lithiumaneurysm

What's the parking garage supposed to look like? Living next to Domain West has made me paranoid.

No, it will be south of Shepherd in the space between the Center for Continuing Studies and Reckling Park, where the tennis courts used to be.

The park and ride applies to rail as well. Suburban commuters park and then ride. Some of them use buses, some use rail. The point is that there isn't this aversion to mass transit by high-income earners that you claim there is. I just gave you multiple reasons why the discrepancy exists, but you're still trying to extrapolate that data to apply to future high-income earners who will live along the rail. That doesn't make any sense. I would more readily accept your point if it were a study of people who live within a quarter mile of a rail stop – that way, we could really demonstrate differences in commuting options by income, because all of the people studied would have equal access to the rail line. But when you add suburban commuters into the mix, it's obvious that high-income people who don't live anywhere near a rail line aren't going to exclusively use it. The study also ignores the use of rail for purposes other than commuting to work. We can safely assume that high-income residents who live near the rail would use it to visit bars in Midtown or one of the stadiums. Really, the commuter study says nothing about why we shouldn't be investing in light rail. We still have my aforementioned evidence showing a clear positive correlation between light rail access and property values. In addition, we can look to the Houston Area Survey's clear demonstration of a significant demand for transit options within the city. Why would developers even bother abiding by the City's stringent transit-oriented development standards if it didn't yield some significant return for them? The commuter study also notes that high-income earners are the most likely to walk to work. If they're willing to engage in such peasantry as walking in Houston, why won't they take advantage of a convenient, high-frequency rail service?

There are multiple problems with your interpretation of the 2013 study. First, the study is an analysis of commuters to Downtown from all areas of the city. It makes perfect sense that high-income people use the rail less, because the rail doesn't serve many high-income people. We can note two things: A majority of people who work in Downtown do not live near the area. This is clearly shown in appendix B of the study, which displays a map showing the distribution of the studied employees across the metro. Since the service area encompasses virtually all of Houston, we can assume the statistics would regress towards the transportation mode distribution of the entire city, which is auto-dominated for high-income workers. The population served by the rail line is not predominately high-income. Since this study was conducted in 2013, it predates a significant amount of affluent new high-income development in the area. This is shown on page 84, where higher income correlates with a longer commute to Downtown, with the exception of those who make over $200k a year (obviously a very small fraction of the population).These explain the discrepancies in rail use by income. However, in addition, your interpretation ignores the fact that this study has nothing to do with "probability." The commuter survey is supposed to provide a snapshot of existing conditions, not a prediction of future trends. There is nothing to suggest that high-income workers will not increase their use of public transit when they begin moving into Downtown and other districts at higher rates over the next decade. We can't extrapolate this data to say anything about what high-income Downtown commuters will "probably" do if they are suddenly served by rail, because that isn't the point of the study. Your interpretation also ignores the use of park and ride, which is actually highest among those who make more than $100k a year (high income earners). It makes sense that few of them use the rail or bus exclusively, because they don't live near Downtown in the first place and are able to afford a car for the suburb-to-transit center commute. So how can we determine what people will do when they start living near alternative transit modes? We can survey them to see what they say they want. And that's pretty clear cut. For a Houston-specific example, we can simply look to Rice's Kinder Institute, which publishes the annual Houston Area Survey. For the past few years, the report has shown consistent metro-wide support for transit and more urban forms of living. That's why these apartment projects exist; that's why this development is taking place.

This is an utterly ridiculous argument. Anecdotes have no place in a discussion about macroscopic systems like a transit network. Are you seriously trying to argue that two examples of defunct businesses are enough to invalidate the entire METRORail system? I don't see why it's so difficult to have a reasoned discussion about the implementation of light rail in this city. Why don't we look at the actual scientific evidence? There have been a number of case studies on our city's rail system that have demonstrated a statistically significant impact on property values and development. Take this 2011 study from UT, for example, examining the relationship between property values and the Red Line: Or how about this analysis, which also suggests a positive relationship between property values and the light rail? Or this paper that discusses the potential for the new Green, Purple and Red lines to further the gentrification of traditionally low-income neighborhoods? Or we could look at a more general analysis of light rail systems (not specific to Houston) that establishes a positive correlation with property values. The point of long-term transportation planning like the creation of a light rail system is that it takes a long time. The METRORail is an investment in Houston's future and forms the basis for a metropolitan transportation network. We are gradually seeing the benefits as new development has started sprouting up in the Museum District, Midtown and Downtown. Scientific analysis leaves little doubt that the increased property values and propensity for development seen in these neighborhoods over the past few years are in part due to the introduction of light rail.

