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MaxConcrete

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Because his banner says he lives near Westchase....how convenient. Yeah, he isn't being selfish at all...

 

That was a joke.

 

I guess, though, it's more or less the same as folks who live inside the loop and support this or light rail or any other transit project inside the loop but who could care less about the I10 widening a few years ago or expansion of the Grand Pkwy.

 

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I think some of you fail to understand that HSR should be positioned so that it benefits the pedestrian and not the car. Position it so that there are multiple ways of accessing the terminal...not just from your car. The bigger idea is connecting HSR to other modes of transit from walking, biking, other rail, bus, and yes even cars.....not a sea of parking lots. HSR should be reliant on those who will use it most meaning those who don't want to step in a car at all. It's not meant to be a curious side attraction for suburbanites or shackled to the car as if it depended on it.

 

I also find it insulting that those who oppose the Downtown location think that we only favor it because it "looks cool". That idea is simply ludicrous and makes it easier for you to ignore the genuine advantages a location in downtown can bring.

 

Can I actually hear an argument for NW that doesn't revolve around the easy use of ones vehicle....because I have news for y'all that isn't the target audience for this service! If you can honestly give concrete examples or evidence in how NW is a prime location then please do so, but I will challenge you to do so without the car as a crutch.

 

I'm not sure I understand why HSR would necessarily be pedestrian oriented.  Light rail maybe, but not HSR.  HSR is going to replace car and airline trips between Houston and Dallas.  Those aren't trips that generally include a large pedestrian element, unless you coun't slogging from one side of the terminal to another.  If you make it inconvienent for car commuters you are going to get less usage.  If we we're a densly packed city where a majority of of the HSR users lived and worked nearby, then I could see the arguement, but that's clearly not the case here nor will it be in any conceivable future.  It really isn't any different from the airport model except that an airport requires a much larger footprint so no one it their right mind would advocate putting one downtown.  It is possible for HSR to have a station in downtown, but will Texas Central find it worthwhile to spend the extra dollars to get it there when a location further out works just as well?  I doubt it.

 

Also, the location of the line is limited by the practicalities of the row and engineering peculiar to rail travel and HSR travel in particular.  That leaves only a few spots for a station open to valid debate.  The question is, where do you get the greatest benefit for the lowest cost.

 

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Sorry, but to make a transit system work, you have to make everything mostly compatible. That's why the park and rides (or suburban light rail, like Dallas has) features large parking lots to park and go on another system. This isn't necessarily an argument to put it somewhere with sufficient parking (in fact, that's why I think that the NW Mall is a bad idea, simply because of access problems)

EDIT: this was in response to Luminare's "HSR is pedestrian oriented" comment

Edited by IronTiger
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Sorry, but to make a transit system work, you have to make everything mostly compatible. That's why the park and rides (or suburban light rail, like Dallas has) features large parking lots to park and go on another system. This isn't necessarily an argument to put it somewhere with sufficient parking (in fact, that's why I think that the NW Mall is a bad idea, simply because of access problems)

 

This is a project that can help change that paradigm and help initiate real reform in parking policies here in Houston by the very fact of it's existence it would need to have it's parking capacity reduced in order to facilitate the proper layout of the station and the surrounding complex that will inevitably crop out around.

 

It should be utilized as a helpful nudge in a proper direction for the city (which btw is the direction it is going, but needs a major project like this to help solidify its trajectory).

 

Is it so hard to ask to bring the conversation from the minute particulars and hypothetical details and elevate it to something that is more conceptual and big idea in nature? Is that really so hard. It isn't real yet! By bringing in constraints such as parking requirements, sizes, blah blah blah you are already encasing it in a rigid box. Break the  d a m n  box! Look at this project in the lens of not 5 years out but 10 to 15 years. You put it out in the suburbs and I guarantee you it will die!

 

The suburbs are an ever flowing and fickle beast that expands and contrasts and in Houston's case at extreme levels. The station though is a permanent thing. It can't migrate like the Houston population does in the suburbs. That's why its best to put it in a very well defined urban landscape. One that will embrace it and treat it as an essential element. In the suburbs it will become a fad and then die just as quickly as it started.

