cloud713

yeah i would think so.. i wonder where they got that impression from. a lot of optimism in that list...

dammit arche, you were hitting all my thoughts spot on on every post before this one.. haha. well yeah, using the freight ROW is ideal (and is the ROW i tried to follow in most all of my commuter lines in my "ideal transit plan"), but in most cases the freight lines are at capacity so new lines would need to be built along side the old ones, which costs money..

i agree about an extension to Conroe (which i would have trains going to at least once in the morning once in the afternoon each day, maybe more often.. especially if something huge goes down at Camp Strake. but i still dont see the viability of commuter rail to B/CS or Beaumont (which is the larger metro, as arche pointed out) unless you were able to use existing freight tracks. and even then i dont see service to Beaumont being viable, and only see weekend service to B/CS.

is it just me or does that look like GFR? its definitely not a garage entrance, and seems way too big (and has two separate locations) for a residential entrance or a leasing office. and speaking of garage entrances.. i dont see an entrance for the garage. unless its on the north side which would be kind of weird because thats where the LRT is going. i guess they may end up linking garages like someone suggested.

it looks to me like the concrete in that 2nd picture a few posts up pretty much mimics the towers footprint, minus a little of the garage (i guess either the entire garage doesnt need a foundation, or more likely, the underground level below the garage doesnt extend out to the edges/outer perimeter of the garage above.. [in the northeast corner]). and yeah, that "core" middle thing was weird. at least how they had the rebar shaped.

well didnt TEMA always say they planned on building 3 towers on this property? this would be the second.. and i am SO GLAD they didnt change the twist design for something cheaper..

we discovered a series of neat old cantilevered concrete docks along the river yesterday that provide pretty nice views of the stadium.. (we never really wandered to the west before, by the Texas Ranger Museum/behind the grave yard.. we mainly just go behind the law school, so i cant say the docks were too hidden).

the giant podium.. which is 3 stories that arent included in the 50 story count (at least not in the renderings). and/or Chevron tower takes up a large chunk of the block compared to 609 Main being half the block.

that would be awesome.. or if it was from roof to roof, from the top of Greenstreet (which would all be converted to a park, in keeping with the grassy area on the roof they had in front of the hotel in the renderings), over to another potion of the newly converted park on the roof of the HC downtown club, and finally over to the roof of the shops at HC, which could be the final piece of the park. like you were saying, throw some water features in there (there could even be a stream that flowed down from the shops at HC to Greenstreet since the roof of the three buildings step down a little bit each time), maybe portions of the bridges with glass floors to look down at traffic on the street below.. just little stuff to keep it fun. TBH, i dont see two competitors interlinking their developments, but maybe im wrong. or maybe Midway ends up buying the HC and connects them? heh.. a much more realistic connector solution would be a skybridge from GreenStreet to the HC downtown club, which then has a skybridge over to the shops at HC.

hey urb, any idea what the highlighted block next to the Nau that isnt lettered is? on the skinny block in front of Minute Maid.

yeah ive definitely never heard of them closing the street. thats one of the streets the east end wants to use for their streetcar system/spur into downtown.

Those two 12 stories are more like 8... But I agree. The residential boom will help transform the area.

i wonder what will be in the little corner on Milam/Preston, on the right side of the building.. a pocket park? seems pointless as Market Square is right across the street. maybe an outdoor dining area for a restaurant/cafe or something? or the pool.. didnt look like there was room anywhere on the roof for one?

hard to tell, the bottom got cut off in Urbannizers picture, and the rendering is so small in the link i cant tell whats going on on the ground floor besides some trees.

Don't forget the architectural feature/fins jutting up another 5 or so stories.. But yeah, I thought it was 49 stories?

new rendering for the Holiday Inn.. block Z (rendering in the bottom middle of the page) http://www.downtownhouston.org/site_media/uploads/attachments/2014-03-05/140303_Project_Renderings_11_x_17.pdf

dammit i liked the old one better.. this design looks more like a skinnier/taller sovereign.

damn.. i had dreams of a residential tower going on that sliver of land, extending the TMC skyline north towards the museum district. heh. seems like a perfect location, right between Hermann park, a prestigious university, and the largest medical center in the world.

bring em back!

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Bids-received-for-downtown-post-office-5286134.php

wow, those DART numbers are extreme. (though to be fair, no one ever said this transit system would be profitable.. as i dont even think the NYC system is profitable) but to counter that, what about all the development those rail lines have brought to the area? there was an article recently about how over the last 10 years DART has attracted 7 billion dollars in development along its rail lines. one could say by having an extensive transit system in place, it makes your city more attractive to developers and potential new residents, driving more growth to your city. that 7 billion dollars is more than enough to counteract the 5.65 billion loss over 10 years in the profits vs operating costs. yes jobs are spreading out, but they are doing so along established corridors (for the most part), so rail could theoretically have stops at those job centers (if there are rail lines near/along those corridors, like Westpark, 290/Hempstead, and i10 would be, if they decided to put that planned rail down the middle of 10 that they strengthened the new bridges for). heh.. funny you mention that. i believe ive used "spiderweb" to describe my plan in this very thread. or maybe it was over in the ideal transit plan, but i completely agree. thats what the busses are for that are being taken off the highways with the rail system in place. all those P&R busses could be rerouted to spiderweb out from the rail stations into the surrounding areas, so that people dont have to find their own way or walk long distances, to get from the rail station to their final destination (or from their starting point). and yeah the ease of BRT to LRT conversion is why im fine with building the richmond/westpark (hopefully?) and uptown lines as BRT initially, since culberson is blocking LRT. i dont think HOV lanes should be used for commuter rail. i love the HOV system. i just think commuter rail would take all the busses and more of those commuters out of the HOV lanes, freeing them up for the expanding population increase we are having.. the HOT lane conversions already slowed down many HOV lanes apparently, with all the additional vehicles. it would be the same effect with the population boom, just slower, over a longer period of time. but its still going to happen, and i dont want our HOV system to be rendered useless (if that ever happens, then by all means im down to throw commuter rail lines down every HOV lane in Houston, lol).. and yeah, it would be nice to build rail when its needed, but by 1990 LA was far and away the largest city in the US without rail. just as before 2004 Houston was the largest city without rail.. its just more expensive to acquire the ROW in the future, so im all for acquiring that ROW now to reserve it for when its needed. but as arche pointed out, it takes years to build this type of stuff, so we need to technically start before its actually "needed". otherwise all the heavy traffic and lack of any alternative ways of getting around town is going to hinder our growth as the traffic/area becomes less attractive to potential new residents.

