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Downtown Riverboat

Moore713

By Moore713
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Moore713

Moore713

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It occured to me yesterday Houston downtown server lack of Tourist based attaction all our good stuff is just outside the city.. Hell even the next theme parks will be outside the city...That is when I began to think about allen Landing and the coffee sunset renovations. I remembered that in the 1800 to early 1900.. Houston had a river boat that traveled along buffalo bayou to galvaston.. I was wondering why doubt we restore that  and use it to ferry tourist to places like Gavestion ilsand... It would be a hell of alot more intresting a route than telling them, yeah hop in a car and travel about a hr in that direction !!!!

 

In fact steamboats were quite common  sights along the bayou back thenhttp://civilwartalk.com/threads/u-s-s-st-clair.77534/

 

Using the new sunset coffee house as the boarding station/ restrauant/ canoe rental shop.. Of course a shedcule would have to be worked out  to prevent  the steam boat from being on the bayou the same time as the kayakers and others, but that not to hard....But would,nt having a steam boat parked by the coffee house have both and tourist benifit and a nice visual?

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IronTiger

IronTiger

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The bayou is very narrow up near Allen's Landing, and I'm not sure if a boat could fit in the water, let alone traverse through bridges. Then you'd get to the Port of Houston, which has a bunch of industrial traffic, and already boat tours. Then the bayou from downtown travels due east, so you'd end up having a 60 mile trip.

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Moore713

Moore713

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The bayou is very narrow up near Allen's Landing, and I'm not sure if a boat could fit in the water, let alone traverse through bridges. Then you'd get to the Port of Houston, which has a bunch of industrial traffic, and already boat tours. Then the bayou from downtown travels due east, so you'd end up having a 60 mile trip.

It was a trade route before, and was used by river boast of about 85 feet  during the civil war to ship supplies to galvestion... The river boat was killed in Houston due to politics as galvestion saw it as a treat to their control of  the waterways(we still ended up building the port of Houston on them..lol) its actually a intresting bit of history I did not find out till I started looking into the river boat idea.. Anyway they lobbed hard to have Texas divert funding to their ports..  There was never a logical reason to keep  the buffalo bayou from becoming a legit port.. it just sort of got screwed over by the politcis of the time( a common Houston story)..

 

The only real issue may be the bridge.. but bridges can be rebult and made taller.. .. still I think a slender class  boat would remove the problem of height

 

again I am talking about a access point from the heart of the city , not having to get in a car and drive to place X to see place Y...So tour  from the port of Houston is kinda the point, you still have to go almost o baytown to access it..

 

 

Naviagting a large port is nothing I was a navy QM .. it looks like chaos but it all well timed.. each ship knows where its suppose to be and when, 

 

 

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IronTiger

IronTiger

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The only real issue may be the bridge.. but bridges can be rebult and made taller.. .. still I think a slender class  boat would remove the problem of height

 

again I am talking about a access point from the heart of the city , not having to get in a car and drive to place X to see place Y...So tour  from the port of Houston is kinda the point, you still have to go almost o baytown to access it..

 

 

Naviagting a large port is nothing I was a navy QM .. it looks like chaos but it all well timed.. each ship knows where its suppose to be and when,

 

Unfortunately, once you talk about rebuilding bridges to reach specifications, you're no longer talking about a simple operation. And since the river vessels typically go about 30 mph on average, you're no longer talking about an efficient route either.

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Montrose1100

Montrose1100

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It occured to me yesterday Houston downtown server lack of Tourist based attaction all our good stuff is just outside the city.. Hell even the next theme parks will be outside the city...That is when I began to think about allen Landing and the coffee sunset renovations. I remembered that in the 1800 to early 1900.. Houston had a river boat that traveled along buffalo bayou to galvaston.. I was wondering why doubt we restore that  and use it to ferry tourist to places like Gavestion ilsand... It would be a hell of alot more intresting a route than telling them, yeah hop in a car and travel about a hr in that direction !!!!

