General Transportation News

[j_cuevas713]

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2020/02/24/city-of-houston-hires-planner-in-effort-to-create-better-public-transportation/

[j_cuevas713]

Are we in the Twilight Zone???

 

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Harris-County-restricts-how-commissioners-spend-15093729.php?utm_source=desktop&utm_medium=collection&utm_campaign=hcpromomod

[j_cuevas713]

Did anyone else see the change Mayor Turner made for the city to prioritize road repairs? He said the city will do 2 miles of street and 2 miles of major thoroughfare repairs each year for each district. This includes sidewalks, etc.

Edited September 18, 2020 by j_cuevas713

[CaptainJilliams]

Hey y’all, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on HAIF, and I’m not sure if this thread is the appropriate place for this video, but I thought it was an interesting discussion on transit/walkability that revolves around Houston (you can skip to 3:43 in the video if you want to get to the Houston stuff).

 

While I don’t agree with everything presented in the video, it literally hit home for me because of his area of study. Before I recently relocated to Chicago, I lived in Jersey Village for almost 2 years, and from what I can tell given his map and video footage, he looks to be near Willowbrook Mall (the In-and-Out gave it away for me). 
 

He does make several good points, granted his time is spent more in the suburbs I can see his criticism reverberate to other areas of the city, even within the loop. Most of his observations went over my head when I lived there, probably due to the fact that I have grown up in car culture. But I definitely recall the lack of sidewalks in many areas and the limited walkability that created in essence “islands” of walkability, stranding people.
 

Again, I think Houston is a complicated city to judge, so I think it’s open for discussion on how the city can make strides to improve walkability and other forms of transit that don’t revolve around the car. He does note that Houston has made improvements as of recent, so it’s not all negative. Definitely would love to hear people’s thoughts, Houston will always be a 2nd home for me and I miss it!

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by CaptainJilliams
Added time stamp note.

[j_cuevas713]

On 7/25/2021 at 8:17 AM, CaptainJilliams said:

Hey y’all, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on HAIF, and I’m not sure if this thread is the appropriate place for this video, but I thought it was an interesting discussion on transit/walkability that revolves around Houston (you can skip to 3:43 in the video if you want to get to the Houston stuff).

 

While I don’t agree with everything presented in the video, it literally hit home for me because of his area of study. Before I recently relocated to Chicago, I lived in Jersey Village for almost 2 years, and from what I can tell given his map and video footage, he looks to be near Willowbrook Mall (the In-and-Out gave it away for me). 
 

He does make several good points, granted his time is spent more in the suburbs I can see his criticism reverberate to other areas of the city, even within the loop. Most of his observations went over my head when I lived there, probably due to the fact that I have grown up in car culture. But I definitely recall the lack of sidewalks in many areas and the limited walkability that created in essence “islands” of walkability, stranding people.
 

Again, I think Houston is a complicated city to judge, so I think it’s open for discussion on how the city can make strides to improve walkability and other forms of transit that don’t revolve around the car. He does note that Houston has made improvements as of recent, so it’s not all negative. Definitely would love to hear people’s thoughts, Houston will always be a 2nd home for me and I miss it!

 

This guy got dropped in one of the worst locations in “Houston” and then complains the entire time about how unwalkable the city is. He gives very little credit to the good walkable parts of the city. It’s really not a fair argument. Yes cars dominate this city but we’ve made some serious strides the past 30 years. 

[zaphod]

Let's be fair though, the areas that FM 1960 passes through are really a lot more representative of the majority of our nearly 7 million person metro area than being in the western half of the loop. Greater Houston continues to grow unabated while the population of the city proper remains flat and is its share is shrinking down to become a little more than 1/3 of the region.

I'll just say it, despite being the person to you know, post on the forum, I've always kind of had a mixed love/hate relationship with this place. The City of Houston proper is cool and some outlying places are cool but the bulk of where most people live in the metro as a whole are really disappointing to me. I also don't really want us to grow so fast anymore, because any growth from now on is going to take the form of the schlock that's expanded out along the Grand Parkway between Katy and 290 and that doesn't add anything good for those of us already here except more traffic and making the attractions or public places we do have more crowded.

It's not just walkability, it's everything. These insular McMansion subdivisions keep the residents inside. They have one way in and out so the commercial development that follows is just a crust around the edges of free standing Chick Fil A's and car washes and nail salons, Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. Then the service industry peasant class moves into apartments kept neatly out of the way. The only parks are kids baseball fields or whatever the Precinct 3/4 people can justify mowing once a month. Since we are now in the retail apocalypse new growth isn't spawning new town centers or malls that act like places or anchors for development. The outlying towns in the growth direction like Katy and Tomball decided not to capitalize on it or annex the stuff around them.

