Slick Vik

Yeah, but that's not what you said: you said replacing the HOV/HOT lane with rail, and that's not going to work because:

- not all HOV/HOT lane drivers go to places that you mentioned

- not all HOV/HOT lane drivers would want to ride on a train and some people just prefer driving

- converting a HOV/HOT lane to rail would require tons of infrastructure improvements, only the I-10 line is built to hold light rail and even then a lot of work would need to be done on building stations

- I-10 I could see the inner lanes being converted to rail, but because of the agreements made in Katy Freeway, new stations would have to be built, and METRO would have to buy or long-term lease them.

That is what I said eliminate HOV and concert to rail plus finish university and uptown lines.

That would only work if the trains went the same places drivers did, which isn't necessarily true. Unless of course, you wanted to build new managed lanes, which in that case, you would be better off building the train separately. Again, both trains and managed lanes have their place in helping relieve congestion. It isn't an either/or scenario.

Drivers go to places of employment. If rail went to galleria, downtown, greenway plaza, medical center on our current rail system, hook that with a commuter rail and I'm confident that would help reduce congestion.

I think ridership of a train in HOV lanes would be high because the people on HOV now would take it and also and single drivers the biggest group that causes congestion.

You can only build up so much also

Drive much?

No. My relatives live in jersey village so I remember that route fondly as we went a lot when I was younger

Well, either way, it's something that you actually use and have a use for (people that actually use frequent flier miles to great advantage usually have places to go all over the world for their job), and the coupons are generally irrelevant and don't fit everyone's lifestyles. An analogous example, for instance, would be by logging your mass transit miles, you get free METRO tickets.

I agree these coupons aren't that great. However sometimes there are some good things a friend of mine got a free ticket to renaissance festival on it

I think he meant 610 east??

You have to go on 610 for a short time before you hit 10, then you take 10 east to downtown, then 45 to 288

Well, these days frequent flier points tend to expire, and they just don't give out frequent flyer miles like they used to. There used to be a cereal that Post sold...name escapes me...shaped like big "zeroes", dense cereal, dark brown, kinda sweet, haven't seen it in a few years...they used to have frequent flier miles just for buying and eating cereal.

Nuride doesn't have anything like frequent flier miles (much less cash), just junky coupons, and it's not even "Free cheeseburger at McDonald's", it's "X dollars off when you buy Y".

Say, how does this website know you're not BSing your commute (or at least fudging it) entirely?

Not sure I agree. I've flown for free to india, LA, San Francisco 3 times, Las Vegas twice, chicago, New York three times, Vancouver three times, Istanbul, charleston, Salt Lake City, Denver, and cancun for free on miles in the last three years. And Calgary this weekend.

I wasn't disagreeing. You are entirely correct. To paraphrase the old saying, "Cash talks all else walks."

I don't know sometimes frequent flier points save you thousands.

For a good while now, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett has been dropping hints about a new proposal to renovate the Astrodome. He’s set to reveal a few details about it tomorrow afternoon, after he holds a press conference set up in a “special little section” of the Astrodome made safe for media attendees. “Emmett has been in discussions with a series of elected officials, stakeholders and interested parties in recent weeks, laying out the general concept for an innovative reuse of the world’s first domed stadium,” a press release from the judge’s office declares. “All [the judge's spokesperson] could tell me is that it’s ‘public use,’ tweets the Chronicle‘s Kiah Collier. [County Judge Ed Emmett; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Joe Stinebaker

Or 290 to 610 to 10 east to 288

The answer is that officials aren't interested in including rail, it doesn't fit their best interests ($$$)

Among the choices officials are imposing higher toll prices during peak times, redesigning key street connections with the freeway to eliminate delays at entrance and exit ramps, limiting when some entrance and exit ramps are open to better control traffic, and moving more quickly to re-open lanes after traffic accidents.

 

 

Less than two hours into his first regional transportation planning meeting, Dale Rudick sounded a different note than those of his predecessors as director of Houston’s Public Works and Engineering Department.

 

It happened while the regional Transportation Policy Council was discussing short-term congestion relief along U.S. 59 between the Sam Houston Tollway and downtown Houston.  Rudick questioned why the Gulf Coast Rail District, the agency plotting possibilities for commuter trains in the area, wasn’t included in the conversation.