Metro board member Christof Spieler gave a presentation at a meeting of Rice ASCE today. He said that the post office site is TCR's "preferred Downtown station site" and that Mayor Parker is pushing for an I-10 alignment to avoid neighborhood disruption. He also talked about a lot of other stuff: the DLI, new Downtown bike lane, bus network reimagining, improvements to the convention district and so on. He's basically played a major role in every exciting development that gets talked about on this forum.

I doubt politics will that much of a role -- certainly not to the extent that has delayed Keystone XL for so many years. That was the perfect symbolic issue to divide Democrats and Republicans. In contrast, I really don't see what serious political divides could form over this project. Republicans like it because it stands in contrast to California's expensive government-funded initiative and it's a symbol of Texas's economic strength; Democrats like it because it's high-speed rail. I think this project has a lot more going for it than people give it credit for. While the funding details aren't clear, many factors are lining up and there's a surprising amount of political interest from both sides of the aisle.

I agree, this project really needs to focus on Downtown and the East End after the completion of the western stretch. A revitalization of the bayou through Downtown could revolutionize the district. There's so much empty and underutilized space that has the potential to become an urban oasis.

SC4Devotion? I approve.

I hope this yields some good news. This project is taking forever.

If it has the proper mass transit connections I don't think it would be too remote a location.

Is there any new info on this project? The optimist in me wants to believe it's possible.

I just attended a meeting of the Rice chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers where architecture professor William Cannady discussed the development of this project in detail. He has been working on the design of this project since its inception, so this information is definitely credible. Apparently, construction started last Monday - and the delay was due to the city taking over eight months to approve a building permit due to the high volume of construction projects around the metro. Here's the notes that I took. I'm not sure how much of this information is known, but regardless: $75 million projectThe project began in 2006 as part of an effort by the City of Houston to encourage transit-oriented development along Main Street. The city purchased four blocks from Winbern north to Stuart on the west side of Main for the purpose of creating a mixed-use development and a new building for the city's Code Enforcement Office.The development will encompass six distinct but interconnected buildings on top of a three story parking garage. In addition, two stories will be dedicated to ground-floor retailThere will be small studio apartments available: 500 sq. ft. for $1000/monthThe apartments are geared towards younger demographics, including recent college graduates and inner-city workersThe city has reduced parking requirements for this project. In addition, there is dedicated space for bicycles, electric vehicles and ZipcarsParking will cost around $100/month for residentsApartments will feature exposed concrete floors and steel-framed ceilings to give a studio/warehouse atmosphereThe project preserves the retail building at the corner of Winburn and Main, as well as the restaurant patio adjacent to itDr. Cannady mentioned the purchase of a third block - possibly the one bounded by Travis, Berry, Millam and Holman? - for a hotel, but this was scrapped?Dr. Cannady also noted that the old Alley Theatre across the street has been purchased by the same developer. The historic structure will be preserved and a new building will go on that blockThe MATCH project next door will feature four theatres, two practice rooms, a cafe with patio and an outdoor performance plaza for street musiciansThe developers chose to make the garage a podium instead of a wrap to increase the flexibility of the architecture. In addition, this creates more urban connectivity and allows greater access to the public courtyard on the inside. There was a really interesting discussion about the efficiency and aesthetics of podium garages vs. wraps; in summary, podium garages allow better traffic flow, more flexibility with existing city building codes, they're not nearly as ugly, they allow for better separation between retail parking and residential parking, they create more space for courtyards and better views for residents, they maximize the space available to rentPart of the development may be leased to Rice University - which remains involved in the project - to provide accommodations for visitorsAn imgur album of some pictures I took can be found here.

I think I remember seeing some discussion about a Memorial parkway line somewhere on the internet. Seems like the consensus was that it's not really feasible because the parkway itself doesn't have good pedestrian connectivity with surrounding development, but the access to the parks would be a huge bonus. I don't think a line down Washington Ave. itself is possible considering how narrow that ROW is, but one running down the freight line ROW parallel to Washington would be absolutely perfect. A few months ago somebody on either Swamplot or HAIF noticed the weird terminus at the west end of Downtown and asked Metro about it, and they explicitly denied any plans to extend the rail in that direction. I don't think it's really on the drawing board for them, but who knows? Also, here's the "completed" version of my rail plan from above. Not too many changes: The news that TCR wants to build its terminus station near the Galleria does mess things up a bit, though...