I realize that you will say Houston has always been like this, but that's just not true. Older areas developed up through the 70s and 80s were "ugly" with stuff like gas stations and billboards but most older neighborhoods do have kind of a community vibe. Like if you go to Garden Oaks or Sharpstown they have streets with sidewalks that all join up, there are city of Houston parks and public schools embedded in them. These places are also a lot denser than more modern suburbia. Also back in the day there were developers with interesting visions like George Mitchell and The Woodlands and all sorts of clusters of shiny office towers and shopping centers and stuff that was exciting. Nowadays its just filling the prairies with KB Homes the Landing at Mustang Bend 70" 90"  whatever the hell those numbers mean. The FM 1960 area is sort of like the transition zone or prototype of the newer wave of suburbs versus the older ones.

Eventually Greater Houston is just going to be this massive behemoth with no character whatsoever. The boosters will go "oh look at this ethnic restaurant in this skanky strip mall from the 80s we are so diverse" as being the only thing of note in a whole swath of blah. Yeah I get it, me living in Houston complaining about our sprawl is like moving to Phoenix and saying its too hot or moving to New York and saying people are rude in the subway. But its my honest opinion.

Edited July 27, 2021 by zaphod

[kennyc05]

On 7/25/2021 at 8:17 AM, CaptainJilliams said:

Hey y’all, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on HAIF, and I’m not sure if this thread is the appropriate place for this video, but I thought it was an interesting discussion on transit/walkability that revolves around Houston (you can skip to 3:43 in the video if you want to get to the Houston stuff).

 

While I don’t agree with everything presented in the video, it literally hit home for me because of his area of study. Before I recently relocated to Chicago, I lived in Jersey Village for almost 2 years, and from what I can tell given his map and video footage, he looks to be near Willowbrook Mall (the In-and-Out gave it away for me). 
 

He does make several good points, granted his time is spent more in the suburbs I can see his criticism reverberate to other areas of the city, even within the loop. Most of his observations went over my head when I lived there, probably due to the fact that I have grown up in car culture. But I definitely recall the lack of sidewalks in many areas and the limited walkability that created in essence “islands” of walkability, stranding people.
 

Again, I think Houston is a complicated city to judge, so I think it’s open for discussion on how the city can make strides to improve walkability and other forms of transit that don’t revolve around the car. He does note that Houston has made improvements as of recent, so it’s not all negative. Definitely would love to hear people’s thoughts, Houston will always be a 2nd home for me and I miss it!

 

I watched this this morning.

[j_cuevas713]

20 hours ago, zaphod said:

Let's be fair though, the areas that FM 1960 passes through are really a lot more representative of the majority of our nearly 7 million person metro area than being in the western half of the loop. Greater Houston continues to grow unabated while the population of the city proper remains flat and is its share is shrinking down to become a little more than 1/3 of the region.

I'll just say it, despite being the person to you know, post on the forum, I've always kind of had a mixed love/hate relationship with this place. The City of Houston proper is cool and some outlying places are cool but the bulk of where most people live in the metro as a whole are really disappointing to me. I also don't really want us to grow so fast anymore, because any growth from now on is going to take the form of the schlock that's expanded out along the Grand Parkway between Katy and 290 and that doesn't add anything good for those of us already here except more traffic and making the attractions or public places we do have more crowded.

It's not just walkability, it's everything. These insular McMansion subdivisions keep the residents inside. They have one way in and out so the commercial development that follows is just a crust around the edges of free standing Chick Fil A's and car washes and nail salons, Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. Then the service industry peasant class moves into various apartments or starter home developments. The only parks are kids baseball fields or whatever the Precinct 3/4 people can justify mowing once a month. Since we are now in the retail apocalypse new growth isn't spawning new town centers or malls that act like places or anchors for development. The outlying towns in the growth direction like Katy and Tomball decided not to capitalize on it or annex the stuff around them.

Eventually Greater Houston is just going to be this massive behemoth with no character whatsoever. The boosters will go "oh look at this ethnic restaurant in this skanky strip mall from the 80s we are so international!" as being the only thing of note in a whole swath of blah.

I think you’re being overly critical. We have our flaws but as the city continues to grow we’re seeing a smarter development pattern in Houston proper. We can talk about Houston metro all day but our focus really needs to be on Houston proper. That’s where we need to continue building up Midtown, East End, etc. The goal in my personal opinion is to have Houston’s main neighborhoods continue to get denser and more transit friendly. Once Metro builds the Inner Katy BRT line, things are going to start to fall in to place. Not every area of our massive metro has to have perfect walkability. Over time those areas may adopt better measures for pedestrians but let’s make Houston proper the best it can be.  I think it’s also healthy to see the flaws in your city and want better. There’s nothing wrong with hating some things. That means you give a $h%*

Edited July 28, 2021 by j_cuevas713

[wilcal]

I really don't want to give much credit to the city or county or TXDOT. It makes me really sad to see how particularly terrible the sidewalk infrastructure is in Houston. I'm not talking about perfect walkability, I'm talking about no pedestrian infrastructure at all. Any time I see a pedestrian killed in the news I go and look at the area on Google Maps so I can kind of get a feel for what choices the pedestrian/driver made and how much of that was affected by the built environment. 

