Slick Vik

That's all? What about the proposed disruption of the street grid in Third Ward by the to-be-trenched 59?

That too. But the park in the middle of the freeway was a big wtf for me. Totally illogical. Destroying third ward is sad but you know what Kanye said about George bush. People on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale have zero political say.

http://swamplot.com/wacky-txdot-i-45-redo-renderings-now-available-in-mind-boggling-video-format/2015-05-01/?ic_source=icma

Definitely helps gain some understanding on the project.

The one thing I think is an epic fail is the park on 45 between 10 and 610. A park between freeway lanes seems very unhealthy from a respiratory perspective.

I respect the research and time you put into this, as well as your knowledge of the freeway system. That being said, this is like an elder traffic engineer's wet dream. More lanes, more exits, more freeway access. That's already proven to not be a solution as the 10 extension and the city of Los Angeles has proven. Mobility is not just about driving your car wherever you need to go. And acquiring huge tracts of right of way over and over again is not a solution either. This model would've been great 40+ years ago, but we have to think of broader solutions and what's best for the city also. The removal of the pierce elevated is a seismic shift in philosophy if it actually happens, and shows a new generation of thinkers is actually being heard. That will help improve the city and sends a message about the future of Houston. I like it.

More trouble at the State Capitol

http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/10/high-speed-rail-at-risk-now-in-state-budget-bill/27083037/

If you watch the video with Dallas Mayor Rawlings on this page http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/05/10/inside-texas-politics-51015/27083251/

it appears this is a very serious threat and North Texas political leaders are in the crisis mode.

DALLAS – Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings blasted a last minute addition to the state budget bill that would kill a private plan to build high speed rail between North Texas and Houston.

"This enterprise has a chance to bring $10-$15 billion to Texas of private money. We're supposed to be about growth in this state; we're supposed to be about private enterprise, and here we are putting something in in the dark of night, which troubles me," Rawlings said in an interview Sunday morning on WFAA's Inside Texas Politics.

The rider was quietly added to the budget bill over the weekend, News 8 has learned.

As written, the rider limits the involvement of the Texas Department of Transportation in the project after an environmental impact study, which — insiders told News 8 — would essentially kill the Texas Central Railway's plan to build its own private tracks between the state's two largest population centers.

"I know it wasn't publicly debated," Rawlings said. "It was kind of put in in the dark of night."

(more at the official report)

Culberson-esque move

Geez. Highway expansion is like religion in Texas.

The FBI basically assisting people to commit crimes only to arrest them has been going on for a long time. Here is a great example

http://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/471/the-convert

http://purple.city/2015/04/30/making-things-worse/

Interesting points in this essay posted on Swamplot today. On the other hand, I think this is more demonstrative of deficiencies in peripheral freeway system for through traffic, rather than the downtown system itself.

• 610 is being underutilized for through traffic. This is primarily because of the West Loop and 290 bottlenecks.
• TxDOT's Houston Division signing policies do not encourage utilization of peripheral routes. If 610 had "Dallas", "Beaumont", "San Antonio", "Galveston" and "Victoria" control cities in appropriate locations, rather than having blank control cities, through traffic would be more inclined to use the route to bypass downtown, as originally intended. This is particularly egregious for I-45 through traffic, where the downtown route and the 610 East Loop route are essentially equivalent.

Thoughts?

The interstate program was never meant to barrel through cities, Eisenhower himself never wanted that. The idea was to have loops like 610 to avoid the center. But local politics from congressmen bastardized the original plan.

Las Vegas has a monorail and is 33 years ahead of Houston. You can take roller coasters out of your hotel room.

The monorail is okay. I've taken it from mgm and boy's. The entrances are a little tricky to get to. It really needs to go to the airport. I believe it's private so expansion maybe never will happen, it's been discussed for years.

That being said you shouldn't get so emotional when I say something about Houston. As if you are its chivalrous defender. It's good to compare to other cities to see what Houston could become if the correct infrastructure investments were made.

Well? Was it worth it?

No. Split it with 3 other people so not a big loss. Wish I bet on it though. Positive is I watched it from a 20th floor condo in downtown Chicago while eating Lou malnati's deep dish pizza. And the Spurs/clippers game was great. But the fight was underwhelming.

I was astounded to learn that

a) people actually were talking about this on the College Station-Bryan forum section at TexAgs

it's that expensive on pay-per-view, we're talking $100 for homes and $5100 for restaurants (even smaller ones like Buffalo Wild Wings)

c) $25 for a cover is considered a lower end

The biggest boxing match in 44 years. That's why.

In Chicago right now. Impressive metro system and downtown here too, ground floor retail everywhere. Houston is 50-100 years behind.

Just 2 days away

Obviously you haven't been to College Station, either.

It's been a while, December 2012 was the last time. Downtown Bryan actually had some charm to it though.

For such a world traveler, you still have bigoted and prejudiced views. And it's partly cloudy right now in NYC too, not clear.

College station is not even a town. It's a village with a couple of roads and some tracks.

You can now go back to your life in college station. And I can stop wasting time arguing with a country bumpkin about how fortunate I am to travel like I do. I'll be in Chicago this weekend do you need evidence of that also? What a joke.

And here's my view of the Sikh day parade

And here's a view from my seat at Madison square garden Saturday

Here are cherry blossoms from the Brooklyn botanical garden

And since you asked I just went outside and took a pic for you

Lunch today from 43rd and 7th

Dinner last night from the truck that's in the picture I just sent

That's funny: weather reports for NYC have been sunny or overcast for the last week and a half.

I'm at the office so I put up the last picture I took. Do you need a current one as well? Pictures of what I ate for lunch and dinner? You can have those as well.

Tear it down

I'd guess so, since he seems to have no real idea of the state of the stores there.

Any pictures to prove you're there?

Corner of 29th and Broadway. C town is on the right the bright colored building.

Didn't say that, my point was that it's inaccurate to say "it's expensive because of massive demand" and I would say "supply" figures into that as well. It's the reason why a bungalow in the Heights is so expensive these days, is because not just because of demand, but these things are being snapped up or demolished outright.

Look, if Astoria works for you and you have the money to live there, great. I still fail to see how "most neighborhoods" have things nearby, or how all this makes it a superior city somehow (actually, just so I don't open a can of worms, there are legitimate arguments about NYC being the superior city, but this ain't one of them).

For the amount of people that live there already where would the additional supply come from? If it was that bad the population would've dropped like say Detroit.

But that's like saying an apartment in a run-down San Francisco neighborhood is "better" than a significantly larger apartment in a significantly better Houston neighborhood.

Actually, "massive demand" is also false, because unless it's fixed somehow (rent control!) it's based on supply and demand. The supply of housing in New York and San Francisco is generally short, seeing how everything is super-dense and there's no drive-through restaurants, houses with yards larger than a postage stamp*, or grocery stores with parking lots. (San Francisco has a little bit more space, but not by much—there are in fact supermarkets with parking in "the City")

* hyperbole in case you didn't notice

Astoria isn't run down.