Texasota

To be fair the more the state legislature does the less that means. 

Is anyone else bothered by the name of this thread at this point? This isn't "mixed use" and we know the (one) planned use for the site.

doesnt hurt that the double height windows are north-facing.

haha. "boardwalk". cute.

Which is one of many reasons the 82 should be a transit corridor

I am 100% confident in my understanding of the historic ordinance. Anything else I make no promises.

I think you would probably need to re-plat, but that would be true outside of a historic district as well. 

The code requirements do change based on use unfortunately. 

But also - any contributing building can change use as well. Physical changes are of course regulated but you can put a little cafe or whatever into a bungalow no problem. 

Hopefully they took federal money for this which will require them to be compatible with non-Teslas as well.

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but the speed restrictions on Acela are due to bottlenecks, old/bad track geometry, and arguably too many stops, and it's still as fast as driving or faster.

Whether Amtrak uses the Texas Central ROW or I-45 ROW, and whether they use Shinkansens or Acela, as long as they have dedicated ROW, none of those problems will apply. 

Id feel better about losing a neat building if that parking lot in the back were a parking podium with a residential tower on top...

Again, I don't think it makes sense yet on normal bus. You need dedicated ROW.

The Copenhagen metro is fully automated; no human drivers on board - just some people in a central control room. And it's great. Runs every two minutes. 

Even if Amtrak switches to Acela trainsets, as long as they use dedicated rail and dont add too many stations it will still be faster than driving. The old Acela trains are rated at 150mph, and I believe the new ones are rated at 185mph.

Even with tons of stations and bottlenecks the Acela (and even just the NE corridor in general) is usually faster than driving, even if it's not really true high speed rail. 

The other example is Amtrak's Keystone line in PA. Not "high speed" and it uses old trains, but it does use dedicated rail and is almost aways comparable to driving at worst. 

Automated transit systems are decades old; they are really a much better candidate for automation than private vehicles, but that's assuming dedicated transit lanes.

The existing and planned BRT *would* be good candidates for automation. It could allow for better frequency without adding as much cost (or dealing with staffing shortages).

Please don't call it UK.

I'm pretty happy with this design. The intersection with Clay is an improvement.

Would I love dedicated transit lanes? Sure, but that was never really in the cards. This is massively better than Montrose as it is today.

I think there's real potential for 2-3 parallel options actually improving the market rather than cannibalizing it. More price points and more frequent trains = potentially much better service. Frequency matters, even for these longer distance regional routes. 

If multiple providers mean there's a train leaving for Dallas every 30 minutes, then that makes it a much easier last minute decision. 

If you can choose between a 3 hour train ride or a 2 hour train ride for %50 more (or whatever), then that opens up options for more people. That hour will still be worth paying for for a lot of people (myself included), but having the cheaper option that is still no slower than driving is huge for expanding the market. 

It's the American "upgrade" on communist blocks (or really Le Corbusieresque development):

Towers in a park(ing lot)

Buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places have no project review *except* when federal or state funds are used, so any private landowner can tear down a listed building whenever they want.

However.

Building designated Protected Landmarks by the City of Houston require review by the Historic Commission, and they can absolutely stop them from being demolished.

You say that like it's a bad thing. 

You shouldn't be doing *anything* quickly at that location. 

oh come on. this better not be another parking lot for robot murder cars.

Well, there is also a plan to rebuild lower westheimer, but improving the 82 along it mostly comes down to better stop spacing and transit priority at lights.

Lower Westheimer is pretty space constrained. Westheimer outside the loop is very much not; ideally that would get full BRT treatment though that's not planned. 

That's not transit related.

Now some kind of gondola on the other hand...

Gotta just get it built. Northwest Mall is actually not a bad first station (especially once the Inner Katy BRT is finished), and if it's successful that should make it easier to push for the extension to downtown (and beyond...)

Houston is more than big enough for multiple train stations. 

No I get it. Metro is easier because they might actually listen. But that doesn't mean they have to do everything, and I'd rather push them to improve service and frequency.

Accessibility is part of that of course, but adding vines to bus shelters is greenwashing something that's already actually pretty green. 

What I'd really like to see Metro do is seriously take inspiration from their better projects (the red line) and avoid the kinds of mistakes they're looking at making with the Gulfton line. Two new lanes of impermeable pavement will do a lot to contribute to a heat island effect and make that route a lot less safe than if they just replaced two existing lanes with transit lanes.