Edited by Luminare
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The question is, where do you get the greatest benefit for the lowest cost.

 

 

I don't think that's the question here. It's where you can get the greatest benefit for an acceptable cost, not just the lowest. Capital costs are already high enough that the normal dynamics of operating a business are relatively skewed - a critical mass of ridership is by far the most important goal here, much more than marginal reductions in those capital costs.

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I don't think that's the question here. It's where you can get the greatest benefit for an acceptable cost, not just the lowest. Capital costs are already high enough that the normal dynamics of operating a business are relatively skewed - a critical mass of ridership is by far the most important goal here, much more than marginal reductions in those capital costs.

 

Agreed.  I should have said "greatest economic benefit" instead of lowest cost as that doesn't capture the revenue stream.  So, the question really becomes where do you get the greatest ridership since costs are relatively easier to pin down.

 

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This is a project that can help change that paradigm and help initiate real reform in parking policies here in Houston by the very fact of it's existence it would need to have it's parking capacity reduced in order to facilitate the proper layout of the station and the surrounding complex that will inevitably crop out around.

 

It should be utilized as a helpful nudge in a proper direction for the city (which btw is the direction it is going, but needs a major project like this to help solidify its trajectory).

 

Is it so hard to ask to bring the conversation from the minute particulars and hypothetical details and elevate it to something that is more conceptual and big idea in nature? Is that really so hard. It isn't real yet! By bringing in constraints such as parking requirements, sizes, blah blah blah you are already encasing it in a rigid box. Break the  d a m n  box! Look at this project in the lens of not 5 years out but 10 to 15 years. You put it out in the suburbs and I guarantee you it will die!

 

The suburbs are an ever flowing and fickle beast that expands and contrasts and in Houston's case at extreme levels. The station though is a permanent thing. It can't migrate like the Houston population does in the suburbs. That's why its best to put it in a very well defined urban landscape. One that will embrace it and treat it as an essential element. In the suburbs it will become a fad and then die just as quickly as it started.

 

Believing that this will change the paradigm, or even anything close to it, or the current trends is just short of ludicrous.  If oil goes to $300 or $400 per barrel before electric cars become a practical solution, then maybe, just maybe, you'll see a real paradigm shift.  Reducing parking capacity is just going to lose ridership.  There is no upside to it.

 

A nudge in which proper direction?  Toward a compact, high density city surrounded by bucolic farmland?  Do you really see that happening here, in Houston?  Is HSR just the thing to tip the balance?

 

Which parking policies do you anticipate being reformed in order to make a downtown station work?  If there was a real issue on space I'm sure the city would grant a waver for any particularly cumbersome requirements.  I don't see that doing anything for odd parking requirements inside the loop that insist on minimum number of spaces.  Is there some other parking ordinance in desperate need of reform besides that one?

 

Constraining for pedestrian access vs vehicle access is just as much of a box as vice versa, perhaps more so.

 

I'm not sure what you consider the suburbs, but from my perspective any location along the loop isn't really suburban in the sense we're talking about.  Now if you were to put it at I10 and Grand Parkway, that would really be suburban and too far in the other direction to be optimal.  It's about 5 whole miles from downtown to the loop on the west side.  That's not really that far unless you are planning to walk.

 

As for a boost, how about the boost light rail/brt plans might get if the HSR station is on the west loop?

 

Not that it's terribly relevant, but what part of the Houston suburbs is contracting?

 

Edited by august948
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Much of the earlier comments on this thread how it will snipe a lot of potential airline travelers to and fro Dallas, and now suddenly it's some key to an anti-suburban shift? Give me a break.

The parking issue may not even "demand" a certain number of parking spaces, but it has to be cost-effective, especially in areas where parking is a premium. Unless you want a shuttle from a parking lot.

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Much of the earlier comments on this thread how it will snipe a lot of potential airline travelers to and fro Dallas, and now suddenly it's some key to an anti-suburban shift? Give me a break.

The parking issue may not even "demand" a certain number of parking spaces, but it has to be cost-effective, especially in areas where parking is a premium. Unless you want a shuttle from a parking lot.

