lithiumaneurysm

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 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.

Even if it's not the tallest or flashiest thing in the world, this is an exciting development for the east side of Downtown.

What do you guys think about this proposal by Chronicle columnist Bill King in today's edition? Could the outskirts of the Texas Medical Center handle this? What about a off Fannin or South Main TMC area? How could all the neighboring residential real estate benefit from this? All those residential subdivisions, homes, and residential real estate. Townhomes or Townhouses? Condominiums or Condos? Single Family Homes? I know it's just a hypothetical concept at this point, but envisioning it is interesting. Gentrification is well on its way to sweeping into the Third Ward and other areas around the Medical Center, and proposals like University Place – while far from probable at this point – could tie in really well with a more general master plan. Does Houston have the potential to create such a large and research-intensive medical and education district?

Another interesting comparison I've been thinking about recently: Paris' 20 arrondissements cover 41 square miles. As you said, Loop 610 encircles an area of 96 square miles. 2,234,105 people live in the 20 arrondissements. 450,000 people live inside the loop. Inner-city Paris doesn't even have a significant number of skyscrapers – those are located in La Defense, outside the arrondissements. A vast majority of central Paris is densely packed 4-6 story apartment buildings with ground level retail. That's why I don't think Houston necessarily needs more high-rise residential – mid rise developments, even at only 4 or 5 stories, will make a huge difference.

Doesn't this cut into that plan?

From today's Memorial section of the Chronicle. http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/memorial/news/article/Corridor-to-develop-master-plan-5576265.php The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is planning a West Campus along Park Row to the east of the Addicks Park and Ride.

The Downtown post office is up for sale, maybe they could work something out with whatever developer buys up that property.