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Dallas - Houston HSR Station


cspwal

Where do you want the Texas Central Station be?  

118 members have voted

  1. 1. Where should the station be?

    • Downtown
      86
    • NW Mall site
      27
    • Near IAH
      1
    • South Houston location
      0
    • Out west along 99/beltway 8/highway 6
      1
    • Somewhere else...
      3


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Too bad it ended up being 290, definitely not as central or desirable a location as downtown, but you get what you pay for I guess.  Ideally, you'd want one central station preferably around Burnett Plaza area with light rail, bus, Amtrak and intercity bus connections, with plenty of space for parking garages and rental car/taxi areas.  Coordinating all of that would delay the project like 10 years so I can see why they didn't even try that. 

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Too bad it ended up being 290, definitely not as central or desirable a location as downtown, but you get what you pay for I guess.  Ideally, you'd want one central station preferably around Burnett Plaza area with light rail, bus, Amtrak and intercity bus connections, with plenty of space for parking garages and rental car/taxi areas.  Coordinating all of that would delay the project like 10 years so I can see why they didn't even try that. 

 

Northwest Mall is a better intermodal site than Burnett Station in every way except linear distance to downtown.

 

NW Mall is more convenient to the energy corridor, more convenient to uptown, more convenient to Greenway Plaza, and arguably just as convenient to the northern suburbs considering you can just jump on the North Loop from NW Mall whereas getting on the North Freeway from Burnett, Im not sure how easy that is.

 

There is an already existing bus and transit center in the area that could be relocated to the site

 

It has better freeway access to make connections to 290, I10, and 610 to get to far more destinations whereas Burnett is not directly adjacent to a freeway at all and the ones it is closest to are in very complicated alignments near downtown, with no feeder roads, and adjacent to waterways.

 

NW mall would sit on TWO light rail routes (Inner Katy and Uptown would likely be routed to terminate here if/when built) instead of only being on the red line.

 

The site is also directly adjacent to freight rail tracks which connect to the lines that Amtrak already uses at a distance of only about 1 mile from the route Amrtrak already uses.

 

The site is also bigger, meaning that more land is available for parking, garages, car rental centers, all those things that would be expected to move into the area plus larger available land for development than the Hardy Yards site, plus much larger adjacent industrial areas which would likely be redeveloped wheras Hardy Yards is penned in by the bayous/I10 to the southwest and residential neighborhood to the north. 

 

In addition to all this....there is actually a company that wants to locate its high speed rail terminal at NW Mall already.

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Personally I also believe that the revitalization of Oak Forest/Timergrove/Garden Oaks/Lazybrook etc combined with a major intermodal station near NW Mall might make the Brookhollow area prime for large scale office redevelopment and connection of a new major job center to the transit system.

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Personally I also believe that the revitalization of Oak Forest/Timergrove/Garden Oaks/Lazybrook etc combined with a major intermodal station near NW Mall might make the Brookhollow area prime for large scale office redevelopment and connection of a new major job center to the transit system.

 

The biggest challenge in redeveloping the area is going to be moving all the state and municipal services out. If I were TCR, I'd be looking at buying up properties to the south and west of the site for redevelopment.

 

The HISD administration building is a huge barrier to any sort of dense redevelopment to the north and east, along with the parole office that's in Brookhollow.

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Personally I also believe that the revitalization of Oak Forest/Timergrove/Garden Oaks/Lazybrook etc combined with a major intermodal station near NW Mall might make the Brookhollow area prime for large scale office redevelopment and connection of a new major job center to the transit system.

I work in Brookhollow and would hate to see all the tall, mature, beautiful trees be gone in the name of progress.

 

Keep it west of 290. ;)

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Northwest Mall is a better intermodal site than Burnett Station in every way except linear distance to downtown.

 

NW Mall is more convenient to the energy corridor, more convenient to uptown, more convenient to Greenway Plaza, and arguably just as convenient to the northern suburbs considering you can just jump on the North Loop from NW Mall whereas getting on the North Freeway from Burnett, Im not sure how easy that is.

 

I have to disagree here.  NW mall is more convenient to Energy Corridor and Uptown, but not to Greenway Plaza and I'd much rather take 59 to Hardy from downtown to northern suburbs than schlep along 610 loop to get to 45/Hardy. 

