HoustonIsHome

Anyway why is houston so against change?

I like Houston how it is but adding things doesn't mean subtracting others.

Whats good for tourists are good for us. We use the parks too, beautification is good fit everybody. Improving transportation is good for both tourists and residents. Why can't we have a nice theme park, aquarium and gardens?

You guys sound so ignorant sometimes.that " SF will always be more popular for tourists because of the hills" crap is just bull.

SF is more popular because of what they have done not because of no stupid hills.

Las Vegas is flat as a pancake and undoubtedly has the most boring setting of any major city in the US BUT IT IS TOP THREE FOR TOURISM and it is above SF.

Orlando is top three too, and it too is flat. Miami and NY are also flat. So is London, Paris and a host of European cities.

Houston with its waterways and trees look far better than Vegas so the look of the area has nothing to do with tourism. Its what you do with it.

I'd also argue that Houston is more dispersed than Atlanta is.

Atlanta is more dispersed. We are more dense overall. Their urban area is much bigger (spread) than ours. But they have more pockets of density surrounded by nature, while we have uniform density.

Atl urban area is 2645 sq mile

Houston urban area is 1660 sq miles

Atl urban density is only 659 ppsm

Houstons is 1150 ppsm

For reference Philadelphia urban density is 1060ppsm, Boston is 861ppsm.

So Houston's spread is not the problem. It is how it spread. ALTHOUGH our urban density is higher than these three cities, it doesn't feel as dense because we do not build dense pockets we pave over every thing.

Roads like 1960 are sad cases because what started as a farm to market road where there was just about nothing from the farm (Addicks) to the Market (Humble) is now constant development between both.

Even DFW has drops in density. We don't.

Many people are proud to say they are from the 3rd. In fact, Riverside isnt even in the historical borders of 3rd ward, but when I lived there I told people I live in 3rd ward because it is in the Greater 3rd ward area.

When these wards actually meant something, the city limits didn't even get to the TSU area. However, many historians place the southern border of 3rd ward at Wheeler (some say Blodgett, some say Truxillo).

Washington Terrace is west of TSU, University Terrace is East of TSU and south of UH.

Riveride Terrace is south of TSU and Riverside is South of the Bayou. Yahoomaps also had the southern boundary of 3rd ward as Blodgett and they group the Terrace Neighborhoods as a greater MacGregor area.

I don't see a need to change the name of an entire ward that contains dozens of neighborhoods. Why not just change the name of that immediate area.

Actually, clustering high-end hotels makes sense and you see it in many other markets.

Here's my dream;

Floors 1-3 hotel lobby, meeting space, restaurants, etc...

Floors 4-10 parking with an amenity deck on floor 10

Floors 11-25 A Ritz/Mandarin Oriental type hotel with 350 rooms

Floors 26-45 A true condo tower with 6 units per floor (120 total units)

Floors 46-50 Uber high end units with just 2 per floor (10 units)

Perfect. Or I should say almost perfect. It needs to go taller. At least 60 floors. Throw in another hotel if necessary. ;-) Am I just being greedy?

I agree, signature door bed a signature tower. How about:

1 to 3 = Lobby and retail space

4 to 14= Parking garage

14 to 17= Convention space

18 = signature restaurant

19 to 20= Health club, spa and pool on the 20th floor

21 to 35= Hotel and lounges

36 to 55= Condos

56 to 62= Penthouses

Building height = 812 feet

There are larger trees and a more rolling terrain above the bayou at the proposed Gus Wortham Golf Course site.

NO!!!

ShhhhhhH no.

If they want to make it sound nice, they should called it Upper Riverside.

Problem is there are three or four neighborhoods between this and Riverside.

They can keep the Terrace theme and call this area as Lincoln Terrace since Washington Terrace and University Terrace are near

This is beautiful. The botanical gardens should go along this area of the bayou

He is taking about the 200tg anniversary of Alamo Ale. It will be on tap for the opening

Always? Add a few million more people to the mix, and I think that that Will change.