While I do think that the Energy Corridor will see some more unique development with big projects like Central Park and the redevelopment of the ExxonMobil Chemical campus, as well as the District's efforts to create some "signature" structure spanning the Katy Freeway, I doubt it'll ever reach the compact urbanesque quality of Uptown. The areas are just too different. The Energy Corridor is very spread out and far more constricted by low-density suburban housing than Uptown is. I think it's a very unique part of town with a lot of potential, but I really doubt future trends will have it competing with Uptown.

Glad to hear that Dallas is seeing significant centralized development too. The fact that multiple major Texas cities are being revitalized in this way bodes well for the entire state. It'll be interesting to see how both Houston and Dallas deal with urban planning and infrastructure issues in their cores, especially since both cities have similar patterns of growth.

I certainly think the Task Force's effort and vision are great, but I have to remain skeptical of any sort of plan to create a pedestrian-oriented environment that doesn't identify the ridiculous surface parking lot problem as its primary obstacle. Few large U.S. cities have as pervasive an issue with vacant downtown lots as Houston. These are just enormous blank spaces in an otherwise urban environment that do a damn good job at killing any sort of pedestrian vitality. There's a reason why the Market Square area and Midtown are redeveloping at faster rates than the southern side of the Convention District and the entire southeast quadrant of Downtown. Unless some serious infill occurs - even if the buildings are only one or two stories tall - those parking lots will present an enormous roadblock to creating a comprehensive urban shopping district. GreenStreet is nice, but you're not getting much of an urban experience in a complex bounded by office buildings, parking garages and surface lots. Creating a shopping environment in this area is still going to be difficult, even with the presence of some retail. Forming organic street life is an immense challenge.

Near the Galleria? That's a lot further west than I thought they'd align it.

Sigh. Wal-mart is really in the news today...

I've been thinking the same thing. To use an oft-stated term on this website, there has to be some sort of "critical mass" where traffic problems just can't be left to fester without some more provocative reworking of infrastructure. Besides Dallas, I can't think of another city in the world (especially out of the megaopolises with populations over 10 million) that relies on the automobile like Houston does. Makes me wonder if we're entering uncharted territory when it comes to transportation.

Definitely an exciting project. It has the potential to provide a lot of connectivity between neighborhoods and beautify those huge expanses of land that just sit there looking weedy for most of the year. It'd be cool if the city could create a Terry Hershey Park-like vibe out of the ROWs (although without any bayous). Part of Terry Hershey carries transmission lines but they're not as imposing as the ones on the dedicated ROWs, in part thanks to the vegetation.

I really like some of those ideas. Particularly the East End parkway and the trenching of the Pierce Elevated. I think a parkway would be particularly effective at opening up the oft-neglected southern bank of the Bayou east of Downtown to development. Connectivity to those huge chunks of land along the Bayou isn't very good right now since it was all industrial until recently. The 45/59/288 interchange definitely needs redesigning. In addition to being a really awkward mix of the three freeways – with poor transfer ramps between each of them – it's also a scar on the cityscape that presents a formidable boundary between Midtown and the Third Ward. When it does get reconstructed there needs to be a serious aesthetic overhaul. I've always thought that the Downtown freeway complex needs to be "de-spaghettified". It's nice that the freeway planners of yesteryear wanted to provide as many entrance and exit ramps as possible, but constructs like the spaghetti bowl on 45 over the Bayou only end up impeding traffic flow in favor of a few underused and unsafe ramps. As cloud713 said, the future renovation should seek to focus Downtown commuters on a set of dedicated entrances to the district. That sort of planning would make it a lot easier to manage traffic in the area (as well as decrease the probability of people getting lost).

Haha I actually had this exact idea. Open it up as a pedestrian space and line it with food trucks and other stalls. I know Houston has a food truck park already but it's not much more than a parking lot. Wouldn't it be cool if Houston had a food truck alley under the Pierce Elevated, with picnic benches and other stuff? It'd be a cheap and easy way to turn a sketchy stretch of parking lots into a Downtown attraction that represents a little bit of the city's culture.

