TGM

I feel like I'm playing freight train roulette every time I chance taking a street that has a street grade RR crossing.

Often I'm stuck wishing I could this:

Add the closure of Ella on 610 and the moonshot landing known as the TC Jester exit to the existing construction on I10 and you have one big cluster F. Oh yeah, then there are the trains, which back stuff up no matter where you are headed. The only route that I have found reasonable from my Galleria-area commute is the Washinton exit to Old Hempstead Hwy to 11th street. Everything else is jacked up.

I hope this happens, but I am disappointed to not see the clock tower in the modernized building. I always pictured that as a focal point that should be played up.

I'm guessing there was not much as a peep from the new architects regarding the saving of the clock. While a cool feature it's not consistent with their "modernization" of the building. With cellphones no one really needs a giant device telling them the time and temperature.

Maybe they could place it on top of the Greyhound station to give out the number of parolees on each bus, or the current price of crack. ;-)

There's going to a microphone and camera there tomorrow from 1-2pm. Shelia would not be there without one. Ask her on camera for money to rehab the memorial.

http://www.harrisdemocrats.com/349/ceremony_at_wwii_memorial_in_the_heights

I've always considered taking photos of neighbors' homes in order to snitch them out to be the utmost in classy.

It takes a special kind of class to stick your nose in the lives of others.

I think much of the increase in lane widths over the past few decades is due to convenience for drivers in larger cars. Even if I'm wrong on that, larger vehicles still contribute more to congestion. A hundred SUVs and pickups trying to merge from 3 lanes to 2 cannot do so nearly as quickly as a hundred Fiat 500s.

Any chance you can refer to us to some traffic engineering studies showing any of those things to be true or even likely?

Probably not, because majority of traffic jams are the result of individual actions as concluded by a recent study.

http://gizmodo.com/5984934/most-traffic-jams-are-caused-by-just-a-handful-of-idiots

The argument that the Fiat would be better judges traffic as solely being caused by length of vehicle not number of variables per driver. However if the individual is the cause of traffic, then it's ever worse with a small car as now you have doubled the amount of drivers with the potential to make poor choices in the space that would hold one SUV or pick-up driver.

So what is viewed as efficiency by fitting more cars in the same space is actually detrimental as the number of drivers and variables has increased.

Cars allow too much freedom and autonomy which is why we overlords must find pet causes and issues to corral the masses into "options" that allow us greater control over their movements. Reliance on municipal services creates further dependance, and can be used to our advantage in games of carrot and stick. The challenge is identifying and staying on top of modern societies' versions of bread and circuses. As it currently stands Superbowl 2017 should provide enough justification for any increase in taxation, fees, and restrictions.

RUDH has all sorts of propaganda about how mid rise density cities are "the effing tits." I would laugh my ass off if they tried to oppose a midrise apartment development. Their actual stated goal is mid rise apartments, preferably with retail component. That was their whole schtick for opposing WalMart is that it should have been midrise mixed use and urban.

Yeah, mixed use is the end-all-be-all. Throw in one or two apartment spaces ear-marked/subsidized for affordable living and they will have achieved what the brown acid, daisy-chains, and TM failed to materialize.

All you have to do is build it, because if you do....

Recently (the past day), there have been several people that have called Council Member Cohen's office against me. I had not told anyone about my nomination, but apperently it leaked ONLY to people that are vocal against me. I'm not sure who they are, but it's unfortunate because they are saying things about me that are simply untrue.

I would take this is a sign that you're doing something right. Dysfunctional systems will do anything, through any means, to justify their ends.

Think of the contrast between a set of rules they want everyone to live up to, and the number of rules they are willing to break to retain their grip on power.

I suppose you are right. The more important question is why RUDH's facebook page only has 219 likes. Without Walmart as a rallying cry, it seems that no one gives a crap about RUDH at all.

For $75 they could get 1000 likes from Egypt.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/05/16/152736671/this-guy-will-sell-you-sell-you-1-000-facebook-likes

Yes, but toll roads necessarily have a price structure that doesn't differentiate between big and small passenger cars. And agreed on the weight difference being small, but the size difference as it impacts lane width and overall congestion is more significant.

Yes, Metro buses do tear up our streets, do cause congestion, and some how get their own lanes.

so every freeway and road should be tolled?

Every road the government builds is already a toll road. The difference is instead of an EZ tag you use a 1040EZ. (Or at the gas pump, or through property taxes, or, or, or...) Now there those that don't pay any of the above, and yet somehow they feel entitled to demand that those that do pony up even more dollars.

You shot nothing down. I quoted you directly and you obviously have no substantive response to your own words. That is fine because you and the few others in this anti-Heights echo chamber are the only people in the Heights that think that 19th street is something negative that should be demo-ed in favor of more retail from the burbs.