 

In fact steamboats were quite common  sights along the bayou back thenhttp://civilwartalk.com/threads/u-s-s-st-clair.77534/

 

Using the new sunset coffee house as the boarding station/ restrauant/ canoe rental shop.. Of course a shedcule would have to be worked out  to prevent  the steam boat from being on the bayou the same time as the kayakers and others, but that not to hard....But would,nt having a steam boat parked by the coffee house have both and tourist benifit and a nice visual?

Hm... an hour & a half drive? or a 5 hour boat ride? The boat would have to be pretty short. Some of the bridges have lower height until the turning basin.

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Moore713

Moore713

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Like IronTiger stated it seems like it would be hard to navigate a steamboat with all of the bridges. However, it'd be neat to have one moored out along the bayou as part of an exhibit of some sorts.

That could work too, a riverboat  restraaunt type of thing

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editor

editor

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I'm not sure that a riverboat in its traditional form would work.  As has been noted already, there's a lot of problems with bridges, pipelines, and other bayou crossings, as well as the depth of the bayou (though the Army Corps of Engineers has been known to dredge waterways to make room for tour boats).

 

But there are plenty of modern tour boats that could easily be used for tours of the bayou.  Very shallow, very low.  Surprisingly fuel-efficient.  

 

A new one was recently deployed in a certain Great Lakes city that's little more than a small barge with seats, pushed by what has to be one of the world's smallest tugboats.

extralarge.jpg

 

Or you could go more traditional and still maintain a low profile:

 

Innisfree-Tour-Boat-804185.jpg

 

I don't think that bayou tours are a bad idea.  After all, if small cities like Knoxville and Chattanooga can support a riverboat with daytrips and dinner cruises, certainly Houston can, too.  

 

But I think that re-creating the steamship era in Houston isn't probably the best route.  

 

Knoxville's riverboat:

 

Star%20of%20Knoxville.jpg

 

Chattanooga's riverboat:

 

cfiles9941.jpg

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editor

editor

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For an international perspective, in a lot of cities with very low bridges, there are tour boats available where the tourists actually sit below the water line and look up through glass.  I've been on these in Amsterdam, Toronto, and Tokyo (even most people in Tokyo don't know that Tokyo has river cruises, which I bet is what would happen in Houston).  And I've seen similar ones in Paris:

 

paris%20reduced082.jpg

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cloud713

cloud713

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These would be great once they get all of Buffalo Bayou park renovated and it's all nice through the bayous. The portions east of the city don't even have funding yet/are close to reality though that I know of.

This reminds me of the river boat idea in the original buffalo bayou master plan that resembled the sa river walk around Allen's landing and the new north canal.

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Montrose1100

Montrose1100

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For an international perspective, in a lot of cities with very low bridges, there are tour boats available where the tourists actually sit below the water line and look up through glass. I've been on these in Amsterdam, Toronto, and Tokyo (even most people in Tokyo don't know that Tokyo has river cruises, which I bet is what would happen in Houston). And I've seen similar ones in Paris:

paris%20reduced082.jpg

That might be more appropriate for Buffalo Bayou from 610 west to Downtown. They could even have informative guides like the waterway. Except it would be more historical.
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Moore713

Moore713

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Yes we are aware that there are boat tours that is not what we are talking about, or rather re-working them as  visiable tourist attarction , which they are currenlty not, then again Bufflao bayou does not have a home port, and the coffee house could fill that role actting as restraunat/ launching pad

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H-Town Man

H-Town Man

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Bridges could be altered over time but the other big problem is ship channel traffic and liability. I suspect that the powers that be over there would not want small tourist boats coming through. The wake of some of the big ships is enormous and might pose problems for small craft.

One thing to look at is the USS Sam Houston which does ship channel tours. When I rode it disappointingly stopped and turned around before getting to any of the biggest refineries, I'm assuming due to the reasons above.

It's a great idea though and a lot of people would enjoy seeing the industry - Panama Canal cruises are hugely popular.

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