 

 

 

There is an already existing bus and transit center in the area that could be relocated to the site

 

It has better freeway access to make connections to 290, I10, and 610 to get to far more destinations whereas Burnett is not directly adjacent to a freeway at all and the ones it is closest to are in very complicated alignments near downtown, with no feeder roads, and adjacent to waterways.

 

And there is a brand new bus and transit center at Burnett that doesn't need any relocation.  Oh and it's also directly on a central light rail line with access to downtown, midtown, museum district, Rice, TMC, NRG park, UH and TSU.  And Burnett is adjacent to I10, 45 and 59, not sure what you're talking about.  

 

 

 

NW mall would sit on TWO light rail routes (Inner Katy and Uptown would likely be routed to terminate here if/when built) instead of only being on the red line.

The site is also directly adjacent to freight rail tracks which connect to the lines that Amtrak already uses at a distance of only about 1 mile from the route Amrtrak already uses.

 

You really think light rail will get built in this town anytime soon?  As long as METRO is paying 25% of it's funds towards building suburban roads, building rail will be tough.  Oh and the Uptown line is now BRT, not light rail, which will have lower ridership.  

 

Amtrak trains could easily route to the Burnett location, it is right on top of a UP mainline.  C'mon man, have you even looked at a satellite view of Burnett? 

 

 

 

The site is also bigger, meaning that more land is available for parking, garages, car rental centers, all those things that would be expected to move into the area plus larger available land for development than the Hardy Yards site, plus much larger adjacent industrial areas which would likely be redeveloped wheras Hardy Yards is penned in by the bayous/I10 to the southwest and residential neighborhood to the north.

In addition to all this....there is actually a company that wants to locate its high speed rail terminal at NW Mall already.

 

Doesn't look bigger to me, I don't know how much land they've bought.  Maybe if they tear down the mall entirely. Burnett areas has plenty of room for all that stuff. Hardy has plenty of industrial areas around it, have you even been there? 

 

Yes, TCR wants NW mall location because it's significantly cheaper, this has been already established.  They want short term profits, I am thinking long term. 

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I think getting downtown long-term is possible, but first you've got to establish enough existing demand for the service to outweigh the significant financial and political costs of building those last five miles. From what I've seen, the NIMBYs have plenty of time and cash on their hands.

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Burnett is not adjacent to any highway. It is NEAR the ones you mention, but in most cases they are a couple blocks away, or "across the bayou" and in all cases do not have adequate access from the site of Burnett and no extra infrastructure like feeder roads to speak of.

 

Yes I have obviously looked at the aerials of the site.  NW Mall is a bigger site, it is currently 52 acres or so I think and used to be 65 or something before a lot of it became highway...because, well, the highway is running right there through the property now. Hardy Yards is/was 45 acres I think? Comparable, but smaller, and with far less developable land in the area.  The entire site will not be used at either location, IMO, but there is more room and flexibility to handle all modes (important for an intermodal).  As I mentioned, NW Mall is also on the Union Pacific line, so Burnett station has no advantage there either.

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I'm pretty sure a company investing over 12 billion in a radical new form of transportation is definitely thinking long term. No one spends that kind of money for "short term profits" and to think that this isn't a step towards their "long term goal" is a little naîve.

That's an insane amount of money; $12,000,000,000. Look at all those zero's!!

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Burnett is not adjacent to any highway. It is NEAR the ones you mention, but in most cases they are a couple blocks away, or "across the bayou" and in all cases do not have adequate access from the site of Burnett and no extra infrastructure like feeder roads to speak of.

Yes I have obviously looked at the aerials of the site. NW Mall is a bigger site, it is currently 52 acres or so I think and used to be 65 or something before a lot of it became highway...because, well, the highway is running right there through the property now. Hardy Yards is/was 45 acres I think? Comparable, but smaller, and with far less developable land in the area. The entire site will not be used at either location, IMO, but there is more room and flexibility to handle all modes (important for an intermodal). As I mentioned, NW Mall is also on the Union Pacific line, so Burnett station has no advantage there either.

Burnett is near 45, 59, 288, 10, and the future hardy extension. NW mall is not an easy place to get on any freeway from.

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I'm pretty sure a company investing over 12 billion in a radical new form of transportation is definitely thinking long term. No one spends that kind of money for "short term profits" and to think that this isn't a step towards their "long term goal" is a little naîve.

That's an insane amount of money; $12,000,000,000. Look at all those zero's!!

I think it's understood when he said "short term profits", he was clearly talking about them wanting to recoup their investment quicker, and stopping the train short of downtown helps them accomplish this tremendously.