More like Anti-your-Luddite-vision-of-the-Heights. Your labeling of this forum an echo chamber makes sense given your previous statement that the debate was over. Typical tyrant action when views run opposite of ones own vision or belief system. The debate is never over because nothing in life is ever finished. The whole Heights Local movement is preposterous and laughable at best, given that the equally stupid, anti-global market Local movement defines "Local" as a journey of no more than 500 miles.

As the Heights grows your 19th street landlords will "turn evil" when they accept the more lucrative rent offers from evil corporate chains.

Yes. Time to have an alternative to the highways wholly funded and subsidized by taxpayers.

No. Pay your own way.

Because it will push Houston more towards the types of transit I like.

Let me guess, mass-transit projects largely funded and subsidized by taxpayers.

Good news!

..so? If another 40K move inside the Loop and make it more dense, I am glad. I want the urban core to get denser.

Why? What is so bloody magical about people having less space and living on top of one another?

Do you enjoy waiting in line? Do you reach the counter at the Breakfast Klub, and say "oh, that was not long enough, I'm getting back in line."?

If you have big city dreams why not explore NYC, Chicago, Boston, or Philadelphia? Houston will always let you down if this is your true desire.

19th street is one of the few places in Houston where you can find unique gifts, home decor, boutique and resale clothing and other interesting things all in one walkable area. Peolpe come in from the burbs to shop 19th street because it is so unique.

Besides Westheimer, West Gray, University bvld, Kirby, S. Shepherd, etc.

People from the burbs also come to Old Town Spring, which has kept the area alive in the face of declining methamphetamine prices.

I think 19th shop owners should be required to remain in character ala Rennesaince Festival workers while tending their shops.

They're not hipsters... they're "the kids". I bet the average record purcahser is over 35.

Like things are not already pedantic enough around here...

I guess that all depends on what you consider average. DJ's? Audiophiles? College Students?

Most of the 220 gram vinyl I see these days is the kids/hipster crowd as this is the demographic that has rediscovered vinyl.

The Audiophiles have moved on to SACD, DVD-Audio, Blu-spec CD's and whatever else evolves at that end of things.

DJ'S... I see cheap DJ-targeted CD players with pitch control, etc, but I've never come across a cheap Techniques 1200MK2.

How does one get into the queue for RUDH evil project of the year?

Is there a link that lists the prerequisites, preferred shadowy associations, and targeted council members?

With the pace of our cities growth they must be working overtime.

Nothing is set in stone that states that mom & pops always fail and corporate franchises always succeed. Savy owners and operators know how to meet the needs of their customers or they learn by their costly failure. (Some don't learn, they just have big trust funds)

For example... Boomtown Coffee. Good coffee, passionate owner, but I don't go because the cigar smoke from the place next door is so bad that I cannot stand to be there more than 10 minutes. The cigar place has been there longer than Boomtown, and I'm all for people enjoying whatever makes them happy, but there is an impact to adjoining businesses. I'm not sure Boomtown's owners fully grasped what they would be dealing with when choosing that location. I hope they make it, but I won't be surprised if they don't. However, if Starbucks were to show up, and Boomtown inevitably closes 19th street lovers would be crying out that corporations killed the mom & pop. Adapt and change or fall by the wayside.

Look at the success of Menchi's if you are looking for an example of what the majority of the population of the Heights wants. Drive by Menchis at any open hour of the day and I bet 10:1 that it has three times more customers than any thrift or other heights store.

According to Mint.com Menchis received $450 of our targeted Heights expenditures. Can't seem to locate any money spent at the bohemian trinket shop. Penzy's took in around $300 for gifts and whatnot. Again, can't seem to locate any for musty antique stores. Rather odd... Then again these businesses do stay open later to accommodate demand, rather than shutting down at 420.

There is plenty of industry and trains in the Heights. There is a chicken plant and two large warehouses on my side of the Heights. There is also the Shepherd tote-the-note automile. And we have major highways on three sides of the neighborhood.

There are no big petrochem plants near Eastwood. You cannot see any of them from Eastwood at night.

The Heights was held together through the bad times and pushed in the direction of redevelopment by many of the artists who kept 19th street going through the years. None of that happened in Eastwood.

Apples and Oranges. The spatterings of industrial complexes in the Heights pales to that in the Eastend. Changes in industry over the years has impacted the Eastend more than industry changes in the Heights. But if you beg to differ on that view, I'll counter that the chicken plant had a greater impact in saving the Heights than the artist collectives on 19th.

Eh...they lost the Walmart battle so no doubt active RUDH membership has dwindled as the more rational folks realize development is going to happen and move on with their lives.

I think the Walmart battle was really about Heights folks being incensed that Walmart considered them "Walmart people". It was not about winning, just protesting loud enough to convince others that they were not "those people".

Was wondering if something had happened - noticed while walking by there the other night that all of the artwork that had been on the walls was gone. I was afraid they might be going out of business, but this is much better news.

I stopped going there when they refused to do anything about the chronic panhandler who lives there.

My guess is that he is about to get a rude awakening from the new owners.