Slick Vik

Uh, no. Lots of low lying places have underground rail. You just have to build it correctly. Of course, that might be a struggle for METRO.

The only difference is cost subway is roughly triple

There's very little in terms of residential neighborhoods along the route to the proposed Dallas location, which minimizes opposition and cost. From the maps and aerials, it looks like they have a pretty straight approach with few obstacles. Getting to Downtown Houston is much more difficult, with very little available space to build dedicated structures to hold the HSR tracks. And that's ignoring the impact on people who live next to the line. I am also skeptical that UP and BNSF would be amenable to allowing their RoW to be used, given the potential disruption to freight movement during construction.

So, it's your opinion that the people affected by a potential route to Downtown ought to just suck it up and give in, a sort of "best for the masses, so I'll screw up my life" approach?

Yup absolutely

USAA is a very big employer in San Antonio.

OK, and in your apparently extensive commuting experience (Las Vegas doesn't have commuter rail, btw), when you looked out the window did you see a bunch of cars, perhaps?

As an aside, I am incredibly impressed that you have lived and worked and commuted in 10+ major cities around the world. Kudos on your lengthy international career!

No those are all the cities I've taken rail in. Commuting you can limit to Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, Vancouver, and New York. And yes Las Vegas is a monorail.

1. Streetcars had their time and place. That time and place has been more or less over with for about 80 years. "Insert your point here about how your dad took them"? Are you copying some else's talking points?

2. If the good people of LA feel the need to build rail and want to spend the money on it, more power to them. What's your point here?

3. I think the more relevant question is why some rail lovers take cars as a threat to their way of life. There's room for both. Just like it's your option to carry or not carry. Except that the right to carry is enshrined in the Constitution and the right to a train is not. Not sure why you're bringing up gun laws here.

My point is LA is the ultimate car oriented city but even it realized that a strictly car oriented society is not the answer. Houston will find out soon enough, the hard way.

For those wanting a downtown station, is there any real reason other than a variant of these four arguments?

1) Dallas is getting theirs downtown. I feel jealous, and demand we should get parity. They mock us openly, and we deserve better.

2) I have this fantasy of a huge downtown-centric multi-modal transit center that requires it being downtown to work. I expect, or at least hope, that everyone takes public transit, and putting it at the NW Mall site would be conducive to none of that.

3) Despite all signs to the contrary, I really want downtown to be the center of Houston, where the center of town is.

4) Northwest Mall's area is a dump and will never improve or gentrify over time, or with the addition of a new HSR train station. There will also never be any transit over in that direction either.

Not putting it downtown is short sighted. If you can't see that you're blind and/or biased.

Vik, how many days in your life have you commuted to work, or anywhere, by rail?

I take it five days a week. And I've taken it in San Francisco, New York, boston, Mexico City, London, buenos Aires, Rome, Tokyo, Vancouver, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., and Dallas.

LA is full of cars. And always will be.

1. It wasn't always like that. In fact it had 1500 miles of streetcars at one point. Insert your point here about how your dad took them.

2. LA also thought it never needed rail, and now is aggressively building it at a pace faster than any city in north america

3. Why do the car lovers always take rail as a threat on their way of life? It reminds me of when the hint of gun control is mentioned to gun owners.

Best practices around the world don't mean shiznit here. That's just the way it is. Cars are here to stay.

Sounds like LA 30 years ago.

It's not necessarily backwards. It's just that we haven't reached that point yet, Slick. "Backwards" would be something along the lines of removing airport rail connections if they were already in existence.

We did remove rail parallel to I-10. Thanks tom delay.

the greyhound doesnt even have a security guard outside the station on the weekdays. Try walking through either sidewalk of the greyhound or the mcdonalds and I guarantee you will either see people doing drugs or you will get harassed like a mofo. they need to move the station or heighten security by both mcdonalds and greyhound.

Just ignore them. That being said if you're white they find you as more of an easy target for whatever reason.

How would it be a massive disaster? Are Hobby and IAH massive disasters? Neither one has light rail service.

Pretty much every out of town person I've spoken to thinks we are a backwards city for not having some kind of rail connection to our airports. They find it stunning, in a bad way.

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.

The mall located at the intersection of two freeways is not an easy place to get to from ANY freeway?

