editor

What kind of help would you need?

Just a couple of people to act as moderators. Primary responsibilities would involve keeping in touch with what's going on in Dallas, and starting lots and lots of new threads to get people interested in talking. People find it a lot easier to reply to an existing thread than to start a new one.

Should I ask around at a Dallas forum if they'd chip in, or would be mocked and driven out on a rail?

Rail. Definitely the rail, if you do it publicly.

If you ask a few people privately, you might have better luck.

There was a very interesting article in the New York Times last week about the so-called "stroke belt" in East Texas. People there live unusually short lives because of the way they eat and don't exercise, among other factors. It was a pretty good article, and done in cooperation with The Texas Tribune, which is one of a number of recent new media exercises that are dedicated to high quality journalism.

The Texas Tribune also put together an interactive map of life expectancy in Texas here: http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/texas-life-expectancy/

Not surprisingly, people in Houston, Dallas, and Austin live longer than most. But I was surprised to see the longevity strip along the border.

Notice how small San Francisco, Chiacago, and NYC's freewas are compared to ours. They obviously haven't needed to investe nearly as much money in their freeways as we have. The one exception is LA, but they only have one heavy rail line (not enough to make much of a difference).

And knock on Atlanta all you want, but it doesnt change the fact that their transit ridership is about twice as much as ours.

I've been to Atlanta a few times on business, and always found its subway system to be excellent. Maybe not as modern as the ones in Asia, but it's clean and reliable, and goes to the places I care about (Airport <--> Downtown <--> Midtown). No need to rent a car and sit in traffic.

Your logic is faulty. Heavy rail alone won't alleviate freeway traffic to the point of freeways never needing to be expanded. Even if Houston had heavy rail, the freeways still would have needed expansion. Look at cities like San Francisco, Chicago, L.A. and NYC, home of subways and commuter rail. With heavy rail, their freeways should be clear of traffic, smooth sailing all the time, no freeway expansions needed, right? Wrong! I've been on Houston's freeways during rush hour and the congestion isn't all that bad when you go to one of the aforementioned cities and sit on a narrow, congested freeway during non-rush hour times. Rail may help take cars off of the freeway, but it is NOT the magic, solves all problems solution that people make it out to be.

You can't really compare NY and Chicago's road/rail situation to Houston. The freeways in those cities were built to supplement commuter rail, not the other way around as is being discussed in Houston. Also, there are geographic restrictions in New York that make rail construction a more compelling option than it is in Houston.

Well thinking about how that car slammed into the pedestrian and shoved him UNDER THE TRAIN today, I think I have more reason to raise the rails.

The pedestrian could have just as easily been shoved under an SUV, or a mailbox. I don't think anyone wants to elevate the mailboxes.

But grade-separating pedestrians and SUVs certainly is an interesting thought.

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you weren't around in 1983 when this heavy rail boondoggle was proposed. No one around at that time thought it was even remotely a decent deal...including me...and I'm a rail fan. I voted against it, as did everyone else.

Oh, and it ran up the North Freeway. I fail to see how it would help motorists on the Southwest Freeway.

For those of us who weren't around at the time, can you recap why it was a bad idea?

Great news. Wasn't it Home Depot that shut down after Ike?

UPS Store. But you have to have them pack it for you, which adds expense. Also, get all the insurance they have.

Can someone enlighten me as to the need for a specialist police force for Metro? Is this the case in other US cities? Coming from somewhere where trains and buses are effectively policed by the regular everyday cops I'm unclear as to why a separate police force is required.

Most cities I've lived in with large mass transit operations have their own police force. New York and Chicago, specifically stand out. New York was all transit cops. Chicago has a CTA police force, but most patrols and bomb-sniffing details are farmed out to Securitas.

In Seattle, King County Metro uses a combination of Securitas and King County Sheriff's deputies. It was originally all privately-contracted until a video came out about a year ago of a teen-aged girl betting severely beaten in a subway tunnel with three rent-a-cops standing around her doing nothing because they're not authorized to intervene.

The regional transit operator, Sound Transit, uses King County Sheriff's deputies, but puts them in Sound Transit police uniforms.

Tangent:

I've always felt that Houston had too many overlapping police agencies. The two I think should be merged into others are HISD Police, and the Constables.

NEW METRO TREATS TRAVELERS TO BIGGER SAVINGS ON AIRPORT DIRECT - MORE STOPS DOWNTOWN

The NEW METRO is making major improvements to its Airport Direct service beginning Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011, adding downtown stops and slashing fares to just $4.50 one-way to Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) Terminal C.

