ADCS

They'd just find some way to fudge the numbers, likely at the start in Galveston, and perhaps update them to the new numbers as sign replacement projects come along. Not that huge of a problem.

MLB has a target audience. The Rangers do a very good job of pulling in this target audience, and much of that has to do with the stadium being close to the mid-cities suburbs. This target audience is also the same one that prompted the move of FC Dallas to Frisco, and the Atlanta Braves to Smyrna.

How long until the land is condemned then?

This does neither. 75-85 merges all lanes into one facility, while this plan keeps those lanes separated. The Big Dig was similar in concept, but had much more complexity owing to existing underground rail facilities, along with being constructed primarily through landfill. TxDOT studies these things for a living. They know what they're doing.

If we're going to be pedantic, let's get it right - he talked about coming in from North 45, not traveling on 45 going north.

The freeway west of Downtown, where you pass under BOA and Heritage Plaza, will remain where it is according to the current plans. That's the whole "Downtown Connector" concept.

That's simply not true.

Something I remember from one of the open houses, but I could be remembering incorrectly.

Yes to both. This is why I believe TCR is staying away from a Downtown station, unless funding for Downtown is a fait accompli. There are mostly Bush-era Republicans in charge of TCR. They know exactly how the political situation in this state works.

You're right about the increased cost, which is why TCR prefers the NW Mall area. Apparently, an inner loop segment could cost as much as half of the line between Dallas and Houston, owing to design constraints. Any access to Downtown would likely require municipal, METRO, state or federal assistance in funding. It's not impossible, though - it's an engineering problem through-and-through, and Houston tends to be good at solving those. Hell, if we agreed to call it the Aggie Express between Downtown and Shiro, you'd probably find plenty of engineers willing to work for free

45 will get wrapped around the east side of Downtown, adjacent and parallel to 69/59. The current Pierce corridor would likely be developed.

That's not exactly a theory - if you've been to any of TCR's events, you would have seen a handful of Rice Military folks who are extremely vocal about their opposition to the line. However, that's mostly likely why a downtown route would follow I-10. It's still too early to tell if that opposition would permanently sink its chances if it's not directly impacting the neighborhood.

Define "unnecessary". We already know you're against big infrastructure projects, Ross. Where's your support?

IT, ever thought about coming up with a legitimate argument for removing the Pierce? It might help with your arguments being perceived as hot takes.

We can only do so much. Sadly, there's no getting around human ingenuity past a certain point. Still, I think larger steel barriers would be much more difficult to defeat than the plastic temporary ones that Public Works uses. The sorts of barriers that I'm thinking of are commonly used in the Mountain West and Plains states to shut down Interstates for blizzards. There is no reason these can't be installed here for heavy floods.

In which case you install gates at exits before the depressed section, and activate the gates when either rainfall hits a certain intensity, or standing water in the depressed section reaches a certain height. These are engineering problems that can be easily solved.

Flooded freeways are a feature, not a bug. Like it or not, they're a critical part of the retention strategy in our flood control plan. Saving lives and homes is far more important than ensuring your commute is the exact same in extreme weather. The trick is convincing people to get off the freeways just before they flood, but Houstonians tend to be pathologically stubborn about that sort of thing. I even tried to take Memorial across the park to work on Monday morning, until realizing that it wasn't going to work. I think the suggestion of automatic flood gates, similar to snow gates in Colorado, is a good one.

Ultimately, the Pierce was an interesting idea from the '50s that just didn't work out in the execution. No need to double down on it when we have a much better idea of what helps cities thrive, and what holds them back with 60+ years of freeway-era experience.

From the highways, maybe - from the city streets, they'll be just as visible as before, just without an elevated freeway in front of them.

