brady Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 So I grew up in the D/FW area (Colleyville) and have now been living in the DC area (Arlington, VA) for a little more than 1.5 years.One of the major things I can see living here is that the DC area (and other parts of the country) do not see freeways as a development option as much. We don't have frontage roads here and thus the development tends to not be freeway oriented.The inner part of DC(inside the Beltway including; Montgomery County, Maryland, Arlington County, VA and the district of course) is way ahead of Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio. The one interesting thing is DC is facing it's own sprawl issues as the Northern Virginia burbs beyond the reach of the Metro have been growing a lot. The only thing is even the sprawl here tends to have concentrated business centers. Due to the real estate cost around here most of the new houses in these burbs are townhouses/rowhouses. So even though a sprawl problem exists here, I think the development will complement mass transit when it finally arrives.I haven't been to Houston's urban neighborhoods a whole lot. I did like the Westheimer strip inside 610. I also like the West U area. I don't know much about the midtown area.I hope the Texas cities can be somewhat like here in the future. I think the freeway oriented development of Dallas and Houston though will be quite hard to overcome. Dallas' uptown shows some promise but it still has a way to go. The neighborhood I live in in Arlington (Ballston) now has about 20 years of subway access and the results are great. The thing to remember is it takes time and a huge investment. A lot of people from Texas think of DC as an established rail city, but these same arguments over lots of money and long time 'till results happened in DC in 1968-1970. The full 103 mile system as planned back then wasn't fully finished until 2001 officially.I like reading the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tw2ntyse7en Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UrbaNerd Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 ^^Don't forget the Grand parkway. (existing portion) For all Ive seen, the thing will be lined with trees, and houses, and maybe a few shopping centers, but it wont be a nasty strip lined with seedy retailers, and billboards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tw2ntyse7en Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UrbaNerd Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 ^^ Fort Bend Parkway (hopefully) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tw2ntyse7en Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Great Hizzy! Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 I could be wrong, but didn't TxDOT basically issue a moratorium on feeder road constrution along side freeways (that don't already have them)? In other words, any new freeway that is built would be done so without feeder (service) roads and existing ones that don't already have accompanying feeders would not have them built along side upon their reconstruction.Maybe Max Concrete could clear this up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 It was my understanding that was proposed but then shot down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talbot Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 It was my understanding that was proposed but then shot down.<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Yeah because they are putting the service road next to the katy freeway again. And with that moratorium wouldn't they not be allowed to reconstruct it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Great Hizzy! Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 Well, Subdude is probably right in that it was shot down but even so, the moratorium wouldn't have restricted TxDOT or whoever from reconstructing existing feeder roads but would prohibit them from ADDING them to roads that didn't have them previously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tw2ntyse7en Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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