The route will make FIVE downtown stops:

Airport Direct Passenger Plaza (815 Pierce @ Travis)

Hilton Americas Hotel/G. Brown Convention Ctr. Houston (Avenida de las Americas/Polk)

Four Seasons Hotel (Lamar/Dallas @ Caroline)

Downtown Hyatt Hotel (Lamar @ Louisiana)

METRORail Main St. Square Station/Marriott Courtyard (Lamar/Dallas @ Main)

The service will operate every 30 minutes, seven days a week, between the hours of 4:50 a.m. and 7:45 p.m.

Travel time will be 45 minutes.

Fares can be purchased by METRO Q Fare Card, METRO Money or cash (exact change). To find out where to purchase your Q Card and METRO Money please visit http://www.ridemetro.org/FareInfo/Default.aspx .

Concierge service will continue at the IAH’s Terminal C, providing travelers with assistance with fares, receipts, passenger boarding, luggage and directions.

For Airport Direct and other METRO transit services, schedules and fare information please visit www.RideMETRO.org and remember, travel is better when you’re riding METRO.

HAIF thread on Jerome at Metro:

This is mentioned briefly in another thread, but since a lot of people have opinions of Jerome Gray, and he is a big name in Houston, I felt he deserved his own thread:

------------

METRO HIRES ANCHOR/REPORTER JEROME GRAY TO HEAD PRESS OFFICE

The NEW METRO is pleased to announce that veteran news anchor and reporter Jerome Gray has accepted the position of vice president and senior press officer for the authority.

Gray, a media professional with more than 20 years of experience in Houston, most recently worked as a senior news editor and anchor at KPRC-TV, Channel 2. Most Houstonians became familiar with Gray’s Emmy-award winning work during his 17 years as a broadcast journalist at KHOU-TV, Channel 11.

“We’re excited that Jerome will be leading our press office, lending his expertise as we continue to improve the reputation of the NEW METRO as an agency that is open and transparent,” said George Greanias, the authority’s president & CEO. “Jerome understands that to achieve our strategic priority of becoming a trusted community partner, we have to work hand-in-hand with the media and be responsive to the needs and concerns of this community.”

During his career, Gray has received close to three dozen awards for his work on-air. This includes an Emmy for a series of reports on Africa, an Emmy and a National Telly Award for a jazz special, and a Texas Associated Press Award for coverage of South Africa's first all-race elections. He has also won awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, United Press International, the Houston Press Club and the Virginia Associated Press.

“I am thrilled to be joining the NEW METRO team,” Gray said. “It’s a great opportunity to help share the story of what’s happening at the authority and how it benefits the community. I look forward to working with the media to convey accurate information regarding transportation issues and the NEW METRO.”

Gray is very involved in community projects and has received more than 200 awards for community service. He has served on more than a half dozen boards for nonprofit, community-based organizations, and especially enjoys projects that provide positive role models for children.

---------------

IMO, the #1 quick and easy thing Jerome can do to improve Metro is to have it stop sending out press releases in Microsoft Word format. PDF is ubiquitous. DOCX is almost universal. Heck, even plain text would be better than being able to see all the revisions made to the release before it comes out:

I thought I saw a thread around here last week about a new outlet mall going up in Galveston County, but for some reason I can't find it right now.

Anyway, now it looks like there are TWO outlet malls coming, according to our friends at the Galveston County Daily News: http://galvestondailynews.com/story/205258

Tanger Factory Outlet Centers said Monday it planned a 95-store outlet mall near Interstate 45 and FM 646 in League City.

The announcement confirming weeks of speculation came just days after another major outlet mall operator — Indianapolis, Ind.-based Simon Property Group — said it planned a 350,000-square-foot center along Interstate 45, south of Holland Road.

That's a LOT of retail space to fill.

Not exactly a "Houston in the media" sighting, but the OPI cosmetics company has a couple of new colors, allegedly inspired by Texas.

One of them is called "Guy meets Gal-veston" http://www.mbeautylounge.com/nailpolish/opi-texas-collection/3113-guy-meets-gal-veston-opi-nail-polish.html

It's kind of purply-pink. Perhaps a Galveston sunset? (Though, I think Katy has better sunsets)

Well, it looks like the person who sent me the video shouldn't have. The person who shot it filed a copyright complaint with YouTube, so it's gone.

The sad part is that the person didn't have the decency to just e-mail me. Instead, he went all DMCA/lawyer about it. Sad state of affairs. What ever happened to "Texas Friendly?"

Well I'm at work when they are here during the day. Do I need to take vacation days to stay home and kiss their arse for them to do a competent job?

Your insinuation that I was pissing vinegar on them isn’t accurate, but thanks for the assumption.

He might get a better response on HAIF if he applied his CenterPoint practices to the internet.