I agree that the Pierce does provide a psychological barrier between Downtown and Midtown that's hard to ignore. That's why I'd prefer some sort of sunken / tunneled solution, but it seems TxDOT has already decided it's not willing to spend the money (what a surprise). But I don't know if this barrier is a direct cause of everything you attribute to it. It's quite possible it cheapens the property around it, but I feel like that sort of claim can't be substantiated without some sort of study that simply doesn't exist. I'd agree with IronTiger that the subsidy is a necessity because of Downtown's higher building costs and dilapidated nature. The fact that large portions of both Midtown and Downtown are covered with parking lots won't disappear if the Pierce is demolished. Trees and vines are obviously a cheap solution, but they can make a significant difference to the passing pedestrian. The homeless problem is mainly due to the nature of the surrounding area – plenty of abandoned lots, the Greyhound station, McDonald's, and the fact that Downtown and Midtown currently make up an awkward geographic barrier between poorer districts to the east and wealthy enclaves to the west. In addition, the city basically invites the homeless to congregate under elevated freeway structures by simply not doing anything interesting with the space underneath. There are a million different things you could put under there besides asphalt and a bunch of ugly fences. The grid is capable of handling east/west traffic, but probably not in addition to the north/south traffic that I assume makes up the bulk of what goes on the Pierce Elevated. I think most of the commuters on the Elevated are trying to bypass Downtown, although I can't really back that up with any data. I think the book makes a convincing argument that – at the time – Houston's freeway plan was innovative. While there are certainly many, many negatives that came from it as well – like tearing up neighborhoods and ignoring the need for a multimodal transit system – the general engineering of the highways was well-suited to what the city needed at the time. I completely agree that the focus should be on better neighborhood integration and harmonizing infrastructure with the areas it affects. That's why I think so much work needs to be done on the Downtown freeway complex, because you'd be hard pressed to find any other cluster of urban American freeways that is so completely hostile to the neighborhoods it passes through. However, even though rerouting 45 would open up some valuable real estate, it would come at a steep cost to other areas around Downtown that would take the brunt of freeway expansions to serve that traffic. I find a lot of proposals to route things through East Downtown a little unappealing, since that area has already lived with the burden of that elevated stretch of 59 for so long (which is a much bigger problem than the Pierce Elevated).

The biggest problem with the Pierce Elevated isn't that it exists, but that it's kind of ugly. That can be said for a lot of the freeways that encircle Downtown. If they clean it up a bit, embellish it architecturally and add a lot more lighting underneath (maybe some color?) that entire area would feel more inviting. Plant some trees. Add some vines. The parkway TxDOT proposes is a far worse "barrier" between Downtown and Midtown. Houston can do something creative with an elevated freeway, instead of it being a collection of concrete pillars. You could even get rid of the fenced-off parking lots and put some retail (or something else interesting) under there. I don't think we can act like it's feasible for Houston to begin removing freeways. Houston will probably never be an urbanist paradise. Whenever this city does decide to go for a mass transit / commuter rail system, it'll have to adapt to the auto-centric nature of this town. That means lots of park & rides, lots of buses and accepting the fact that improved freeway infrastructure is absolutely a necessity. The city and state should be looking to do three things with the redesign of the Downtown freeway complex: improve traffic flow around Downtown, upgrade the existing infrastructure to modern-day engineering standards, and improve the aesthetic/architectural appearance of the freeways. Do I think Houston could really benefit from an extensive heavy rail system? Yes. But that's a network that needs to fit the city it's being designed for. We shouldn't be copy-pasting ideas from the Northeast or California, or relying on a few miles of light rail to provide a real alternative to the inevitable traffic situation in this city. Otherwise we'll end up like Dallas, with a ridiculous rail system that doesn't actually take into account the fact that it's serving a sprawling, heavily car-dependent area. I think it's possible to have a reasoned discussion about the future of transportation in this city – car or otherwise – without having to resort to outlandish proposals like shutting down freeways or calling the entire concept of rail an "obsession with living in the 1800s." Houston suffers from transportation problems because of a lack of vision and the failure to come up with a real plan to tie the entire metropolitan area together. That's how you end up with a light rail plan that literally does absolutely nothing to address the traffic situation that is clogging up all 600 square miles of the city! Meanwhile it just makes METRO look bad and gives anti-transit politicians plenty of rhetorical ammunition. Can we all just get along, please? Houston needs its freeways, yes. Many of them need to be widened. But it also needs a real mass transit system that commuters can use when freeway capacity just isn't enough. Roads, buses and rail are all essential to the future of the city. We need to innovate to solve the traffic problem, because Houston is a unique city that has an urban form unlike any other in the entire country. Don't demolish freeways. Don't rail against rail. Instead, think about solutions that streamline the roads and provide a working alternative and accommodate the car culture. If you've ever read Houston Freeways, you should know about the incredible amounts of effort and innovation that led to the creation of Houston's world-class freeway network. That same level of dedication can solve the current problem.