august948

New pedestrian and bicycle friendly intersection improvements at Memorial and Eldridge. https://cw39.com/news/energy-corridor-completes-its-first-protected-intersection-project/

It sounded like a full on war over here on the west side last night.... Skirmishes still going on tonight.

Same father and son as well in 3 of the pictures in the red riding bag link.

Phase 1 is complete and open to the public... https://theleadernews.com/community/first-phase-of-spring-branch-trail-complete/ I haven't found any info yet on the rest of the phases and the timeline. It'll be sweet once they get this done, though. Downtown to Cinco Ranch or maybe even Fulshear will be a heck of a ride. Might even consider it a weekend getaway and spend the night in either downtown or Katy depending on which way you're coming from.

Judging from traffic and random visits to stores around town it seems like crowds are getting somewhat back to normal. And everyone I see is wearing a mask. Who are all these maskless people I hear politicians constantly complaining about?

Oracle is moving from California to Austin... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/oracle-is-moving-its-headquarters-from-silicon-valley-to-austin-texas.html Joining recent relocation announcements by HP and Tesla. More to come?

Good third option, yes. Cheaper than both, no. The google maps distance between downtown Dallas and downtown Houston shows 241 miles. My f150 averages about 13 mpg which comes out to about 19 gallons one way. We'll round that up to 20 and multiply by $1.60 per gallon (close enough, I think I paid $1.55 the other day at sam's club) and we get $32. That's $64 round trip in direct cost (not including the inevitably expensive Buc-ee's stops). Just to quell the "but, but oil, tires and maintenance!" arguments we'll round that up to $100 round trip. Is that even close to round trip

Wouldn't most of those folks already be flying, then?

Read this today... https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-peak-oil-era-is-suddenly-upon-us BP and others are predicting peak oil was in 2019.

Is HSR really oriented towards eliminating car trips? From what I read, they are going to try to be competitive with air on ticket prices and transit time. Unless the ticket prices are going to be way lower than airline tickets, most people opting for the train would have been considering flying, not driving.

I think by that they mean not sharing with conventional freight or passenger (amtrak) service. That's how it works in Japan also. They could certainly add stations and passing tracks if they wanted. Now whether that would make sense given the rural nature of the route is a different question. If they add stations at some point I suspect those might be to additional locations in DFW and Houston.

Randall's will have it, too https://www.randalls.com/pharmacy/covid-19.html I suspect most of the chain and grocery store pharmacies will be getting it. Wouldn't be surprised if some major employers (thinking Exxon, etc here) with large campuses get some, too.

I suspect this doesn't have anything really to do with cattle or power line corridors. If the proposal was to build a new highway in this same corridor you'd still get the same opposition. From their perspective, you're altering the landscape they love and grew up with and not adding any benefit for them other than a few dollars. Why wouldn't some people oppose that?

This is rumored to be one of the new engines...

My one time trying them late at night suggests they fixed that problem. That reminds me, though, that you need to keep their donuts a little chilled or the frosting will start to run.