Don't lump the collective into a single opinion breh but can someone give me a tldr of whats going on i'm way to high to read the rest of this shit.

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Much of the earlier comments on this thread how it will snipe a lot of potential airline travelers to and fro Dallas, and now suddenly it's some key to an anti-suburban shift? Give me a break.

The parking issue may not even "demand" a certain number of parking spaces, but it has to be cost-effective, especially in areas where parking is a premium. Unless you want a shuttle from a parking lot.

 

I'm guessing the "anti-suburban" shift was at me? Whatever dude. Sorry if that type of discourse is a bit to harsh. At least I'm attempting to take a true theoretical position that actually takes into account possible implications for the future. What has the other side brought to the table....nothing. Zero. Nothing at all to further the discourse or ask the real questions that need to be asked about HSR and it's affects on the landscape and city. Nope all anyone wants to do is talk about what they can get out of it now, or the demands of now when this project won't even be completed until 2021 in which we could be looking at a very different city.

 

Unless there is an update on this thing I'm done with this thread. Never thought that the coolness of the potential of HSR could be discussed in such a dull, bland manner or among a more cynical group of people who only ask for the bare minimum and who don't want to push it as far as it can go and really explore what could be possible. Experiment people! I mean there are Rural and Suburban stations that do work if that's the way some people want it, but there is not even an attempt at that either!

 

Nope, instead lets just dump it at NW, slap a parking lot on there and call it a day. Yawn. Peace, I'm out.

Edited by Luminare
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I'm guessing the "anti-suburban" shift was at me? Whatever dude. Sorry if that type of discourse is a bit to harsh. At least I'm attempting to take a true theoretical position that actually takes into account possible implications for the future. What has the other side brought to the table....nothing. Zero. Nothing at all to further the discourse or ask the real questions that need to be asked about HSR and it's affects on the landscape and city. Nope all anyone wants to do is talk about what they can get out of it now, or the demands of now when this project won't even be completed until 2021 in which we could be looking at a very different city.

 

Unless there is an update on this thing I'm done with this thread. Never thought that the coolness of the potential of HSR could be discussed in such a dull, bland manner or among a more cynical group of people who only ask for the bare minimum and who don't want to push it as far as it can go and really explore what could be possible. Experiment people! I mean there are Rural and Suburban stations that do work if that's the way some people want it, but there is not even an attempt at that either!

 

Nope, instead lets just dump it at NW, slap a parking lot on there and call it a day. Yawn. Peace, I'm out.

 

If you want to do pie-in-the-sky theoretical discussions on the future of transport in Houston, you should start a new thread and set the ground rules.  You can't just expect everyone to tip-toe around your opinions and then throw your hands up when you are challenged on them.

 

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If we're looking at 2021, that's less than a decade away. Spoiler alert: the change between 2008 and 2015 is about the same time, and what's changed since then? Not much. Sure, restaurants have come and gone, some new trails have been added, old buildings have been wrecked for new ones, and the Astroworld site remains vacant. And that was considered a boom! See a bust and those changes slow down further. Besides, if the train does stop at the NW Mall site, it wouldn't be a decrepit mall anymore, it would be transformed into something, at the very least, something new. Meanwhile, real opposition is building and all you guys can do is just use flippant insults "ah, the NIMBYs/anyone with a smidge of resistance or questioning is just a backwards thinker" or shrug it off "no, since you live next to a freight line anyway, just let the guys take care of this".

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http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/spring/news/high-speed-rail-coming-to-texas/article_b193c0a4-a8dd-5da6-a3d7-8c52248838cc.html

 

Eckels: "To let you know how fast this train is: it's about the same distance from here (Tomball) to downtown Houston as it is from Dallas to Fort Worth. That would take about 12 minutes."

 

Very interesting comment--just last week mind you. Perhaps they are rethinking the one station only in Houston concept? DFW will have three (with the help of others) right? Why else would he mention how quickly one could get from Tomball to Downtown?