In layman's terms, they cheaped out.

This has nothing to do with them thinking the NW Mall site is far superior to downtown, and everything to do with it making much more "financial sense" to place the terminus there.

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I think it's understood when he said "short term profits", he was clearly talking about them wanting to recoup their investment quicker, and stopping the train short of downtown helps them accomplish this tremendously.

In layman's terms, they cheaped out.

This has nothing to do with them thinking the NW Mall site is far superior to downtown, and everything to do with it making much more "financial sense" to place the terminus there.

 

Think it also has to do with procurement of funds and liquidity. They know it'll be easier to get funds freed up for actual construction than for legal defense. They likely have a strict budget for litigation, and Rice Military would exceed that number alone.

 

I'm sure the original hope was that people would be wowed by the concept and NIMBY attitudes would be minimized, but, well, that's not how those folks work.

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I think it's understood when he said "short term profits", he was clearly talking about them wanting to recoup their investment quicker, and stopping the train short of downtown helps them accomplish this tremendously.

In layman's terms, they cheaped out.

This has nothing to do with them thinking the NW Mall site is far superior to downtown, and everything to do with it making much more "financial sense" to place the terminus there.

Yes, I understand that's what he was saying. I wasn't confused to what was stated because my post you quoted could just be repeated again here; of course it's financial, no one is arguing that, because it specifically says it was for financial reasons. The issue here is accusing them of "cheating out" on a brand new form of transportation that is unproven, not only in the state but anywhere in the U.S. Outside of the Northeast.

When you're introducing a radical new form of transportation to a state that is car driven, it's important to utilize the most "bang for your buck" so to speak. I brought up the $12 billion price tag because holy crap that is still an insane amount of money! There's not a company on this earth that is going to spend $12 billion on anything for "short term" profits. That's dumb.

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Yes, I understand that's what he was saying.

Apparently not. :lol:

There's not a company on this earth that is going to spend $12 billion on anything for "short term" profits. That's dumb.

Again, you're misrepresenting what he meant by "short term profits."

Reread this:

I think it's understood when he said "short term profits", he was clearly talking about them wanting to recoup their investment quicker, and stopping the train short of downtown helps them accomplish this tremendously.

^ Are you suggesting that any of the above statement isn't true?

Or are you suggesting that Mfastx is so "dumb" and "naive", as you've called him, that he thinks some group of guys just tossed together $12 Billion dollars so they could make a couple of bucks for a few months and then just walk away from the whole deal?

Because that's what it sounds like you're implying.

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Jesus Christ, here we go again.

His words were "They want short term profits, I'm thinking long term"

I'd make an attempt to defend how I "misrepresented" that, but since you didn't offer up any explanation as to how I did it without stating what is so clearly obvious or has been explicitly stated in the TCR/FRA study, then all I can say is that my reasoning behind what I said is thus; no company that has a budget of $12 billion is ONLY thinking long term.

Do you see how that's bolded? That's all I was referring to; that a company that is bringing a radical product to the state with a budget that belongs in the triple comma club is NOT thinking short term.

No, that's not what I'm saying but oh how ironic is that conclusion you jumped to. I wasn't calling him dumb, I was calling the idea of a company spending that much money on short term gains dumb. I also said "a little naive", as in, "yeah it's a decent point but that's leaving out so many other dependent factors"

I would explain how you misrepresented what I said, but I think that's too much snark for this ouroboros train tonight bud.

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The northwest transit center is currently roughly a mile away from northwest mall.

 

Northwest Mall used to be difficult to get to from certain directions, and I don't see how the current 290 construction will solve having to use Mangum to get there when using 290, but access to/from the loop and therefore 10 will be much improved as it will now be possible to get on the loop or I-10 from the feeder rd at Hempstead Rd.  18th street will basically continue to provide the same amount of access to the loop as it did before.

 

From a transit center perspective regarding connection to the freeways, the big deal that I was really talking about is that the HOV/HOT lanes connecting to the new 290 lanes and which connect up to the Katy Tollway lanes to the south are right there next to the feeder roads adjacent to the site. I don't imagine there would be any difficulty connecting the site to the transit network.

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No, its not. I've never had any problems finding my destination in that area. It's easy to get on 610 North or West, 290, Or 10.

Definitely not particularly with the construction and hot lanes.

I find this comment from you interesting, being that you think driving on or through streets with the light rail is so tough. Hypocrite.