Yes always. You know as well as I do that the bulk of these people end up between the beltway and grand parkway. GP is what 30 or 35 miles away from downtown. That means where people are settling in is about 3500 sq miles in area. Throw in your few million people in the mix. In fact lets be generous and make it 4 million people. The density only increases by 1100 people per sq mile. Not very impressive considering it is uniform density and not dense pockets surrounded by forests. With 4 million extra people the urban area will still be half as dense as LA and almost 6 times less dense than London.

Lets face it, Grand parkway is clearing the way to expand our urban foot print deeper into the prairie on virgin land. The millions who come her are just being spread over a larger and larger are. The job centers are no longer downtown or uptown. Its being spread so far apart. HOUSTON will look less in need fir rail in 30 years than it did 30 years ago when the area where the beltway is was far out. In 30 years we will be talking about the loop connecting Galveston, Baycity, Wharton, Brenham, College Station, Huntsville, Livingston, Beaumont and Port Arther.

It aint gonna work Tina!

Too many negatives to overcome here.

As per our physical development

As per our density

As per our massive highway system

As per our ease of getting around by car

As per our abundance of cheap parking

As per the cost of building a system and our reluctance to funding such expense.

Our jobs are spread across the metro. Its not like everyone is heading to one 40 sq mile area like SF. The jobs are spread over a 3000sq mile area. Its never going to be too difficult to drive or park. its always going to be be easier to drive than to depend on a show train.

The parking lot that is EAST of the Four Seasons and SOUTH of One Park Place. ......

......

What should go there?

......

Drive through CVS

See, I don't get why DART gets lambasted for "low ridership" because it partially functions like a commuter rail and why that's a bad thing, then the same types of people turn around and complain why we don't have commuter rail in Houston (often pointing fingers at politicians). This isn't to condemn commuter rail, I'm rather fond of the idea myself. In fact, Denver, which I don't think has been brought up, has built that type of system, a "streetcar" style light rail then going down south following (gasp!) existing railroad corridors. This all builds out to a distance of 13 miles at least to the south, equivalent of reaching Beltway 8.

DART IS a commuter system.

And I don't think people complain on the liw ridership because it is a commuter rail.

I have heard:

It is slow

Didn't go where I want to go

Has stops that are just a grassy pasture.

You get to your desination on the burbs and then you are stuck

Is more expensive than taking my car

It is the longest light rail system but poor ridership.

I think DART is fine if you don't go too far. The bus and trolley system in the city esp downtown, uptown etc is fine. You get to certain suburban stops and you gotta phone a friend

that kind of reminds me of the "hybrid LRT" system weve discussed for certain routes, it just sounds like they have the types of trains switched around, using commuter rail for both tasks instead of LRT. i wonder which would be more effective?

I think their system is quite effective.

Their metro area is almost exactly the sand size as the city of Houston. But their are rail lines that serve outside the metro area.

My cousin lives about 50 miles from the core of the metro and the rail takes about 1hr from his city to the core. But its not every day everyone goes to the tower of London to oogle the queen's jewels. London is a multipolar metro like Houston so the jobs are spread. So it makes sense that the commuter rail doesn't just have one stop in the core.

A Houston example would be a commuter rail from TW that stops in Spring, Greenspoint, over to the airport, Northline, downtown (one stop) then midtown, Greenway, uptown, hilcroft tc then out to sugar land. It would share stops on the red and university lines but you wouldn't have to actually get off and take those lines. Btw those cities have multiple entities controlling rail. A day pass would allow you on all the trains but that doesn't mean ask the trains will be metro. The woodlands may develop a line, Galveston may develop a line, etc etc. That's why I think the city should focus on the city and let the burbs take care of the burbs. The transit options are strengthened by duplicity.

Except even those aren't terribly realistic heights.

We're getting 5-7 story buildings in Midtown, not 10, and 5-50 stories downtown including office buildings.

They are most realistic. I prefer what is going on in midtown now than having some gigantic tower. What's not realistic about that? There have been tower proposals for midtown but I prefer it current direction

For me it is all time and place. In a downtown filled with 40+ towers and running out of land then a 60+ building would be preferable for me. (HOUSTON IN 10 years)

In a downtown with a lot of tall buildings but a lot of empty lots then either would be good to me. (HOUSTON the past 40 Years).

