por favor gracias

Landscaping could stand an upgrade.

Thanks for all the pictures guys...looks great!

Yeah, me too.

Amen brotha! Lupe would do great downtown.

Right on with the light on! I actually thought that rendering was really good... Yikes!

I "count" at least 100 floors from cloud713's "rendering."

The "only thing" I would change about the design of your residential tower would be to make it look like a Flying V with flames on the side... Other than THAT, well done!

Wish we had more architecture like that here.

Thanks for all the updates MikeRichardson.

Nice pics LarryDierker...appreciate it!

Thanks SkylineView!

Well done!

True dat...I hope that's the case.

I like the building itself and the infill, but I absolutely understand why a lot of people would prefer not to have the view from I-45 obstructed. It's one of the most striking manmade views in the world. The colors, the shapes, the textures and the sheer mass have always blown me away.

I agree 100%...and while I do prefer light rail to buses overall, there is a need for both.

We all have different ideas, but I think we can all agree there are many areas where we can cut costs. Knowing how inefficiently we plan, build, and "fix" a lot of our roads and communities, and knowing that we've spent billions of dollars for highway projects and new stadiums, I'm inclined to think we can set aside a little money for a real transportation system...especially one that will save us a ton of money in the long run. There are also many ways we can generate more money...for example how we are currently offering incentives downtown. That's going to pay off big time (and on a side note, I really hope we can get Mayor Parker to help try a similar strategy and lure Tesla to build their mega-factory here). I would agree that LRT isn't what we should be focusing on, at least right now. Put all the rail/mass transit money into higher speed, longer distance corridors for now. Get this city connected. As much as I prefer light rail to buses...unless/until we get a real mass transit network, I think we should prioritize light rail at a later time. We already have a lot of buses, and the way we're building our light rail...we're putting it down corridors where buses used to run anyways, and it's also interfering substantially with street and pedestrian traffic. If anything, we should focus our light rail funds on routes where the buses don't currently run and build them with less interference with traffic. If the train leaves Cinco Ranch (doesn't have to be at the Grand Pkwy, but I'll go with that) and goes 60 or 80 MPH with only two 90-second stops near West Oaks and Westchase before reaching the Galleria, it could absolutely get there in 20 - 25 minutes. It depends on what kind of train we build and how we build it. It's 18.5 miles from the Grand Pkwy and Westheimer Pkwy to the Galleria in a straight line. You may consider 60 - 80 MPH to be "aggressive" (and I certainly don't "disagree" with that), but there are trains in Europe that go less than 35 miles and reach speeds of over 150 MPH. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that we can build one to reach 60 or 80 MPH with stops every 5 to 8 miles. It only takes an 8-car passenger train (and I think we can do with fewer cars than that with this particular line) going 80 MPH about a mile to completely stop. A 60 MPH top-speed train would probably get people from Katy to the Galleria in about 25 minutes, and 80 MPH top-speed train would probably do it in about 20 minutes. Either way, it would be faster than traveling by car, bus or light rail.

Thanks Triton!

You could just as easily flip the script and say that bus and BRT funding is taking away from rail/train funding. There are many ways we can fund one or the other, or both...and there are also many ways we can provide for that funding.

I would say "beneficial" means what would get the most ridership with overall cost in mind, but not completely "relative to" monetary cost. I wouldn't mind paying a little, and perhaps a lot more for better service. That said, rail consistently gets better ridership numbers than buses. You're "comparing" a recently completed rail corridor with a BRT line that opened five years ago in a much denser area. In response to commuter rail down Westheimer all the way out to Katy, we would have to build something like that with fewer stops (kind of like the 9 mile/8 stop Bellaire Quickline...but even fewer per mile since we're going over twice the distance). If we did that, there's no reason for it to average 20 MPH if the stops were, say, around Cinco Ranch, West Oaks, Royal Oaks, Westchase and the Hillcroft/Dunvale area (or perhaps just Cinco Ranch, West Oaks and Westchase). The first scenario could get people from Katy to the Galleria in a half an hour with 90 second load/unload times, and the second one could do it in about 20 or 25 minutes tops. I don't see people using the "Quickline" to get from Bellaire and Ranchester to the TMC (9 miles) in 38 minutes as particularly "attractive" either, but people still use it as it's the best option they currently have.

Could not agree more. I haven't been to Vancouver, but I can vouch for Germany's system.

A lot of trains around the world are first-class. It's virtually impossible for that to be the case with roads and automobiles.

Houston is densifying, and it won't be long before we hit 10 million people in the metro area (probably in 20 or 25 years)...and even then, it's not like 8 million people 10 or 12 years from now will be If we build a world-class system, we'll get the ridership. If we don't, imagine how much fun sitting on "the new West Loop" will be by then. That and provide incentives for development near/along mass transit corridors.

I like where you're going with planning being geared towards those who can't afford a car, but I don't think we should start out that way if it's not as beneficial as other routes would be overall for the city. That would be like "prioritizing" a Scott Street line over a Westheimer line.

It has substantial meaning in my classification of a "world class city."

I wasn't really "proposing" that particular system, I was just demonstrating how many people trains can move at a time and that's one way to address IronTiger's scenario. That said, rail ridership is generally higher than bus ridership. I'd be surprised if that 18,000 number demand wouldn't increase significantly if we had a first-class subway option. It would also give us a blueprint for more sustainable growth and future development. I see no reason to continue to sit in traffic and wait until there are 10 or 15 million people living here before we address this issue. We all know that's what's on the horizon anyways...and really, 10 million is quite comfortably in the "foreseeable" future. We'll probably be there around 2035 or 2040. If we keep growing like we are right now, we could be there by next June...