wilcal

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

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This capital project has been in design since May 2018 with 90% construction documents submitted to Houston Public Works (HPW) on July 26, 2019 and City-comments returned August 17, 2019. Staff has conducted client-review of the documents throughout August and provided final comments to consultant on September 3, 2019. Oneon-one stakeholder meetings were held during late August with the Aquarium, Bayou Place, Hobby Center, and the City team for City Hall sidewalk restoration. A final Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC) meeting will be held September 19, 2019. Permitting and contractor procurement will be conducted from September 19 through November 12, 2019, pending Authority Board acceptance of the bids and authorization of the general contractor’s agreement. Bagby Street reconstruction is currently estimated at two years in duration, with estimated start date of January 6, 2020 following the holidays.

Blurb in the downtown district's Sept board book:

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Downtown’s residential submarket continues to have a strong occupancy rate of 90.5%, up 30 basis points over July and monthly rents increased $0.28-SF to $2.31-SF per month, outpacing the Houston regional average of $1.29-SF. There are currently three residential properties under construction containing 873 units, the first expected to be completed is the Camden Downtown (271 units), located at 1515 Austin and scheduled for delivery in April 2020

19 minutes ago, cspwal said:

 

And the bikeway planning people probably weren't allowed to propose street widening - the ROW is wide enough there but it would require a complete redo of the street

 

 

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. 

37 minutes ago, Texasota said:

Why not both (.gif)? Gray and McGowen are far enough part for both to be useful.

21 minutes ago, cspwal said:

Probably because the bikeways project didn't want to interfere with plans from Metro.  Or they were "asked" to not affect high frequency buses

I think issues with McGowen is the width of it in Midtown.

2 hours ago, samagon said:

 

I don't disagree with the lack of connection, that is beyond silly.

 

as far as who is paying, everyone in the city is sharing that burden, so the service is more than just a 3rd ward service.

 

anyway, I am overall happy, but very disappointed with the choice of road that doesn't connect to the columbia tap trail.

 

I have similar feedback regarding the choice to put the bike path on 3 different streets from downtown to the museums. caroline would have been a great choice (it carries a great size) rather than austin, and others.

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. 

2 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

Then I rest my case. Midtown is filled with properties with mega parking garages. 

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

4 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

That's false. Whatever our opinions about the bond vote, lets try to stay in reality.

 

Analysis of parcel-level land-use data from 2005–2014 revealed a spike in commercial development along the original light rail corridor, approximately 4 to 10 years after its opening. Land-use development along the newer light rail corridors was more modest and not considerably different than the control corridors. Small changes in the levels of high-density residential housing and land-use mix near light rail stations indicated that efforts to encourage transit-oriented development have not yet had much effect.

Source: https://www.jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/926/885

 

Do you have any proof that light rail has proven to be a major catalyst for development (other than Metro's own biased opinions)? 

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. 

1 hour ago, cspwal said:

So once these bike lanes are done, who is in charge of maintaining them?  Is it a CoH task, or someone else?  I ask because I use some of the older bike lanes and paths, and they need some work.  Like the Holly Hall bike path from 288 to NRG has a couple of nasty bumps in it, only has pedestrian signals that are shorter than the cars' green lights, and ends up just dumping you at the train station with no bike racks.

 

Also, Yellowstone has a "bike lane" but it is so faded, and the shoulder is so deteriorated, that there's basically no bike lane for a good stretch of it

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

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Houston high speed project promoter Texas Central says it is optimistic of securing financial close by the end of next year, which would enable construction to begin.

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. 

1 hour ago, X.R. said:

 

Wow at Blodgett and Cleburne. I made the comment that they are using certain areas as test sites for this type of infrastructure, and I still think thats true to an extent. So much of it is coming out of third ward (and for good reason, alot of people use bikes in third ward). Both streets you mentioned are very wide, and actually pretty empty usually. Currently, they make for pretty pleasant street biking already, so protected lanes would be really over the top, in a good way. 

 

I'm assuming they want people to take Cleburne/Blodgett to the Columbia Tap, and then to the eventually completed Polk to get to East Downtown if they want to go enjoy themselves. At that point, yes you need something on the West side of Midtown to easily transport someone from East DT/Thirdwar to Downtown to Midtown by the bars. If thats the case, you basically have all areas covered except for Montrose, which is fairly, very glaring. I actually had some people give us shit for an early morning ride ( 4 of us staying on the bumpy, crappy portion of Westheimer closest to the curb) around 10 am in Montrose last weekend. A car with two couples honked at us, pulled into the side lane, all of which was fine with us until they then rolled down their window to yell at us at the light to stay on the sidewalk. 

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. 

Just now, X.R. said:

Wait, so Grey could potentially take you from 3rd Ward/Eastern Downtown and drop you at Montrose's doorstep? I did not realize. That would be kind of a game changer, because as much as I love hanging in Montrose its kind of a pain in the ass to get there on bike from Midtown/Downtown. I would appreciate some protected lane somewhere in Montrose, and maybe across Allen Parkway, one can hope.

 

Also, yeah, don't look at bikehouston, their website is pretty routinely behind, in terms of information, HoustonBikePlan.  

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. 

3 hours ago, BeerNut said:

I'm confused.  I though bike route on Gray was supposed to go to Brazos but currently as built it only goes to Caroline.  Even the map on bikehouston shows it only going to Caroline.

https://bikehouston.org/2018/08/02/the-build-50-challenge-interactive-map/

 

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/

On 9/14/2019 at 9:04 PM, 102IAHexpress said:

 

That's a fair point. It's rare to sit that long, but it's been done by established airlines too. Japan Airlines’ flight between NRT and BOS has a ground time of approximately 19.5 hours in BOS before returning to NRT for better connectivity to banks. It's fair to be cautious. We will see. Personally I have never flown Ethopian but I have heard good things. Not excellent like the ME3 carriers or one of the Far East Asian Carriers, but -good-. Young fleet, commitment to safety, well managed. It would be helpful if United did a codeshare with them, but I'm not sure if that is in the works or not? Probably not, since United prefers to feed Africa flights via FRA. Anyways, I hope it works out at IAH! 

