curbur

It'll eventually be redone when the density and transit use demands it, albeit it will be extremely costly.

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

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.

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.

Doubtful for this area, but I'm really hoping Houston starts getting a lot more condos in the $250-$300k range somewhere within or just outside of 610. All the ones I look at now that are decent are $400k and higher :/.

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!

Well I really appreciate all the helpful information, especially without any arrogance to my ignorance of being in the know on this stuff or knowing how to obtain information. I studied computer science, but I kinda really wish I had gone into urban planning or civil engineering or architecture instead because it all fascinates me to no end. The elevated viaducts definitely wipes away my chief concern of continued car traffic mobility, and residents could live with that being built out. I also like that there's at least a plan in place for commuter rail with METRO after beltway 8 since the hempstead ROW ends there and HSR will have to start using some of the UPRR ROW at that point until it curves northward at Hockley. I'm sure METRO would take forever to do so if it doesn't somehow get piggy backed onto this project, but as long as there is right of way to make it happen in the future then cool. I guess the biggest loss then is the fact that the hempstead ROW will probably not be able to be used in order to build an elevated tollway. I was really looking forward to laughing at all the people stuck on 290 on a newly elevated hempstead tollway, granted I'd probably be pushing 40-50 at that point.

I'd love to take a look at that if anyone has it offhand.

It certainly is NIMBYism and I never said it wasn't, but I personally think there's a stark difference when you're being NIMBY in regards to one or two suburban neighborhoods vs an entire set of bedroom communities/suburbs, and I also think there's a difference of being NIMBY between when one is discussing an impact involving minor aesthetic, noise, or pollution issues and entirely another when we're talking about the impact a project has on traffic mobility for a rapidly growing part of the 4th largest city in the U.S. Do you understand how backed up some of these roads get during rush hour? Now imagine if half of them were all of a sudden cut off and did not go across 290 and rail line to connect with their southern portions? The remaining roads that do connect, primarily strung with large residential neighborhoods and a few small strip malls will become a logistical nightmare, and that's a generous assessment because in a lot of ways they already are now. Is it really just NIMBY concerns when we're talking several thousands of people could be impacted negatively? Look, I'm not saying the train shouldn't be built, it was an eventuality that was going to happen sooner or later anyways. With that being said, I have to believe there's another solution that could be made that helps accommodate leaving some ROW for commuter rail or integrating it into the existing HSR line by adding one or two infrequently visited stops along 290 on the way in, and there also needs to be some forward thinking when it comes to all the crossings existing or planned running south to north up from I-10 to 290. I figure the more I can point it out and try and get others to address it with HSR like I am attempting to do, then the better the chance I hope that they will try and accommodate those matters. Lastly, I completely understand why these types of complaints would be a relatively unpopular opinion on an architecture and city planning forum.

I could see where it could work for Fry rd or Huffmeister in those examples, however, I still don't see how it would be possible for Telge, West, or Eldridge, but I'd gladly stand corrected if they can make it feasible. In regards to that aspect, my only concern is that they connect across still, so if they can manage that anyway possible then it will be acceptable for those communities. As for the latter point, I'm well aware TCR could give a flying f*ck about commuter rail for Cypress or what the impacts of not having it might be long-term, that's why I'm trying to point it out. I currently live in town, but grew up in Cypress and have a lot of family and friends there, and I just don't want to see them get screwed in the name of progress for the city as a whole. Potentially cutting off even some of these arterial roadways and possibly preventing future ones or commuter rail from being built will have a very tangible long-term negative effect on traffic in an area of town that is quickly becoming too populated already. I fear city and county officials are also going to be willing to screw over a few bedroom communities along 290 (if necessary for the project's completion) in order to better provide for the city as a whole.

Where is that Cypress station mentioned again in the most recent announcement? You can argue that I'm overreacting and you can argue that regardless of what happens to Cypress, there may be greater good for Houston as a whole to have this project. What I haven't seen anyone shed light on when I ask is how the following situations be handled given the current alignment: 1. How will HSR build roadway overpasses high enough over the corridor ROW that can also depress back down to it's original elevation where it crosses under 290 just a block away? HSR has claimed that overpasses will likely need to be built for roadway crossings, given that reinforcing an underpass would be much more expensive and prone to more issues, yet several of the crossings involve roads that cross under 290 a very short distance afterwards, like here or here or here or here even here at huffmeister when you consider the length needed to build the overpass for hwy 6 visible just south of it. This isn't even mentioning all the future necessary crossings that will have to take place as the land around grand parkway gets built out. Just looking here, you can see that greenhouse will need to cross when it eventually connects with Skinner, same as Mason rd. when it gets extended up from Katy to where it terminates in Fairfield, same as Katy-Hockley rd., and many other arterial roads I can't think of off the top of my head. I know that they are very open to considerations but I somehow doubt the willingness of HSR and/or Harris or Waller county to fund all these necessary overpasses, if they are even feasible given the close proximity between the rail corridor and 290. *Even if an underpass proves to be more feasible than assumed, a lot of those intersections are still not feasible given the tight amount of space. 2. Where will the ROW be for future commuter rail out from Cypress into town? That may seem like a far cry of a necessity now, but one day it will undoubtedly be needed to service all major suburbs in town. This was the only continuous existing rail corridor that goes parallel from 290 into Houston. This could have an even greater long-term negative impact on the Cypress area if other communities like Sugarland, Katy, The Woodlands, Champions/Tomball/Spring, Kingwood, etc. eventually do get their own commuter rail lines off existing nearby rail corridors that go towards the inner loop.

It's the smug-ish shrub-ish zone?

Do they mean the bayou as it passes around the east side of town? Otherwise, I'm pretty sure Shepherd and the bayou are perpendicular.

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

You got a problem with my Audi?

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

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.

Yes, but considering the population epicenter shift of the metro continues to slide westward and fast, one could assume that in 15-20 years that there will be decent ridership at the 290@99 juncture for picking up passengers along the way. Secondly, the only feasible ROW for what would connect Cypress to Houston via some sort of commuter rail someday will now be used by this train; that's the main rub for me personally, they're utilizing the ROW that Cypress would need to be connected to Houston's mass transit and not providing a stop along the way for those residents. If someone has to drive all the way out from there to 290@bw8, there's much less of a chance that they will try and utilize the line for the last few miles of it. There's not a whole lot of residential at 290@bw8 outside of the NE corner in Jersey Village.

Boo to not having one near 99; like I said before when you told me I was overreacting, this train will add no direct benefit to Cypress :/.

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).

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.

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.