The far far majority of the time, there is a lack of cohesiveness for the pedestrian experience. And this is multiplied X 100 when you are talking about people that need to push a stroller or use a wheelchair. Relying on developers to (re)develop a property to build a sidewalk freaking sucks. TXDOT has done a tremendously shit job. We mention 1960, which has had huge portions rebuilt, and they flat out decided against putting in sidewalks in large portions. They are going to rebuild the portion from Humble to Atascocita and have finally decided to start to integrate sidewalks. 

There are a tremendous number of people, in poorer areas, that have little to no promise of ever having sidewalks put in because the city or county isn't going to do it and whatever old store isn't going to be redeveloped until who knows when. I honestly think that we should do a sidewalk and potentially bike-lane focused bond. 

 

[j_cuevas713]

27 minutes ago, wilcal said:

I really don't want to give much credit to the city or county or TXDOT. It makes me really sad to see how particularly terrible the sidewalk infrastructure is in Houston. I'm not talking about perfect walkability, I'm talking about no pedestrian infrastructure at all. Any time I see a pedestrian killed in the news I go and look at the area on Google Maps so I can kind of get a feel for what choices the pedestrian/driver made and how much of that was affected by the built environment. 

The far far majority of the time, there is a lack of cohesiveness for the pedestrian experience. And this is multiplied X 100 when you are talking about people that need to push a stroller or use a wheelchair. Relying on developers to (re)develop a property to build a sidewalk freaking sucks. TXDOT has done a tremendously shit job. We mention 1960, which has had huge portions rebuilt, and they flat out decided against putting in sidewalks in large portions. They are going to rebuild the portion from Humble to Atascocita and have finally decided to start to integrate sidewalks. 

There are a tremendous number of people, in poorer areas, that have little to no promise of ever having sidewalks put in because the city or county isn't going to do it and whatever old store isn't going to be redeveloped until who knows when. I honestly think that we should do a sidewalk and potentially bike-lane focused bond. 

 

Honestly it really comes down to the city of Houston enforcing what’s already in place. The city says property owners must maintain their sidewalks but because there is no enforcement from the city, property owners get away with it. This would be my first step to getting sidewalks back in shape and the city could work with property owners to make sure it gets done at the best cost to everyone. Now I get your argument about TxDOT. Overall they are trying to integrate smarter design elements for pedestrians which I do appreciate. Otherwise the only other option would be for the city to take full responsibility for sidewalks.

[samagon]

how can you maintain something you were exempt from needing to have in the first place? 

and thanks to existing structures carrying the legacy of exemption (as far as I can tell) for the entire property, if you buy a strip center that didn't need (and so doesn't have) a sidewalk, there's no requirement for the new owner to put one in, unless they are going to tear down the existing structure and start over as if from a greenfield.

am I working off false presumptions? 

in this case, @wilcal has a very good point, why not a bond to put sidewalks in wherever they do not currently exist?

regarding the youtube, I've been watching his videos for a while, and they are intriguing, I like his series on why suburbs are unsustainable.

he calls suburbs (as they exist in the USA) Ponzi schemes, while I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, I do agree with the premise that suburbs as we build them aren't exactly sustainable affairs, and make anything other than single occupant vehicle transportation pretty much impossible.

Edited July 27, 2021 by samagon

[wilcal]

On 7/27/2021 at 10:14 AM, j_cuevas713 said:

Honestly it really comes down to the city of Houston enforcing what’s already in place. The city says property owners must maintain their sidewalks but because there is no enforcement from the city, property owners get away with it. This would be my first step to getting sidewalks back in shape and the city could work with property owners to make sure it gets done at the best cost to everyone. Now I get your argument about TxDOT. Overall they are trying to integrate smarter design elements for pedestrians which I do appreciate. Otherwise the only other option would be for the city to take full responsibility for sidewalks.

Agreed, but city council is not interested in being the heavy hand here. There is currently no enforcement options for forcing repair of sidewalks. 

They do have some programs to install new sidewalks near schools and near disabled residents, but it is sloooow moving. 

