curbur

Thread closed and under review until further notice. Warnings being sent out as well. 

 

(Sorry to those who are not involved.)

I'm so curious now lol..

Option 2 would be amazing! I'm not getting my hopes up lol..

I hate the idea of "let the incoming students decide the mascot!"

I got to vote for Cy Ranch's colors and mascot which ended up being The Mustangs, when the losing option of "Wolverines" sounded so much more bada$$

I'm part of the class that picked the Aragon Wildcats with purple and white. I'm not sure who the hell loved K State so much. Wow, didn't realize that you're younger than me.

Could you imagine if just uptown was in the eastern side of downtown. Jesus we would have a Chicago type skyline on our hands

Houston will have a ridiculously nice skyline one day stretching from downtown to uptown, gobbling up greenway plaza as part of it in the process. The only downside is pretty much none of us will be alive to see it by the time it happens.

doshi house is part of the transformation though lol.. man I love their cappucinos.

Looks awesome for Katy; I hope all suburbs get these town centers, I just wish they'd be a little more grandiose in the way The Woodlands Town Center or City Centre were built. I'll believe that retention pond on the SE corner of Katy Mills will look like the above rendering when I see it, but overall this is promising. I'd probably be a tad pissy if I lived in Pin Oak Village or Falcon Point, especially the parts that are going to be adjacent to the district. At least they'll be in close proximity to all the new commercial; imagine, a Vintage Park that you can hop your fence into!

Meant to refer to the tendency of most new construction to cater to a luxurious lifestyle, and to have Audis in the renderings. With adaptive reuse you have the opportunity to involve a less well-heeled customer, since rents aren't so high. New construction necessitates high rents.

Well aware, I was just kidding. There does seem to be a stock photo of an audi inserted into almost every rendering on here.

More than anything I hope it brings people, not just Audis.

You got a problem with my Audi?

Credit to /u/asdgadgasvsadva for posting this on reddit:

I live in Midtown and noticed something on the way to work today. It regards 3800 Main Phase II, currently under construction in Midtown. http://www.apartments.com/3800-main-phase-ii-houston-tx/1pddcz7/

It looks like they installed the sidewalks at 3800 Main Phase II yesterday, but they did not install a full sidewalk along Alabama Street. I live nearby and walk along this stretch all the time on my way to the light rail or mid main. No sidewalk along this stretch is kind of inconvenient. There was a sidewalk at this location along the south side of Alabama Street before the project.

A diagram is below. Green = sidewalk built, Red = sidewalk missing http://i.imgur.com/WNP9Y5K.png?1

Are developers required to replace sidewalks along major thoroughfares in the city-designated Midtown District after construction?

Is there any way to force the developer to replace the sidewalk? Maybe the people at Walk Houston would be all for discouraging this type of developer behavior?

If the developer does not replace the sidewalk, am I allowed to walk through their landscaping (along the public easement)?

I know that this is kind of a first world problem, but I really don't want this precedent to be established in an area with a lot of existing pedestrian traffic.

 

Yup. Even in San Francisco, the removal of the Central Parkway left freeway ROW-shaped surface parking lots for decades, with them not getting built on until just a few years ago.

But you can't say it isn't looking beautiful in that part of downtown SF since they have started to get developed though, or that it's not adding to SF's skyline.

We may not have gotten a super tall or a very unique tower this boom cycle, but we did get a couple of towers that make a big impact on our skyline (as this does), we got a lot of residential and hotel rooms which will change the feel immensely, and we got rid of a lot of surface lots.

I don't think we'll ever warrant a supertall unless the density continues to increase the way it has this past cycle closer to Chicago levels, (11,864.4/sq mi compared to it being 3,662/sq mi now).

The Pierce is not going to collapse barring some freak disaster. Unlike the I-10 widening or the 610/US-290 rebuild, I fail to see how traffic patterns would really be better downtown.

I don't think it's to help traffic patterns downtown really, but to help spur more growth downtown and provide for a larger district for the urban core.

These are fair points, but you know that it will affect some home buyers' opinion of the area still regardless.. I mainly just wanted a Cypress station to be honest :/. On another note, I wonder what this will do to the current roadmap plans of having Greenhouse extend to Skinner and having Mason and other Katy roads extend all the way up to 290 if this rail corridor is completed before they are.

 

Though the route remains a work in progress, the company has plans for only three stations, in Houston, Dallas and Grimes County near the Bryan/College Station area.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/09/08/texas-bullet-train-moving-forward-despite-obstacle/

.. .. . There goes any chance of this thing not being a huge detriment to Cypress. 62 trains a day means roughly 31 from each station, and a generous schedule of how long they'd be open per day let's say is 6am-12am, so (18*60)/31 is roughly every 35 min. You're telling me that all the newer Cypress neighborhoods south of 290 will have to wait 3-5 min EVERY 30 min to cross the tracks and get to where nearly all the restaurnts and major retail centers are located? Not to mention the majority of the homes going up within a mile south of this rail corridor are all in the $350k-$2 million range; I wonder what effect these trains will have on home prices given that it will be frequent, noisy and not accessible to the residents who have to live along it. What's even worse about this part of the rail corridor is that these homes don't have location going for them like those along the Washington ave. stretch of the rail corridor to help save their values. Aside from my own bias and desires, I really think they could rake in a lot of extra cash from having 1-2 suburban stops in each city that they only service every hour or two while other express trains skip on by them. It's a real bummer that it sounds like that won't be the case.