 

“I find that kind of strange,” Rudick said, noting that easing congestion on the freeway might require providing more options to stay off it.

 

Rudick said officials have to look beyond freeway improvements.

 

“A lot has happened in the culture of our community,” he said.

 

 

http://blog.chron.com/thehighwayman/2014/08/new-public-works-head-notes-rail-role-in-congestion-relief/

 

In many Houston-area districts, most of which start classes on Monday, "majority-minority" enrollments have long been the norm. It started in urban school systems like HISD, but suburban and rural counties increasingly are part of the changing picture as well. And many are faced with new challenges as their student makeup changes.

 

On one end of the spectrum is Fort Bend ISD, with an almost even split among white, black, Asian and Hispanic students. The district has sought to embrace its diversity while responding to gaps in achievement among racial and ethnic groups with a comprehensive early childhood center modeled on the Harlem Children's Zone in New York.

 

Conroe ISD, by contrast, remains majority white, but just barely. In response to a growing Hispanic population, the district is banking on bilingual hires and newcomers' centers that coordinate services.

 

 

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/education/article/Suburban-districts-see-more-minority-students-5708314.php

 

Texas' public safety director, Steven McGraw, recently warned that "gang violence and crime are a chief threat to public safety in Texas." This followed release of a state report this year that found gang membership across Texas may exceed 100,000 individuals and there is a high concentration in the Houston region.

The Houston-area gangs are migrating to the suburbs because they think they won't "be policed and recognized" there as on their own turf, and then after committing crimes, they can race back to Houston to hide, authorities say.

Another reason for the shift is that Houston and Harris County have the tactical experience and resources to aggressively combat the gangs, driving them into the suburbs, said Detective Jennifer Kiser, Fort Bend County's gang expert. She said her county has experienced Houston gangs making raids there and now has 1,800 documented gang members living in Fort Bend.

 

 

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/woodlands/crime-courts/article/Police-say-gang-activity-on-the-rise-in-suburbs-5706377.php?cmpid=hcec
 

Try on a weekend, weekday rush hour seems to get longer and longer, and stay far away from 290.

Everything costs more in california

Not sure if this is where to put this

http://ricedesignalliance.org/event/aia-houston-4th-annual-arch-film-festival/

If the ridership information that you input has related time information then I would be cautious. That information in the wrong hands says when neither of you are at home or worse, when she is home and you're not.

Good point but people figure most aren't at home anyway

Okay, your last sentence is just bizarre. But to respond to your earlier sentences, if a politician withholds federal funding from something that normally (i.e. in pretty much every city) relies on federal funding to happen, then he is overriding the will of the people. If the people want a new interstate, for example, and you block federal funding for the interstate, you are overriding the will of the people.

And Culberson didn't just "say he would do something in office," he explicitly promised both before and after the referendum that if it passes, he would "go to bat for Metro." Instead, he explicitly blocked funding. That's a serious lie in my book, and by acting like it's not a big deal, you actually are defending it.

This

This is similar to über vs. taxi and food trucks vs. restaurants. The old guard doesn't want to give in. But it just makes our city look silly. And as much as IT wants to think it's wishful thinking I personally have been to cities all over the world with excellent rail transit. It makes life so much easier.

So, if you don't have rail it will be a lot more difficult to have density. Is that a bad thing? Some may think so but other may not.

Density is coming anyway. But makes the density easier to deal with.

Refusing to even engineer the system in such a way that rail could be built one way is absurd

Signed up at their website. Sounds a lot like Recyclebank in that you get coupons and bogo offers, but without any way to verify. I recorded a daily round trip from Houston to Vancouver via public transit. Apparently, that'll earn me 200 points a day. From their help menu...

200 x 365 = 73,000 points a year from my "commute".

In all seriousness you get points for telecommuting also

Wow you've been everywhere! No wonder you know everything!

I wish still a lot of places I want to see like Eastern Europe and more of South America.

I'm getting $2 a day. But I see your point. It is being run by HGAC so they are probably looking to see how people commute.