Judging that they've been working on it for !20 years! and we just started introducing the hybrids recently, we're a long ways away.

It would probably take less time these days because there are lots of federal grants and incentives for replacing old buses with new ones.

Seriously, though -- who thought running a city bus on D-cells was a good idea? It takes thousands of them, and you get just one in backwards, and the whole bus doesn't work.

What? Oh, diesel. Well, that's something else entirely. Nevermind.

Lots of really great pictures, and a lot of places I used to visit back when Midtown was still scary.

Yes, elevated rail would be good, but the MOST important issue is that any rails, whether theyre light or heavy rails, the must be at grade separation. A transit system for the size of our city CANNOT keep playing with cars and pedestrians and causing danger.

Why? There are plenty of cities the size of Houston and even larger that have at-grade rail. Are pedestrians in Houston extra-stupid and try to lick the train as it passes? I thought only SUV drivers did that.

And since the notion of "heavy rail" (commuter rail) keeps coming up here, I was recently surprised to learn that Minneapolis has commuter rail. This is a city with less than 1/10th of Houston's population. And even Seattle (1/7th Houston's population) has commuter rail.

I wonder what other small cities have commuter rail that for some reason people think Houston isn't large enough to support.

I do have photos of Manor East Mall, but it was not taken by a digital camera. I need to find out how to scan these photos as I grew up going to Manor East Mall back in the 1970's. Sadly I am also hearing that Post Oak Mall is not doing that well as I was told by a friend who works at Sears that Post Oak Mall is already starting to look like a ghost town. I love the architectural modern contemporary style of Manor East Mall. Many good memories too!

Walgreen's will charge a fee to scan those pictures.

If you mail them to me, I'd be more than happy to scan them for you for free, post them here, and return the photos and the scanned images on a DVD to you.

You can get my mailing address by clicking "Contact" near the bottom of any HAIF web page.

I laugh at Houston being number 1.

That's OK. Everyone else is laughing at you for not even bothering to read the article before jumping ugly. Houston was #4, behind the capital of Estonia.

Anyone else have any final thoughts on this before I once again declare this idea a non-starter?

If I could get a few volunteers to work on the project, I'd be more than happy to put the time, money, and effort into it. But I'd need some help.

Anyone

Beuller?

Went by Midtown Grove today and added progress pictures to InnerLooped. Here's the rendering of Midtown Grove...

Why is it that when I see the phrase "Innter-city Lifestyle" I think of the TV show Good Times?

A company called the Gadbury Group, which advises retailers where to open new stores, has ranked Katy #1 in the nation.

1. Katy, Texas (Houston suburb)
   
2. Haslet, Texas (Fort Worth suburb)
   
3. Keller, Texas (Fort Worth suburb)
   
4. Queen Creek, Arizona (Phoenix suburb)
   
5. Lehigh Acres, Florida (Fort Myers suburb)
   
6. Frisco, Texas (Dallas suburb)
   
7. Casa Grande, Arizona (Phoenix suburb)
   
8. South Jordan, Utah (Salt Lake City suburb)
   
9. Lincoln, California (Sacramento suburb)
   
10. Cary, North Carolina (Raleigh suburb)
    

Katy was one of the top 25 candidates in 2008, took the number-five position on the 9 from 2009 list, and occupies the number-one position on the 2010 list. This suburb of Houston added 17,641 households since 2000, increasing 8.7% from 2009 to 2010. Overall, Katy was the fourth fastest growing area of the ten since 2000, with a 267.0% growth rate. The Cinco Ranch development continues to contribute new households to Katy’s growth.

Katy’s average household income grew over 21% since 2000 to end the decade at $85,810. Average household net worth for 2010 was $250,498, while average length of residence was 4.7 years. Katy continues to be very diverse ethnically. Asians increased over 3,000% to 1,935 households, representing 8% of the total current households. The two largest Asian groups are Chinese with 2.89% of all households and Indian with 2.59%.

The oil industry draws some of the area’s largest employers, including companies such as Exxon, BP & Conoco. The rebound in oil prices has undoubtedly helped the growth of this community and Texas as a whole.

You can read the full press release here: http://www.gadberry.net/GG%2010from2010.cfm

I got this video e-mailed to me from a member of the Houston media corps. It was taken at a recent reunion of old KPRC-TV employees.

Each was asked what their first job in TV was. Some of the responses are kind of inside baseball, but if you're into media studies, you'll probably find it interesting.

Even if you're not into Houston media, a couple of the stories are very interesting, like the one about the "Big 2 News" Ford Mustang that was allowed to drive on the runways at what is now IAH. I'd guess it was still Jetero airport back then.

--EDIT--

I have removed this video. See below.