No. The northwest transit center and the surrounding area is extremely confusing.

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.

Then fly. You clearly don't understand the purpose of the train. If you think anyone taking the train to Dallas is only going because the station is close to Downtown or wouldn't take an uber/taxi/limo/driver... you are mistaken my friend.

A lot of people on Dallas forums are ripping the NW mall site.

Nobody from Dallas is going to use this. Ever.

Wrong

Absolutely, on all counts. Note that the homes facing the Katy were in the zoned villages along there.

Master-planned is basically de facto zoning

This NIMBY likes these ideas...

Far more value to the community than HSR running through.

I doubt all th NIMBYs feel the same way.

I don't understand the obsession with the station being located downtown. From what I've heard, it is supposed to be an alternative to flying, and we all know that downtown isn't the end-all "place to be" as it is other cities (there are many job centers).

Let me phrase it this way, if Dallas wasn't putting theirs downtown, would you even care?

No surprise here. It takes a vision to understand

High speed rail is hardly an improvement (read: not at all a better chocie) over a light rail in a NIMBY sense, and even if it was grade-separated, it's way too curvy and impractical to be used as a rail corridor, which is probably why this leg was abandoned in the first place. From what I've been told, freight trains ran very slowly through the corridor, which I imagine would be HSR as well.

Why not just end it at NW Mall and have car rentals, so that you could go downtown quicker...or the energy corridor...or wherever you please. Not everyone wants to go downtown.

Rent a car to go downtown? That's a very dumb idea

I can see it now.

Hey Buddy. How do I get downtown Houston?

Well, whatcha gotta do is get on this bus here, ya see. Take it to the end. Then get on the University Line headed east, ya see. Get off at Wheeler Station. You writing this down? Then you jump on the Red Line heading to downtown. Simple as that. Won't take you more than two hours and your there.

At one point there was an idea of a line linking northwest transit center downtown I think on the original 2003 referendum.

Oh well. If bringing the rail into downtown isn't economical, we need to push for a inner Katy line to connect the HSR station with downtown and the med center. With the Uptown bus line, the Galleria will have much better connection with this station than either the med center or downtown.

The only question on the station location itself is whether they will finish 290 or finish building the railway first

Even if there is an uptown and university line there still needs to be an east/west line from northwest transit center into downtown, something parallel to university line.

from the houston freeways book, there were a number of freeways that were canceled (or suspended indefinitely) as a direct result of the 80s downturn.

the spur over by UH was supposed to be a freeway going out to pearland that was canceled.

hardy tollroad I think was scaled back, and they're only just extending it to downtown.

Good

If it wasn't for the "common sense" logical fallacy regarding trees being better than concrete, I admit I have to agree with you here. You see, I did work at a Kroger, night shift, and we had trucks arriving well after 10 and trucks for things like dairy and bread arriving in the wee hours of the morning.

Really, we can argue about things like "well, does the commercial establishment have a wall behind it, is it open 24 hours a day, etc.", and for that, it does depend and there are variables in all of this. A 24-hour superstore is different than a hotel, which is different than a gas station, which is different than a business that's completely shut during night.

Logical fallacy? Do trees not absorb carbon dioxide?

Chinese have offered funding for the California high speed rail and also LA to Vegas. No surprise there. Also, Japan China France and Spain are all trying to get in to the budding high speed rail in Southeast Asia as well, India in particular. They're trying to sell the technology and knowledge.

I'm just going to flat out disagree with that. A few backside delivery trucks during the business day don't make that much noise (and almost none at night) - certainly compared to the continuous rumble of freeway traffic, 18-wheeler air-brakes, or firetruck and police sirens screaming by. And the benefits of the air pollution buffer far outweigh any noise.

I disagree. I lived by a Kroger at one time and the truck unloading each night at the dock was unbearable.

Based on my experience driving around Houston and LA/OC - your mileage may vary in other cities. NE tree buffers are nice too, but I don't think they tend to be as wide of an air pollution buffer as a feeder + commercial development (I could be wrong, it's been a long time since I drove NE freeways. I don't remember how thick the tree buffer is, but would be surprised if it's hundreds of feet).

Common sense says trees are better than concrete for air pollution.