Not trying to take away from how amazing this would be if built, but I don't really like how wichita st appears to be removed from main to fannin in the last image.

I also think the northwest mall is probably the best and most practical solution. I know it probably isn't feasible really, but I keep thinking how nice a station would work out if they could somehow extend the green line up washington and connect it to some newly expanded metro terminus involving the hsr line, then shoot another rail line from it elevated on i-10 out to memorial and maybe katy, build a commuter rail up 90 from sugarland to near the astrodome/medical center, perhaps extend the red line up to exxon somehow, and do whatever they're going to do long term with post oak that connects it to the nw mall terminus also. Personally, that site seems more centrally located to other employment centers than downtown is, and with all those connections we'd start to really have a somewhat cohesive transit rail network. Admittedly, I have no clue how the i-10 line and stops would work; it would just be nice.

Is this dead? My balcony looks over this site and there's 3-5 ft shrubs/weeds covering it.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/8/21/north-texas-inches-closer-to-getting-high-speed-rail-lines/

 

One small step closer to a Fort Worth to Houston HSR line.

 

"Texas Central has proposed station locations that would facilitate further connectivity, ultimately allowing for Fort Worth/Arlington to Houston high speed rail travel if both projects move through funding and construction."

Wouldn't it be more economical to build a link from Ft. Worth to Dallas, and then on to Houston? Or are they scrapping the proposed station locations south of DT Dallas?

It is good for the area, but I do agree with the comments stating the roads need to be widened or the park should be off 99 somewhere nearby.

The post office building could be repurposed into a new Union Station combining the HSR with Amtrak's little booth that's currently next door - after all, it's just about exactly on the footprint of the Southern Pacific station that was there beforehand, and the rail lines still run right behind it.  Getting the light rail to it wouldn't even be that bad - just turn the Green/Purple line up through the soon to be sold HPD compound.

It won't happen but man would it be so grand and smart. Connect all the light rails and maybe even commuter rails down the line and it could be Houston's version of Penn Station someday.

None of my colleagues who would be likely users seem willing to give up their cars. Conceptually, it's a good idea, but I am somewhat skeptical about actual usage. I also don't trust Metro to build it with enough parking at the outlying stations. If the stations are hard to access, no one will use it.

Most of the suburban park and rides in the outlying suburbs have adequate parking, so I'm not sure why you think this would be any different. In addition, it's not like people would have to give up their cars entirely or have to utilize mass transit everyday, but it certainly would be a convenient option for some days. You're telling me you wouldn't want an additional hour or two every day on the train where you can work on stuff/stream videos/listen to music while relaxing instead of fighting traffic?

"You must be this* wealthy to go on the ROD ride

*1%

Perhaps for the clothing and condos, but a lot of the rental units and restaurants are going to have comparative prices to other surrounding areas.

Do you actually think anyone would use commuter rail?

I think locally around each stop it definitely would be used a lot, especially the further out you go. Ridership may potentially start out low overall but will definitely build with time, and will allow for the city to continue growing. As traffic gets worse in the coming decades, if there were no existing options, the traffic could potentially start affecting the quality of life enough to make residents and companies no longer want to be located here. These commuter rails will be the solution, if not absolutely 100% necessary today, they will be in the future.

When Cypress gets their HSR station at 290/Grand Parkway, then perhaps METRO could work out a deal to use the HSR line for commuter tracks?

I thought about that as well, but I could see a potential issue regarding sharing the track when the HSR line is coming through. Perhaps they could build out the commuter line on the same ROW space if there's enough room, although I can tell you right now that currently there's a bunch of areas where there wouldn't be room to add multiple (4) track lanes. I'm still confused how they're going to be able to widen it to 2 lanes for inbound and outbound traffic.

If there's any silver lining to the hempstead tollway being delayed half a decade or more, it's that maybe they'll put in a commuter rail in down the middle of it. Then again if Cypress does really get that HSR stop like some people are speculating, then this corridor would need a commuter line the least.

Yeah that's what I've gathered. I'm curious how far along they are in the report.

But, since we're here we might as well discuss the potential a GP/290 station will have on Cypress. The 'rents built a house in 2005 for $212k but was recently appraised at $306k. Imagine what this station will do to this area and surrounding demographics...

That's exactly what I was wondering about; my mom recently bought a house in Towne Lake and I'm curious what the effects might have on home values.