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.

24 minutes ago, august948 said:

The bike lanes on Walnut Bend are part of the Houston Bike Plan.  Redoing the street to "whole street" standards is icing on the cake.  The Westchase District has been stepping up in recent years to get bike trails and other improvements done in this part of town.

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: 

3 minutes ago, Toopicky said:

 

By all means, put in a sidewalk if one doesn't exist, but he hardly needs one more than a 4' wide, and the expense of what is shown above along the whole street isn't justifiable. The city cannot afford to waste taxpayer money on things like this when we are so deep in debt.

 

(BTW, I have a missing section across the street from my house in the Museum District that gets a lot more foot traffic .... why not call your buddies at CoH and tell them to get that put in too (with all the expensive touches)?

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:

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JR Central are part of the Japanese consortium, they will have specific responsibility for ensuring the maintenance and operations rules are correctly used (via JRCs US subsidiary) and for the integration of the core systems , including all dynamic integrated testing, where Rail, Train and Control systems are brought together.

In some ways very similar to the role they have during the construction of a new or upgraded JR line.

I asked who else is in the Japanese consortium and if JRC were funding. He replied:

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Train is by Hitachi (same as the N700s manufacturer in Japan) , we are taking the basic N700s design and modifying for the Texas environment.

JRC are not funding , I'm not part of that process but I understand it's a mix of Texas investors , Banks (overseas and domestic) and other debt or equity providers.

So, there might be some answers. That's more info on funding than I've ever seen reported. 

Just now, Toopicky said:

 

Yes, but so are most sidewaks in Houston. My point is that pedestrian traffic on Walnut Bend is almost nil .... why throw a ball if there is no dog to chase it?

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: 

1 hour ago, Toopicky said:

I get the bike lanes, but why in heck do they need wider sidewalks? I just don't get it

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

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

 

I'm pretty sure they do and was stipulation for the initial funding. They would be idiots if they didn't. Putting that kind of skin into the game early is risky and asking for partial ownership or ownership stakes is one way to insure the project will be successful.

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

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

 

Its not even bold...its literally everyday business practices haha.

 

Now if they were getting Bonds, Loans, and Taxes for this job then you bet they better reveal that and they would, but they haven't taken anything from those three thus far and so they don't have to disclose anything. Again its weird and gets into the realm of conspiracies for some because its an infrastructure job which normally is funded via the prior three stated, and so the intention by many is to ask...where where is the money  you said this project needs, but its not a public project and so they don't need to disclose that info or even have that funding right away.

 

I even mentioned before that in 2015 I still thought this was a pipe dream. Now imagine what investors might have thought. I'm sure investors thought the same for private space companies in the beginning as well. Now its getting more likely this will happen by the day, and if they have everything approved and say they are ready to build then, if I had money, I would invest in something like this. This is a 6 year long job with potential for return over 25 years. That is the best possible investment in regards to real estate and construction. They just have to get there first and its clear that is their aim.

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!

1 hour ago, Houston19514 said:

 

So, it's possible that JR Central or other Japanese entities are the owners or at least partial owners of Texas Central.  I'm curious how how know that JR Central is not providing any construction funding.

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. 

2 minutes ago, Luminare said:

 

As someone who is in the industry this is very typical and not out of the norm from a private side standpoint. Its atypical in regards to infrastructure because normally the government are the ones involved in order to get projects fully approved and begun in the first place they have to have all the funding all in one go, and typically they will only get it from a few sources. Normally this is through bonds, loans, or taxes (or all of the above). They also have to do this because they are beholden by the public to make sure that the money they get (which is typically from tax payers in some form) goes to the right place and is allocated correctly. A private company does not have to do this, and in a normal construction project they can begin the process, either with all funds available or by gathering funds as they go along. It really is a pay as you go process. I've actually been part of a project that is going to be 100% funded by donations, but even now it isn't fully funded yet, but the funds which have been collected have been used to start the process, develop drawings, work with consultants, and get various permits approved etc... The only money they still need is the necessary funds to begin construction and that is being collected right now. Your jobs on the residential side, especially single family homes, in which a family goes to an architect to design a home, is done in the same fashion. Again this is only atypical because this is infrastructure and projects in that arena, typically done by the government, are done in lump sums or all at once, but that is because they are legally bound to do so, and to make sure they are not overspending or going overbudget and anger the public, have to do so. Everything here from an industry insider checks out as far as the money that they have appropriated to get the process going thus far. A project this massive that gets through all the hops and loops to get to the point of construction will ring bells immediately to many investors to invest in a project like this because a project that can get to that point is a project that will work. No investor is going to immediately fork over billions of dollars for a project that isn't there yet. This one isn't there yet, but a project with the Final Environment Study, various regulations needed, land aquired necessary to start, designs on the boards, and team on board...will be ready for that kind of investment.

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. 

2 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Yes, and who owns Texas Central Partners, LLC?

It's my understanding that the information is not public, but I do not know for certain. 

29 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Who owns Texas Central?

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/

1 minute ago, phillip_white said:

Having the patio being under the trees would be cool, but the trees aren't big enough yet and I'm not sure if that would be in compliance with TABC rules regarding a controlled perimeter for alcohol.

 

I was basing my original comment off of their previous site plan:

https://imgur.com/H2bu1hY

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?

54 minutes ago, phillip_white said:

 

 I think that location had patio space included, which would be fitting for Home Slice.

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