 

 

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http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/spring/news/high-speed-rail-coming-to-texas/article_b193c0a4-a8dd-5da6-a3d7-8c52248838cc.html

 

Eckels: "To let you know how fast this train is: it's about the same distance from here (Tomball) to downtown Houston as it is from Dallas to Fort Worth. That would take about 12 minutes."

 

Very interesting comment--just last week mind you. Perhaps they are rethinking the one station only in Houston concept? DFW will have three (with the help of others) right? Why else would he mention how quickly one could get from Tomball to Downtown?

 

No.  This train, meaning the TCR train, will have one station in DFW, apparently just outside of the southwest corner of downtown Dallas.  Anything beyond that is little more than fantasy.

 

I think you are reading too much into his comment.  As he said at the opening of his statement, it was "to let you know how fast the train is"  and he was in Tomball when making the comment... so he was just trying to help people visualize and appreciate how fast the train will be.  I know it helped me.  ;-)

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No.  This train, meaning the TCR train, will have one station in DFW, apparently just outside of the southwest corner of downtown Dallas.  Anything beyond that is little more than fantasy.

 

 

"...three (with the help of others)..." i.e. DFW Core Express. There are other HSR studies going on in Texas other than TCR's.

 

Perhaps TCR sees the value of reaching different areas of such a huge region and since TxDOT is not currently doing separate studies here as it is for the Metroplex, they would do it themselves to ensure their own profitability. What good is it to build a station Downtown or at 290/610 if you're missing out on the majority of potential The Woodlands customers? What good is it to build in the Willowbrook Mall/Tomball area if Clear Lake residents rather take a plane at Hobby instead of driving across town in rush hour traffic?

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"...three (with the help of others)..." i.e. DFW Core Express. There are other HSR studies going on in Texas other than TCR's.

 

Perhaps TCR sees the value of reaching different areas of such a huge region and since TxDOT is not currently doing separate studies here as it is for the Metroplex, they would do it themselves to ensure their own profitability. What good is it to build a station Downtown or at 290/610 if you're missing out on the majority of potential The Woodlands customers? What good is it to build in the Willowbrook Mall/Tomball area if Clear Lake residents rather take a plane at Hobby instead of driving across town in rush hour traffic?

 

That's not the scope of what they're doing - it's to serve a very particular market, which is essentially the only way to profit with rail infrastructure. Its bread and butter will be business travelers who now have the convenience of starting and ending the day at their offices in Downtown, Greenway Plaza and Uptown Houston, along with their counterparts in Dallas. 

 

Commuter rail does not serve a purpose for this company, because commuter rail has almost never been profitable (with few exceptions in particularly dense cities like London or New York). Even during the rail era, commuter routes were run as public services in exchange for various benefits given to them by the state and municipal government, along with kickbacks from land developers, or because they were developing the land themselves.

 

TCR is already incurring an enormous amount of debt to put the high-speed line into place - it's considerably unlikely that they will be able to secure more capital to build out a system that will almost certainly lose money. Like it or not, the only agencies who have a shot of building commuter rail in Houston are TxDOT or Metro.

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If there's ONE station in Houston, there's going to be a segment of the population that gets screwed out of easy access, no matter how you cut it, even if you place it in downtown.

 

I just feel like it makes the most sense to place the station downtown, it is the largest employment center, a good portion of these travelers will be business.  

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I don't understand the Conroe/Montgomery county people; if they follow the utility line route (which seems like the much better choice) it doesn't even go thru their county. Why are they bitchin?

 

Actually the much better choice would be the Utility route. Honestly they will probably do a combination of both, but the Utility easement is straighter, it completely bypasses Montgomery County, completely misses all of northern Houston, it goes down along part of 290 before splitting off down hempstead hwy. They will encounter much less political opposition if they were to go the Utility route. I also was looking at the route via google earth and if they went the Utility route they would have most of the easement they require before they even start the project. I would say they would have at least 85% to 90% of the easement they need to get there.

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Exactly! I'm sure that's going to end up being the right option and all those Montgomery plebs are gonna miss out on all of that money

What money would it bring anyway? There would be no station there probably for years, and it won't produce dollar bills as it whizzes by.

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