2. From Houston Freeways: Another possible roadblock to freeway construction was the parkland along Buffalo Bayou just west of downtown, adjacent to the Houston Civic Center. A web of elevated structures and connection ramps was envisioned for IH 45 through that section of downtown. In a 1979 interview, Ralph Ellifrit remarked that “there was considerable discussion” about building a freeway at that location, but “there was just no way” to build the downtown freeway system without routing the freeway there. There was enough parkland in that area to be worthy of consideration during route planning. 3. The question we need to be asking now is what we want our city to look like in 50 years. Do we want it to be dominated by freeway structures as it currently is, or do we want our freeways to seamlessly reintegrate with the urban fabric? This has the ability to be as significant to Houston as Haussmann's renovations were to Paris.

1. It might be a little more than 1.5 times as wide. I maintain that 59 would have still been as liked, even if it were unnecessarily wider - because it got rid of an unsightly, elevated freeway that impacted land values. 2. I'm not talking about the Pierce Elevated specifically - I'm talking about why 45 was forced through the park areas of western Downtown, and then splitting off a quarter of Freedmen's Town from the rest of the neighborhood. In the context of late Jim Crow-era Houston, I can't help but think there was just a tinge of urban renewal and population dispersal taken into mind. 3. This argument is a bit specious, as it is taken into account both by depressing 59/45 through EaDo, and having a park cap included in the master plan. It's even possible with the right kind of capital investment for property to be built on top of the depressed 59/45, such as with the I-95 towers in north Manhattan.

On a separate note, does anyone have a sense of why 45 on the west side of downtown was insisted upon? I checked Houston Freeways, but it didn't delve too deeply into this beyond a mention of "slum clearance". Seems to me that cutting off the east end of Freedmen's Town to be redeveloped into Houston Center might have been a major purpose of that section's construction.

There are a few things to dispute about this characterization: 1. The Lofts at the Ballpark will be 20-25 years old by the time construction starts, and 25-30 years old by the time the demolition ball comes around. It's not going to be considered a "very nice" apartment complex at that point, more one that's targeted toward budget-minded professionals. However, given the current state of oversupply that we have, there will be several buildings in that market segment at that time. It's not a critical loss. 2. Businesses can move, even if it involves temporary difficulty. Nightlife invariably does move - and the current urban integration problems of EaDo (namely, the 59 elevated) ensure that its time as a hotspot will stay temporary. I say this as someone who prefers to go to EaDo when I'm going out. 3. The demolition of Clayton Homes, as planned, suggests that HHA does not want to maintain the facility anymore. 4. The reduced connectivity is temporary, and will be relieved once the park cap is constructed. I regularly walk through that area, and traffic on Polk isn't particularly heavy. Regardless, I am sure that TxDOT engineers have looked at traffic studies to see if removal is feasible, and found that it is so. 5. St. Emanuel does not have to be a high-speed feeder road. It all depends on the street design. If it gets built out like Bagby currently is, then design will induce slower speeds. 6. Is that connectivity around 59/288 really utilized nowadays? I see streets that do not serve an arterial purpose, nor do they have any walkable integration. Those possibilities are mitigated by the existing elevated freeway. I do agree about rerouting 45 around the East Loop - but I think it should be done in conjunction with this project, not in place of it. Finally, we're going to have to agree to disagree about driverless cars. I see them more as a social problem than a technical problem, one that will take 50-70 years to work out effectively. We will still need manual infrastructure in the interim.

It's also tilling the soil for greater integration of the east side with Downtown. In the short term, it would be disruptive, but far less in the long term than maintaining an elevated freeway there. I just don't understand how anyone who has seen the positive effects of depressing 59 beneath Graustark and Montrose can be opposed to granting the same benefits to East Downtown. It certainly comes with a cost, but one that will pay dividends for future generations.

Transtar does a fairly poor job utilizing the VMS network set up around the city. For example, there is no reason you could not use them to redirect non-truck traffic to Westview/Memorial/Briar Forest/Westheimer, and coordinate with police to ticket any through trucks that peel off the National System. "MAJOR ACCIDENT" does nothing but inform you that your day is going to get that much worse.