Cruise Autonomous Ride Rentals at 819 West Alabama Street

[hindesky]

Saw this track hoe in the parking lot of the old Positive Recovery Center building. It was a restaurant when I moved to the neighborhood but PRC took it over a few years later, looks abandoned now. Looks like it might get demolished. It has a huge parking area in the back and is 2 lots wide.

[hindesky]

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/19548379/819-W-Alabama-St-Houston-TX/

It was sold. It used to be Bistro Vino and Oceans in previous lives.

[Texasota]

Mixed feelings about this. I like both buildings, but if the buyer replaces them with something good (and a lot denser) it could be a net gain. Hopefully.

[clutchcity94]

Anyone know who bought it?

[dbigtex56]

When did Sul Ross and W Main change places? Why was I not informed? 
 

Edited September 1, 2020 by dbigtex56

[Ross]

18 hours ago, dbigtex56 said:

When did Sul Ross and W Main change places? Why was I not informed? 
 

Maybe it's a Rice student prank?

[hindesky]

Nothing yet but the sewer and electrical hookups have been disconnected.

[Highrise Tower]

Demolition permit issued.

 

[hindesky]

Both buildings still standing but most of the windows are broken out, I guess any day they will be coming down. The track hoe has been moved since I last rode by.

[hindesky]

According to Nextdoor these buildings came down today. I just wonder what is next, large enough lot for an apartment project.

[hindesky]

The old restaurant is gone and the other building will come down this week.

[hindesky]

Both houses are down and cut down several trees. A guy I talked with said it's going to be a parking lot for the school behind this. Not sure if that's true though.

[HNathoo]

Here is a former rendering of the project from the original sales flyer:

 

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by HNathoo

[hindesky]

24 minutes ago, HNathoo said:

Here is a former rendering of the project from the original sales flyer:

 

 

If this going up it needs to be moved to that.

[Urbannizer]

3 hours ago, HNathoo said:

Here is a former rendering of the project from the original sales flyer:

 

 

 

 

I remember posting this a while back. It's was going to be a condo mid-rise but I believe Surge Homes axed the project, not sure what's planned now.

[hindesky]

Cleared out.

[hindesky]

I talked with a worker today and asked what this was going to be, he said a parking lot for the school behind this. I mentioned about possible apartments going up and he said those were happening in 2 years. We will see if he is right.

 

[hindesky]

Asphalt has been laid.

[hindesky]

Counted 100 parking spots for the tiny little school. Hopefully this doesn't last long and the apartments get built.

[hindesky]

The parking lot is ready for cars. When a worker told me it was for a school I thought for the school right behind this but the Arabic Immersion school that took over the old HSPVA is just a block away and they have very little parking. 

[hindesky]

Nature will always find a way to survive.

Perfect use for this temporary parking lot until something else comes along. A great location for a farmers/vendor market.

 

[hindesky]

This farmer's market is a regular Saturday thing.

[Highrise Tower]

Cherry demolition permits issued for 1102 and 1110 Banks Street.

[hindesky]

These 2 are 2 different sites, 1002, 1110 Banks are south of 59/69. Maybe the Memorial Trails on W. Alabama was never going to happen, @Urbannizer said Surge was going to be the developer on W Alabama but backed out. The 2 properties on Banks have 2 different owners while the lot on W. Alabama is owned by Liberty In Montrose LP.

[hindesky]

The 2 houses on Banks have plumbing disconnect stickers on them. They both look to have been 4/?plexes

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

They took down a 3rd house to the right of the other 2.

[hindesky]

I think the Post Oak High School owns these 2 properties. Dr. Garcia owns the lot to the right, he owns the Museum District Eye Center. Post Oak School tore down the houses behind these. I'm guessing for future expansion.

You can see the outdoor covered court of Post Oak School in this pic.

Dr. Garcia owns this lot.

 

Google Maps street view where the outdoor basket ball court is now.

 

[hindesky]

Site work and paving for a portion of the block where all the buildings were demolished to create a parking lot.

