its putative purpose, transporting through traffic past downtown. The design was made with the expectation that there would be relatively little through traffic. The expansion of the northern and northwestern suburbs hadn't been foreseen, and as a result, we have the present bottlenecks.

Now, we have a situation where the Pierce can't be expanded in a cost-effective manner. TxDOT would have to demolish high-rises to do so, and that can't be justified. Leaving it as is would only exacerbate pressures on the rest of the system as population grows. Alternative solutions were needed, and the present plan is the most cost-effective by far, with the greatest amount of stakeholder support.

Someone was going to lose on this one - it always happens with any highway project. However, with the exception of a few trendy bars and coffee shop, an aging apartment midrise (by the time construction starts), and public housing the operating agency does not want to continue supporting, EaDo isn't going to be losing much of its present appeal, at least not in the way the predictions of catastrophe on here describe. It still has a rail line and a popular soccer stadium. It is still close to Downtown and its many amenities. It still has a lot of developer attention.

On 3/31/2017 at 4:54 PM, cougarpad said:

Looking at the maps they are completely taking access to Allen Parkway from I-45 up from Galveston. To get Allen parkway have to exit and go through downtown. They should of left at least two feeder ramps on pierce elevated for northbound traffic on I-45 to Allen Parkway or make pierce into a parkway itself through downtown. Even if you go other way around downtown I do not see any connection of I-45 to the Feeders they planned north of downtown.

Or you just take 45 to the downtown connector and go that way.

Adding two minutes to your drive isn't a terrible inconvenience. I'd be more sympathetic to the complaints if they weren't either about opposing change because it's change, or putting the perceived interests of EaDo over the rest of the city.