In a downtown with very few tall buildings and lots of room to grow then a single tall building might be less preferable than multiple 20 floor buildings. (Houston 100 years ago).

that's just me. I would gladly take 20 buildings in midtown that are 10 floors than 1 burg khalifa that is 200 floors. It creates a wonderful urban environment without all these empty plots. In downtown however, I would probably go for two 100 floor buildings over one 200 floor buildings.

Commuter rail doesn't have to stop at one location. In Greater London for example. The commuter rails has few stops outside the metro, once it gets to the urban area it mirrors the urban rail and they share the same stops. In other writes the commuter rail becomes indistinguishable from the urban rail in the city but goes on to be commuter rail out of it.

I dunno. Its very appealing when its raining. Also the clusters of food is a draw. Other than that I don't get why everyone wets their panties when a new building gets connected to the thing. Its just another blow to the street presence

I can, Istanbul

Geneva

Dublin

Both have commuter rail dumping you unto street cars/light rail

And I'll still bet that in another 20 years when Dallas has grown by another 2 million it will be more successful. Transit is about offering options to people so cars needn't be the only way to get around. Look, Dallas built a system that it will grow into. They could have done a better job, but in the long run (decades) the system will likely be judged a worthwhile system - not the best, not the worst, but something to help give people transportation options.

Transit construction takes time to come full circle - sometimes years, sometimes less.

subway - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subway

light rail - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/light-rail

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_rail_terminology

Dallas built a system that was way too big for its britches.

It will always be slow, and there is little guarantee that much TOD will develop

All this MARTA talk is besides the point. MARTA is urban rail it is not a commuter rail system.

Like I said we need rail and lots of it in the core. So using MARTA as justification for commuter rail is off track

A subway is just rail running underground.. at least to me. So we can build a LRT line down Westheimer that would work - above ground or underground it would be a successful line.

I would also love to see an additional 500,000 - 1,000,000 people inside the Loop. I think we can get to the 1.5 - 1.75 inside the Loop if we develop things correctly, though to achieve that sort of density we would need a lot of additional rail.

Okay you are confusing my terms again.

Light rail usually refers to rail transit that is slower and has less cars. Heavy rail is faster and has more cars. I said heavy rail works work here too. It doesn't have to be light. Boston has light rail running in a subway, but subways are usually heavy rail.

MARTA btw is heavy. Most trains I believe have 4 cars or more. Ours are one or two cars

The idea is to build where ridership it highest. Also, DART may not be a success right now, but I'll wager in 10 years the number of riders will have increased significantly. Maybe it won't. Maybe gas and cars will continue to be SO cheap that people will simply ellect to spend hours of their day behind a wheel, pay to park in a garage and pay for all the other associated costs of owning a car.

DART has been around for 20 years. On that time the population has grown by over 2million. Do you know how much the numbers of people riding public transit in Dallas had grown? It hasn't. The number of people riding DART when it was a bus only system serving 4 million people is more than the number riding bus plus rail serving 6.8 million people.

DART is too slow, it was built on corridors that are new to transit and it is too expensive

If that were true, wouldn't BRT be just as successful and a hell of a lot cheaper to build and ride?

Ding ding ding. You won the goal medal.

That's what I've been saying all along.

BRT works. Don't F with it.

So to sum up your whole argument: Houston isn't dense enough for anything aside from Light Rail. We should build Light Rail in as many areas as possible (that make sense) inside The Loop?

I agree with that stance. My point - in regards to transit in general - is Houston's growth rate is high enough to consider building rail connections to the suburbs now. The construction of said rail lines will take years. So we build now (or at the very least set aside ROW) and in 2019 or 2021 when these first lines open we will be close to - maybe over the needed number of potential riders in some places. Maybe not all, but some.

You are half correct.

I do believe we should build as much rail as possible in the loop, but I never Saud it should only be light rail. I would prefer a subway down westheimer with heavy rail..

What I would like us to have between 1.5 to 2.5 million people in the loop and uptown. With a third of the metro in the core that lives more than enough space between the loop and 1960 for the rest of the metro to grow without spreading much further.