[hindesky]

Looks like they are tearing up the sidewalk.

[hindesky]

Saw two different companies erecting barricades and fencing off the whole block which is now a surface parking lot. First guy was from United Rentals and he was filling the barricades with water. He said this was being done for Hensel Phelps which is a large construction company started in Greely, Colorado. The other crew was at lunch but when I came back later they were from Sunbelt Rentals. The one Sunbelt guy said this was going to be a parking lot for robotic self driving cars and nothing is going to be built here.

https://www.henselphelps.com

Edited May 2 by hindesky

[hindesky]

Went by this again today and one of the guys said this will be used by General Motors to park their robotic driverless cars. He also said they will be using this lot for up to 3 years.

[hindesky]

Went by around lunch time, all the workers left to get a bite to eat. They had a security guard there but he was clueless about what was going on.

I counted 5 portable solar panels and 6 diesel powered electrical generators.

They removed the black construction netting they started to put up yesterday. I assume whoever is doing this wants people to see it. 

I'm guessing but I think it might be a city test to check out the viability of their driverless vehicles working in a large city environment.

Stay tuned for more details, I live 1 block away from this.

[hindesky]

Black fence netting is back up. There are now 6 portable solar light towers. 

[004n063]

On 5/3/2023 at 5:54 PM, hindesky said:

Went by this again today and one of the guys said this will be used by General Motors to park their robotic driverless cars. He also said they will be using this lot for up to 3 years.

I'm beginning to think that General Motors just hates cities...

[august948]

28 minutes ago, 004n063 said:

I'm beginning to think that General Motors just hates cities...

General Motors loves cities and wants you to get around yours quickly and in air-conditioned style...

[hindesky]

https://getcruise.com/rides/

https://www.instagram.com/cruise/

 

Edited May 7 by hindesky

[hindesky]

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/gms-self-driving-car-unit-cruise-offer-driverless-rides-phoenix-austin-this-year-2022-09-12/

"General Motors' (GM.N) self-driving technology unit Cruise plans to expand its driverless ride service to include Phoenix, Arizona, and Austin, Texas, in 90 days, Cruise Chief Executive Kyle Vogt said on Monday.

Speaking at a Goldman Sachs conference, Vogt also said the loss-making Cruise unit aims to hit $1 billion in revenue by 2025 - or half its current level of annual investment from GM."

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/gms-cruise-robotaxi-unit-starts-offering-driverless-rides-in-austin-phoenix/

"Cruise, the self-driving car unit of General Motors, has begun offering its driverless taxi service to Austin, Texas and Phoenix. The service, which uses retrofitted Chevrolet Bolt EVs, on Tuesday announced that it's now available in the three US cities after launching in San Francisco over the summer.

"In both Phoenix and Austin we completed our first paid rides for members of the public," Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt tweeted on Tuesday. "Just like in SF, we've started with a small service area and will expand gradually. But since we've already done this in SF it will happen much faster in these new cities."

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

"Cruise, a General Motors autonomous vehicle subsidiary, is bringing its self-driving cars to Houston with the goal of offering driverless rides.

The cars will begin testing next week, said Megan Prichard, Cruise's vice president of ridehail.

"We designed the technology to launch first in San Francisco with the idea that we would see all sorts of challenges: everything from roller skate parties, to heavy traffic to raccoons in the roads," Prichard said. "And we thought that if we designed our technology for a dense urban environment, that we would be able to then pick it up and put it into other cities around the country and around the world with only a little bit of fine tuning."

Initial tests will be supervised drives, with a Cruise employee in the vehicle as a backup safety driver while the vehicle learns about Houston streets. The company did not specify where it would be tested in Houston, and the first drives will be closed to the public. Prichard said there was no timeline for when rides to the public will be offered. The company declined to say how many vehicles it planned to have in Houston.

 

After launching in San Francisco last year, the company started running its autonomous vehicles — a fleet of Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles equipped with sensors — in Austin and Phoenix. 

