wilcal

Nowhere else to really post this, but the city has added a four-way stop to Bagby @ Pierce street. This is a big improvement as there were many pedestrians trying to cross who were not heeded the right of way and some cars traveling down Pierce St were having difficulties getting across.

Snapped a pic while grabbing some totally healthy breakfast next door:

Or even painted crosswalks at the intersections without lights. There is so much pedestrian activity here that there should be HAWK signals as well.

I was told by CoH planners that bike lane was set to be two-way on Austin specifically because the construction on Caroline would be taking so long. They would be interested in splitting in between the two roads in the future. Would be relatively easy to convert a two-way bike lane into a single-way with a strong buffer. With that being said, a 5' bike lane sucks. No buffer (typically 3') is not great, but it looks like the restriction is mostly the southernmost part. Also dumb to do the bike lane between on-street parking and driving lanes

He was actually parked there, but I believe they were part of the crew putting the finishing touches on construction. It's a Memorial Heights Redevelopment Authority (TIRZ) project. A recent update PDF from Jones Carter They have some coverage on their site here And they actually link to my blog post about it here

BCycle has still not launched their pilot program. They told me that they are putting a more rigorous GPS tracking system on the bikes. More and more I think that the actual end solution will be the sit-down styled electric bikes. They look like this: They're much more stable/better for older folks/etc. Would love to have them here.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/Pearl-Marketplace-opens-in-Midtown-Whole-Foods-13968634.php?utm_campaign=CMS Sharing Tools (Premium)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral It appears it did open today.

I know this is ultra trivial, but it's just 787-8, not -800. Like mini nails on a chalkboard for me (for no real reason). Also, I want to fly on that Ethiopian flight REAL BAD

Pretty sure TxDOT highway funding is under 40% from gas tax/registrations. I did research on it awhile back but can't find it.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/WhyHotels-to-open-pop-up-location-in-Camden-s-13914727.php Looks like you'll get the opportunity to stay there for a night without having to rely on AirBNB WhyHotel, a temporary housing company that partners with residential developers to offer short-term stays in vacant units of newly developed buildings, has struck a deal with Camden Property Trust to turn 100 apartments in a new downtown tower into essentially hotel suites. The Washington D.C.-based company will lease the units from Camden in its new 21-story, 271-unit apartment building now under construction near the Toyota Center and the George R. Brown Convention Center at 1515 Austin. The company refers to it new location as a pop-up hotel, since it will operate for a limited time. It will begin accepting its first guests late this year, with the local operation running through late 2020. (more in link)

Houston @ White Oak got green paint and armadillos Saturday morning, completing the project right there. Looks great!

Houston BCycle just announced an ebike pilot program for June and July. Only 4 bikes though 😕

No low hanging fruit. Airfares are very low, so there has to be high biz class demand, and a lot of that from Houston is very localized due to O&G only going certain places. You'd think we could see UA start IAH-HKG on a 789, but UA won't even bring back IAH-CDG which supposedly has a way bigger market.

Wooooow! That looks great! A 1 block Columbia Tap connector was put in on Bastrop St from BBVA Compass Stadium (behind me in this pic) to the start of the trail.

I would imagine it would be both. Not sure I see a benefit to one stopping and not continuing.

Just went and looked at the bars and restaurants along Washington which would be affected: (I'm assuming that the stop at Heights will stop just short of the intersection) Star Pizza Urban Eats Sonic Hughes Manor Shell Shack Catalina Coffee Liberty Station Henderson Heights Pub Julep Kubo's Sushi Tacodeli Platypus Brewing Gus' Fried Chicken B&B Butchers BB Lemon I mean, that's not that many IMHO. And several of those are destination places that people are making a trip for.

Not sure if serious. Maybe Metro strategically left this out of the plan until this final revision so that they only have one month to rally the troops. Edit: really most of the clubs/bars are west of where the proposed line would end. There's only a small handful that would be affected.

Memorial is a thing, too, of course. My gut says the rush hour traffic on Westheimer is not for people living in Wesheimer corridor, but people going to the Heights from downtown or people just avoiding traffic on I-10. Washington itself is way under utilized outside of rush hour. They talked about it at the Patterson bike lane meeting. Many locals wanted a light at Patterson@Washington, but they said that while traffic needs justified it just at peak rush hour, the rest of the day wasn't close. Washington should have been steered to something closer to lower Westheimer reconstruction plans, anyway. One lane of traffic each way and street parking/pull-in bus stops. I think with light rail, there likely isn't any room for street parking. I guess what I'm up on my soap box for on this post is that Washington Ave shouldn't be a commuter street, it should be a street to support the Washington neighborhood. I don't think the extra driving lanes will benefit them more than LRT. Also, just saw that the last stop would be 2ish blocks from a Walmart. I'm kind of here for the big/weird stuff that people will start carrying on the train.

Dug Begley reporting that at the Metro Board Meeting today that the Green/Purple line would be extended west to Washington@Heights Blvd Hell, at this point, just continue it up some combo of Shepherd/Durham into the Heights. They need to be redesigned anyway and be suject to a road diet.

I believe this was a project presented to HGAC by Houston TxDOT and it received funding for the FY2022. Link to full PDF of projects: http://www.h-gac.com/2018-call-for-projects/documents/2018-call-for-project-tpc-rankings.pdf It was ranked #13.

He reported that the Lime rep rode it from the Galleria area to downtown (on twitter, not in his article)

http://www.ourtribune.com/headlines/21985-controversial-high-rise-project-in-kingwood-may-die.html “The Army Corps of Engineers pulled and withdrew the permit of Romerica. They [Romerica] could not answer all of the questions that were posed by various groups within the 30-day time frame they had to reply within the statutes,” he said. Romerica requested an extension and suspension of the terms of the permit application process, Rehak said, but the Corps denied the request and pulled the application. He noted that Romerica can reapply at some future date when they work out all the details and submit all the information they are supposed to provide. The application was withdrawn without prejudice.

Talked with the Downtown District's Director of Planning and she said that they are still working through 90% documents to get to the city and have no determined a first start date or construction length 😕 The original presentation from December started a June start date, and this article says fall. She said a few issues with infrastructure upgrades and phasing sequence with the city. Their original timeline was: Feb 2019 90% plan submission. April 2019 100% plan submission May 2019 Contractor Procurement June 2019-21 Construction So if they are still working on 90% plan submission, then that's at least 2 months behind which does lean towards a fall start as reported in March.

Managed to talk to someone who talked to the rep. Lime is just waiting on "the city to get their $!#@ together". Evidently they want to do painted boxes in the city ROW for scooter parking.

Anyone talk to the Lime rep(s) at the Houston Bike Summit this weekend? Evidently they were showing off their newest scooter with 10" wheels and a front suspension. No official announcement of course or we would have seen it.