wilcal

Bagby Street Improvement update from the Downtown District Sept board meeting:

Blurb in the downtown district's Sept board book:

There's just no funding. These projects were from the $10 million in funding from Rodney Ellis and were supposed to be spent in a year and to maximize the amount of lanes built. Basically, paint and armadillos only.

I think issues with McGowen is the width of it in Midtown. I mean, we're talking about 2 blocks of sharrows to Columbia Tap. It's not exactly the sahara desert. There aren't any streets in the north side of the third that are wide enough all of the way to CT, with McGowen being too narrow in Midtown. In regards to what street to run downtown to Museum district, from my very limited understanding of what's happening behind the doors, powerful downtown groups, lets say some people near the intersection of Congress and Caroline, wanted it to be built on Austin. As far as the doglegs, that came from requests from Museum district stakeholders. Crawford is a great spot to enter the park area and they'll supposedly be adding a four-way stop there which is greatly needed.

*required parking garages. Well, were required until July 23 this past summer.

Have you seen this? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/figure/10.1080/03081060.2012.739311?scroll=top&needAccess=true Net property value went up, but immediate proximity to the stations was initially down. I think that's been likely mostly corrected since then with the new residential/mixed use development opening in the last 5 years since the article you linked was completed.

CoH. Submit a 311 request if there are maintenance issues. They didn't have any formal plan for regular maintenance before, but I would assume that they are moving that direction now.

Seen on /r/Houston: https://www.railwaygazette.com/news/texas-central-targets-financial-close-by-next-year/54617.article So that sounds good, but that also means no construction until at least the end of next year? Wasn't the final regulatory hurdle (short of the lawsuit) expected to clear in March? It was interesting to listen to the new Planet Money podcast about how there is a tremendous amount of money looking for investments out there. They explained that Germany (the nation) is currently taking in negative interest bonds because it's safer to loan them the money versus keep it locked up in a bank. Maybe it will be relatively easy to get a $20 billion investment.

Unfortunately, Polk is going to have a gap between Columbia Tap an downtown, right near Emancipation due to some longish term construction. And yeah, have no idea what the hell they are gonna due about Montrose. The initial projected plan for West Alabama had it being converted back to two lines and adding a bi-directional bikeway a la Gray on it. You're a brave person for biking on Westheimer. Never worth it. Sidestreets are too convenient in that area, but none are great replacements. Hawthorne a pretty good option in particular.

It's gonna be so good! We still need a north/south on the western edge of Midtown and and East/West in the middle of Midtown, but the combo of Austin/Gray will make it much easier to get around. Blodgett is going to get protected from 59 all of the way to Cullen and Cleburne is gonna get protected from LaBranch to TSU.

I was told it would be going all of the way to Bagby. We'll have everything but the bike traffic lights soon enough. http://houstonbikeplan.org/implementation/infrastructure/gray-street/

It's a shame they can't do a tag-on flight like AIr China is doing with Panama City. I'm not exactly sure where else a market would exist. For 20 hours you could do just about anything though. Wasn't this flight previously doing LAX? Just add a IAH-LAX RT built in.

It said on the Westchase District website that all infrastructure improvement had to be approved by the CoH, so that would make sense if it was on the bike plan. Segment is kind of a no-brainer imho especially if they can get it to connect to the other trails in the area. There was another pic on the Westchase District website which shows a much different bike lane implementation, too:

5' width sidewalks are the minimum. 6' if they are on the curb face. The restrictions generally aren't for able-bodied people like the gentleman pictured, but those with disabilities. It's generally not possible to walk side-by-side with someone on 4' width so one person tends to walk in the street when walking in pairs. PS: Sidewalks aren't that expensive. HPW does them for about $40/sq. ft. The Westchase District effectively operates like a TIRZ where local businesses are the ones paying for these projects. The funds aren't coming from the CoH budget. Sidewalks are generally the responsibility of the landowners, so by all means ask your neighbors to put them in. You're in the Midtown TIRZ, so you could ask them to pay for it. If it has as much foot traffic as the street with hundreds of apartments and several active bus stops, it probably should be completed as well.

Well now y'all are getting me excited. Although no one tell Vinny's I may start cheating on them. They're new revised pepperoni is sooo goood

There's a guy in the Reddit thread that claims to be the rail system director for the project, so I asked him some questions. There's no proof of course, so take it with a grain of salt. I asked how JR Central is involved. He said: I asked who else is in the Japanese consortium and if JRC were funding. He replied: So, there might be some answers. That's more info on funding than I've ever seen reported.

If they are being rebuilt, then they're supposed to be built to modern standards. Also, almost the entire stretch of road are apartments and condos and there is a strip center on the north end of where the trail/reconstructed sidewalks are going to be. There are also a bunch of sections that have no sidewalk on one side of the street at all. I went on Google Street view and there's a pedestrian passing through one of those sections here:

Looks like they're only 4' wide, which is below current design standards.

From my understanding, the loans are from the Japanese government and are in a similar style as the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which is primarily used to buy Boeing Airplanes. The Japanese government would like to continue to export this technology, and they use these organizational loans to make it happen: http://www.join-future.co.jp/english/our-mission/purpose.html

The $300 mil from Japan was structured as a loan, but again, that's for planning and not construction. Whether it's a good investment is a whole different can of worms! I'm assuming that you are asking how I know that JR Central isn't the actual owner? Or providing funding? I don't know that. I was replying to Cougarpad who claimed that Texas Central had plenty of financial backing for construction and I was pointing out that there is no public proof unless I'm missing something tremendous. Cougarpad is also implying that one of the Japanese companies involved are the ones building this line and again, that isn't public info and would be news to the general public that a Japanese company is a part owner.

I think this is 1000000% fair, and of course you would never be expected to have all funds in place at the beginning of a 5ish year build. And you're right, they do have the right to a veil of secrecy. I guess we'll find out for sure in March when the environmental study is done and they can start construction. They've made a pretty big deal about the previous loans they received, and I would assume that they would want to trumpet any other significant investment. Imho, if their strategy is to wait, that would be a bold play. It's my understanding that the information is not public, but I do not know for certain.

Texas Central Partners, LLC.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/transportation/2019/09/17/346078/west-houston-street-project-includes-new-amenities-for-pedestrians-and-cyclists/

If they do beer/wine only with a BC license, then they can just let people take it to go and eat/drink wherever they want and have the complex put some tables up out there. That would be great. But also, no patio on that site plan?

Probably not. Landlord applied for patio space for Brass Tap and they A) didn't finish the permitting process for it and B ) didn't pay the fee (I think Brass Taps is like $1,400/year) to use the city ROW. I pointed this out to the city and they weren't penalized for what it's worth. They also made the sidewalk not ADA accessible because of the trees that were planted alongside. They were able to get city permission because they had custom grates installed for the tree planters, but they are trash and are just metal grates set on top of gravel, so they don't stay level. I also don't think that the required width is provided even after the grates are added, but it's within an inch or two so they likely let them slide instead of tearing down the patio or tearing out a tree. I don't see a way logistically for them to put in a patio in front of the other space unless they put it in the trees, which is what they should have done for Brass Tap as well