Prichard said the company is expanding to Houston because it's a large and growing metropolitan area."

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/autonomous-vehicle-houston-general-motors-test-18088431.php

[hindesky]

https://getcruise.com

Edited May 10 by hindesky

[bookey23]

This is such a terrible idea that I hope doesn't catch on. As if traffic isn't congested enough as-is in most major metropolitan cities, now we have to add fleets of cars with no one in them? And if this is successful, the money will go directly to a massive corporation, with no individual workers making any profit. Boo!

[hindesky]

The Houston Chronicle story says they will initially have a driver behind the wheel, I guess while they go thru testing.

@Urbannizer Have you seen them or used them in Austin?

[Urbannizer]

During the day you’ll see them with drivers behind the wheel and at night is when they’re driverless and available as rides (9:30pm- 5:00am). Most of their fleet comes out then and they don’t operate under rainy weather. Max 3 riders (no one allowed in the front seat).

So far they only cover Downtown and a few neighborhoods in central Austin. I joined the waitlist and received my code to start in less than a month.

My first ride was fine- direct route to our destination, only problem we had is that it was very hesitant to turn right at the end of our trip. There was a lot of activity going on but it had plenty of opportunity to do so, pedestrians didn’t even have the ok to cross for the most part.

Second ride was definitely a ‘cruise’-the trip wanted to take a good loop around one end of Downtown before taking us home. We ended the ride at the halfway mark and walked back.

From my experiences they perform at the average speed limit, can hesitate on maneuvers in busy areas and can take you on a joy ride if you have spare time. They’ve only been here for less than a year and just began rides-I take it they’ll improve overtime and I’d try one out again.

 

 

 

[editor]

3 hours ago, bookey23 said:

This is such a terrible idea that I hope doesn't catch on. As if traffic isn't congested enough as-is in most major metropolitan cities, now we have to add fleets of cars with no one in them? And if this is successful, the money will go directly to a massive corporation, with no individual workers making any profit. Boo!

I think you're confused.

The point is that some people don't need cars anymore if they can just jump in a driverless car for a few minutes of a ride, then it goes off and gives someone else a ride.  It also means that the car can be on the road more, doing things more than with the 1 car to 1 driver model.  Instead of using public property (parking spaces) to store private property (cars), the cars can be doing useful things like making automated food deliveries.

It takes more cars off the roads, making traffic easier for people who choose to drive.

That said, while I've taken a couple of driverless rides in Nevada, I think we're still 20 years away from driverless cars being everything they're hyped to be. 

2 hours ago, Urbannizer said:

My first ride was fine- direct route to our destination, only problem we had is that it was very hesitant to turn right at the end of our trip.

My experience was similar.  Very cautious driving.  Most of the route home from work was an 8-lane surface street, and people were passing us on both sides. 

[hindesky]

I count 8 cars so far.

[hindesky]

Saw the same Cruise Autonomous car in two different places, in Midtown and headed to the IH69 feeder. They had two people in the front seats. I'm guessing the driver was being coached by an engineer from the company. Probably testing the driver that will initially be in the car behind the wheel when they go live with the app. I've signed up for the app.

[hindesky]

Cruising in downtown in a Cruise car.

 

I count 11 cars in the lot.

[mollusk]

Saw one this morning on my way in to work.  It went all the way from the far right lane of Katy Freeway to try to merge with the far left lane ramp to 45 South starting from just before the Crockett bridge - as if it were in "oh... the exit's on the other side of the freeway" mode.

Definitely a learning curve.

[mkultra25]

5 minutes ago, mollusk said:

Saw one this morning on my way in to work.  It went all the way from the far right lane of Katy Freeway to try to merge with the far left lane ramp to 45 South starting from just before the Crockett bridge - as if it were in "oh... the exit's on the other side of the freeway" mode.

Definitely a learning curve.

Sounds like it's already mastered the skill set of the average Houston driver. Another impressive milestone for autonomous driving!

The next challenge will be carefully timing it so that the car's the fourth one through a light that's already turned red.