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Definitely not particularly with the construction and hot lanes.

I find this comment from you interesting, being that you think driving on or through streets with the light rail is so tough. Hypocrite.

 

Nice piece of name calling, slick.

 

I think I said something to the effect that light rail makes it tough to cross through streets because the rail blocks cars from crossing the through streets, thus requiring a detour to the next available intersection that allows passage. On the North part of the Red Line, that's quite a few blocks out of the way, depending on where you are.

 

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Burnett is not adjacent to any highway. It is NEAR the ones you mention, but in most cases they are a couple blocks away, or "across the bayou" and in all cases do not have adequate access from the site of Burnett and no extra infrastructure like feeder roads to speak of.

 

Yes I have obviously looked at the aerials of the site.  NW Mall is a bigger site, it is currently 52 acres or so I think and used to be 65 or something before a lot of it became highway...because, well, the highway is running right there through the property now. Hardy Yards is/was 45 acres I think? Comparable, but smaller, and with far less developable land in the area.  The entire site will not be used at either location, IMO, but there is more room and flexibility to handle all modes (important for an intermodal).  As I mentioned, NW Mall is also on the Union Pacific line, so Burnett station has no advantage there either.

 

The difference between Burnett and NW mall from a highway access standpoint is negligible.  Neither sit right on a feeder road with direct access and are near freeway interchanges which usually aren't the best for actually accessing a freeway, but the nearby freeways are generally easily accessible.

 

And I don't think the differences in size really matter, there is plenty of room for everything you mentioned at the Burnett site.

 

I personally spoke with Robert Eckels about this, and it was purely a financial decision.  The argument he made wasn't that it was a better site, he acknowledged that ideally you'd like to get all the way downtown, but the NW mall site is just more realistic from a financial and NIMBY standpoint.  I bet they saved at least a billion dollars by not having to grade separate the HSR to get all the way downtown.  

 

And Huge is right, they want to recover their investment.  They are not building this line as a public service, they are doing it to make money, as an investment.  Going all the way downtown significantly increases the required return for it to be profitable within a reasonable amount of time. 

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I'm curious how people are under the impression that it wasn't a financial decision.

Loads of people in this thread applauding the NW mall site selection over downtown as though it was a logistical decision on the investors part, and going out of their way to prove to everyone that the investors made the smarter decision.

Logistically.

They're arguing about it in all 8 of the Dallas to Houston high speed rail threads we have on the front page!

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The difference between Burnett and NW mall from a highway access standpoint is negligible.  Neither sit right on a feeder road with direct access and are near freeway interchanges which usually aren't the best for actually accessing a freeway, but the nearby freeways are generally easily accessible.

 

And I don't think the differences in size really matter, there is plenty of room for everything you mentioned at the Burnett site.

 

I personally spoke with Robert Eckels about this, and it was purely a financial decision.  The argument he made wasn't that it was a better site, he acknowledged that ideally you'd like to get all the way downtown, but the NW mall site is just more realistic from a financial and NIMBY standpoint.  I bet they saved at least a billion dollars by not having to grade separate the HSR to get all the way downtown.  

 

And Huge is right, they want to recover their investment.  They are not building this line as a public service, they are doing it to make money, as an investment.  Going all the way downtown significantly increases the required return for it to be profitable within a reasonable amount of time. 

 

Regarding "decisions" there are no decisions regarding real intermodal facilities (a METRO facility) which is what I have been discussing in response to another post. Metro will almost certainly need to plan to have at least some sort of intermodal site for LRT to HSR similar to what they would have to have at Wheeler station for commuter rail and light rail also.  Right now Metro has no plans to build an intermodal (other than bus to rail or car to bus) station anywhere that I can tell and they dont have real plans even to build commuter rail to Burnett Station.

 

My point was merely that since a private company is going to have a terminal at NW Mall, and since this location could likely also serve the same western commuter routes (and indeed Metro indicated stops at the NW transit center on their early maps before continuing to Burnett), and also would be on top of a the junction of two light rail lines, in addition to the highway access, and the site size, etc that going forward this would be a decent site for Houston's major intermodal facility and arguably better than the Hardy Yards site.

 

If TCR had found it feasible (and actually maybe they would have if Metro had actually built a large intermodal facility at Burnett) to locate their terminal at Hardy Yards, my analysis would be that obviously Hardy Yards is better since thats where HSR is located.

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