whattttt...... so they DID start construction of the tower in march like they said they would.. and early march too. they arent messing around.

NICE!! i was wondering about OPP and Embassy Suites when i looked through the first post. this model is unbelievable.. and i thought i was getting caught up with my fantasy transit map.. heh.

ah.. Fairfield the community (sorry, i had family driving back from Dallas today in the nasty weather and was thinking of the other Fairfield), i have rail extended out to the outlet mall/neighborhood there in my little fantasy plans. but beyond the Grand Parkway i dont see the point in wasting money to connect any further out. we might as well build a commuter rail to Beaumont (which i dont think we should do) if were going to build one to College Station. its a shorter distance than College Station, and the Beaumont metro is larger than Bryan-CS.

thanks for the very informative response. it is interesting to know that DART wont have much funding for expansion for the next 20 years (though Houstons not supposed to get more rail funding till 2025, according to that law last year, right?), but they have already built out their planned system, whereas Houston still has over 15 more miles to build before its original 5 line system plan is built out (a plan less than half the size of DART), and considering the Culberson mess with the other 2 lines, and the law we passed a year ago keeping METRO tax money from going to rail until 2025, by the time we get around to building the additional light rail, it will probably cost close to 200 million a mile.. or $3 billion total.. on top of the 2.5 billion or so weve spent for the first 3 lines. almost 6 billion for 40 miles of light rail. if the "initial construction cost estimates" you quoted were the total construction costs to build out DART, not just the balance they still have to pay, then they built a system over twice as large for over a billion dollars cheaper. i agree, i wouldnt of gone with DARTs approach to build where they hope future development will happen along the rail lines, instead of building where the people and the development already are, like METRO did with its first line. but they certainly were able to get it built much cheaper and in the long run will have a larger system with more destination options than our system could ever provide (unless we plan to add 100+ miles of commuter rail).. and btw, im not saying we need all of this commuter rail now, im saying we need to be planning for the future by reserving vacant ROWs and start acquiring additional ROW alongside current corridors [like alongside the Hempstead line, or the future Hardy downtown connector {acquiring ROW through land purchases or eminent domain can be the toughest part of building new rail}], like you are advocating. though i certainly wouldnt mind seeing a commuter rail line or two along certain corridors once METRO finishes the LRT system (of course by the time METRO finishes the university and uptown lines well probably actually need commuter rail). i agree not everyone works downtown, which is why there would be that stop at the extended uptown LRT spur from Northwest TC to Northwest Mall for people who work around Uptown, or for people to transfer over on to get to the University Line, or a particular bus route, to get to other nearby areas like Greenway/Upper Kirby. what makes you say 290 is the only viable corridor? i think Westpark would make a great starter commuter rail line. it would pass within half a mile from Westchase, hit the Hilcroft TC, have a stop at Post Oak/Westpark to transfer to uptown, and have a stop at Greenway/Upper Kirby, before ending at Wheeler Station, just a short LRT ride from downtown/museum district/medical center.. and i assume you meant Prairie View (or Hempstead?), not Fairfield (which is on i45, ~90 mi south of Dallas).. but i wouldnt waste the money double tracking the current Hempstead/Hwy 6 rail line all the way out to Prairie View/Hempstead, and especially not all the way to College Station. that would be 100 miles of commuter rail, compared to 26 miles running it from downtown (Post Office site/UH-D or Hardy yards) to Cypress. the largest population between Cypress and College Station is Hockley, with 23,000 people.. every other town between the two is less than 10,000 people. i just dont think its worth another 74 miles of commuter rail (or at least 740 million, at the conservative 10 million a mile estimate, not counting costs to acquire additional ROW) to connect a metro of less than 250,000 people, when we could use that money to connect larger populations (and destinations that are likely to be commuted to/from) here in Houston. how would a line from Sugarland get to downtown? the METRO study has the line ending at Fannin South station/TC. i guess it could jump over to 288 and run up the median to 59 (and over to Wheeler station?), but once you get to 59 there isnt really any available ROW to run rail into downtown. its about 12.5 miles from 90A/59 to Fannin South station. i think we all agree Houston needs more lanes of highway.. but most of us realize we cannot continue pouring concrete and asphalt until our highways all merge into each other and there is no land left for development/people to live. at some point we are going to have to start seriously considering alternate modes of transportation.