What it comes down to is money of course. I read that the outstanding estimated sidewalk rehabilitation cost is immense in the city. Like 9 figures? And it is technically the responsibility of property owners and not the city, so I doubt the city is going to pay for that. It would be great to have an option provided by the city to provide a low-interest loan where the city comes in and does all of the work and the homeowner pays a small amount over time. I think a lot of people would prefer to have better sidewalks and would pay a small amount for it, but wouldn't drop $2k or something. 

[j_cuevas713]

1 hour ago, wilcal said:

Agreed, but city council is not interested in being the heavy hand here. There is currently no enforcement options for forcing repair of sidewalks. 

They do have some programs to install new sidewalks near schools and near disabled residents, but it is sloooow moving. 

What it comes down to is money of course. I read that the outstanding estimated sidewalk rehabilitation cost is immense in the city. Like 9 figures? And it is technically the responsibility of property owners and not the city, so I doubt the city is going to pay for that. It would be great to have an option provided by the city to provide a low-interest loan where the city comes in and does all of the work and the homeowner pays a small amount over time. I think a lot of people would prefer to have better sidewalks and would pay a small amount for it, but wouldn't drop $2k or something. 

Oh for sure, I feel like the city should hand out small fines for under maintained sidewalks, mostly for commercial businesses. Nothing crazy, like $50. 

I like your idea about the city loaning the money. Or maybe we could adopt something similar to Chicago.

[j_cuevas713]

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/houston-intersection-main-cavalcade-studewood-16363355.php?IPID=Chron-HP-Trending

[mollusk]

3 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/houston-intersection-main-cavalcade-studewood-16363355.php?IPID=Chron-HP-Trending

feh.  Bro. Jordan probably expects people to use that stick behind the steering wheel that turns on those funny flashing lights, too.

[samagon]

if you use the stick behind the steering wheel only half the lights blink, push the triangle button and they all blink!

[pokemonizepic]

On 8/4/2021 at 4:40 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/houston-intersection-main-cavalcade-studewood-16363355.php?IPID=Chron-HP-Trending

feels like my car is going to explode when I'm driving down 20th street to this intersection

Edited August 6, 2021 by pokemonizepic

[j_cuevas713]

13 minutes ago, pokemonizepic said:

feels like my car is going to explode when I'm driving down 20th street to this interaction 

I take this intersection often. It’s def a headache because people are idiots 🤷🏻‍♂️ A roundabout would be really nice. And they can repave 20th while they’re at it. 

 

[Houston19514]

I've taken this intersection very often and never had the least bit of trouble with it.  Lots of cities have similar intersections; most rather celebrate such intersections with names such as "5 points".

[j_cuevas713]

11 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

I've taken this intersection very often and never had the least bit of trouble with it.  Lots of cities have similar intersections; most rather celebrate such intersections with names such as "5 points".

It’s not bad for driving a car but it’s horrible in terms of being a pedestrian. Plus the bus stops in this area always have people waiting. 

[j_cuevas713]

Not sure if anyone caught this from late last month, but some very nice changes are coming to transit lanes downtown.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/What-s-red-and-white-and-spread-across-16343749.php

[j.33]

As someone who rides the bus to/from downtown, automobile drivers struggle with the current bus only lane design. The red paint will be a game changer and I hope it can encourage more people to take METRO to Downtown. 

[j_cuevas713]

39 minutes ago, Justin Welling said:

As someone who rides the bus to/from downtown, automobile drivers struggle with the current bus only lane design. The red paint will be a game changer and I hope it can encourage more people to take METRO to Downtown. 

I couldn't agree more. People only respect what's been given respect from the city. I'm a firm believer in aesthetics and the whole psychology behind that, and this is going to look great. And it should help the user experience.

Edited August 16, 2021 by j_cuevas713

[j_cuevas713]

Random question, but has anyone tried crossing Westheimer outside of the 610 Loop? 

[j.33]

@j_cuevas713like as a pedestrian?

[Naviguessor]

8 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

Random question, but has anyone tried crossing Westheimer outside of the 610 Loop? 

By The Galleria, tons of times. Why? 

[samagon]

I can think of safer activities, such as swimming with sharks.

[Texasota]

I would love to see the outside the loop portion of the 82 turned into true BRT with center-running transit lanes and stations. 

[j_cuevas713]

4 hours ago, Naviguessor said:

By The Galleria, tons of times. Why? 

I took the 82 to visit a friend and while I was heading back, I had to cross the road, and I barely had like 10 seconds to cross 9 lanes lol

Edited October 13, 2021 by j_cuevas713

[j.33]

311 it :). Click "Report a Problem" -> Traffic Signs - Traffic Signals -> Traffic Signals ->  Modify Existing Signal ->  Pedestrian Signal - Traffic Signals 

And then write your concern, that's my only suggestion. 10 seconds to cross is terrible, but it will only improve if we let the city know about it.