wilcal

Totally agreed that a Torchy's would have done very well. Asian missing in this area as well tbh. I'm not really seeing too many of the families that are going to Discovery Green venture over to eat at GRB, so any type of low cost option is better. Still hard to eat at Saltgrass for < $10. Torchy's or a fast food option would have given people that as a choice.

Re: that Galveston electric scooter sharing article. "People already treat the beaches bad enough, so seeing scooters lying around the streets would not be good either," Galveston resident Michael Ford said. "It's using public property to store your private property to showcase your private property," O'Neal said. "It's irresponsible, and its unsustainable." Nice to know that he's so progressive he is against parking cars on public streets. Should make it much safer to bike.

Saltgrass? Groannnn

Was passing by on the light rail just before Christmas and the top of the clock tower was done. I'm not fully convinced yet. Looks a bit strange. Like an apartment complex with a clock tower stuck on the corner.

Getting some donuts and kolaches this morning and there was active demo happening in the rain

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/amp/The-year-ahead-in-business-13496575.php?__twitter_impression=true Rice University is preparing to release more details on how it will help transform the former midtown Sears building into an innovation district. “We’re on track for a fourth-quarter 2020 opening,” said David Leebron, president of Rice University. “And that means 2019 is entirely the year of launch.” Rice will begin construction next year and unveil plans about the types of programming that could be offered to entrepreneurs, said Allison Thacker, president of the Rice Management Co. and Rice’s chief investment officer. “I think people are going to be stunned by what they see here,” Leebron said. “It takes a lot of imagination to take a building that was purposefully designed as a windowless facility so people would stay inside shopping, and transform it into a destination.” He’s envisioning a destination for startups and for those interested in learning about Houston’s innovation ecosystem.

I don't think Houston is a particularly naturally beautiful place. I think we've done a good job with what we have. Our defining water feature being Buffalo Bayou and effectively zero discernible elevation change doesn't create much drama in our terrain.

They want to do BRT between NW Transit Center and downtown. I think it would be tough to fit LRT on Washington.

I think the entire plan costs less than running a subway from downtown to the Galleria via Westheimer.

New signage for the Houston Bikeways went up near Saint Arnold in the last few days: https://twitter.com/JamesLLlamas/status/1073211750374408192 This section is being re-striped (to a wider range) and having curbs replaced and no parking signs installed along entire route. It's currently not illegal to park in a bike lane unless there is a corresponding no parking sign (rolleyes X infinity) They've made big strides with this project in the last few weeks. They're going to be doing Lyons from Jensen all of the way to McKee. Hardy and McKee will eventually have dedicated bike infrastructure to head into downtown.

Kind of torn on what I would like to see here. As long as it isn't turned into parking.

Definitely not enough room on Westheimer. Their "premier westheimer bus" is going to skip Westheimer in Montrose and utilize the 59 HOV and head into Greenspoint. Additionally, I wonder what BRT even looks like in some of these examples. I do agree that you dump Purple Line to Hobby extension. Utilize those funds to convert UH to Bellaire/Uptown transit to LRT. You can keep the outer bits as BRT.

I think that is why they scrapped extending the red line to Hobby. The green line averages between 17 and 19mph in the East End from my limited understanding. So lets say 18mph average (including time at stops of course) and that gives you an extra 21-22 minutes to extend green line to Hobby. That would put travel time from Hobby to the Convention Center/Discovery Green stop at under 40 minutes unless I'm missing something.

Heartbreaking still no LRT for University Line :/ I guess BRT will do. I have so so so many questions about the details of this revised plan and I feel like I don't have a good person to ask. In case anyone has any thoughts I'd love to hear them. 1) Should we be extending the red line north to a park and ride? I don't get that positioning. 2) The westheimer signature bus service. It doesn't appear to run on Westheimer the whole way. Where does that dogleg?

https://bikehouston.org/2018/04/20/the-build-50-challenge/

In terms of implementing the bike plan? I think that they don't want to commit any extra funding (more than the $1 mil and change annually) and are planning on using the normal schedule of road construction/replacement to implement more bike and pedestrian friendly infrastructure.

Honestly, it's been a drop in the bucket. The Patterson project is the first project to my knowledge that will actually use the $1.1 million in annual CIP funds that the city has allocated (in 2 years I guess?). Bagby project is mostly TIRZ funds I believe. The $10 million from the county and then forcing the city to start the associated projects by April has been genius. God bless Rodney Ellis. With that being said, it sounds like planning is having a hard time of getting it done even in that timeline. Real change will take time, but our urban core needs some radical redevelopment.

Link to the full presentation: http://www.downtowntirz.com/downtownhouston/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/181206_Bagby_Public-Open-House_Presentation.pdf

I made a post in the downtown master development thread about Babgy being redeveloped with off-street two-way dedicated bike lanes. This is a part of the Houston Bike Plan. Construction start summer 2019 completion Summer 2021. : https://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/32179-theater-district-master-plan/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-582387 I also made a post about a new bikeway that will be created on Patterson running from Buffalo Bayou to White Oak Bayou via Patterson Street. Combination of sharrows/on-street un-protected and on-street protected. Construction start 1Q19 completion 3Q19. Funding source is CIP Funds. https://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/44494-new-bikeway-to-be-created-on-patterson-in-rice-military/?tab=comments#comment-582095 Lyons avenue near Saint Arnold brewery currently having on-street painted bike lanes updated. New curbs in sections. Will head into downtown from there.

Trying to get a copy of the actual presentation, but a few of my pics will have to do. There were probably 10-20 regular citizens and 15-25 reps of associated companies (traffic, engineering, whatever). https://i.imgur.com/nSUJxOr.jpg First, they brought a 1:1 scale cross-section of Bagby so you could see just how wide each section is in relation to each other. Was actually pretty cool. There weren't a ton of the changes from the renderings earlier this year, but this was a big one: https://i.imgur.com/DnePycV.jpg Right above where it says library, there is a drive-through for a book drop. In the initial renderings, the bike lane was going to dogleg around the book drop, but now the driveway will cut through it and the sidewalk. I was.... befuddled as to how they can spend this much effort on reconfiguration but it was explained to me that the book drop links to an underground book processing area so it can't be moved. So that sucks big time. https://i.imgur.com/azuXxOF.jpg You can see how much the street will be reduced for cars. They ran the traffic numbers, and even projected traffic through 2040, and it was still fine. Shows how overdeveloped many of the streets are. https://i.imgur.com/IIg62lS.jpg Good cross-section of the eastern portion of Bagby. This will vary quite a bit as the street changes width. Underneath the bridge by Bayou Place, the street buffer is only a curb. As notated, the bike lane will be a full 12' wide including the buffers. They are using an octagonal tile that is aimed at riding on for the bike lane. The coloring is true to what they intend. I expressed concerns that there is enough delineation to keep pedestrians out of the bike track, but they expressed a desire to be able to utilize the space as more of a plaza during events. The original rendering had yellow stripes in the bike lanes, which I prefer. I also asked about utilizing elements that offered protection between the car lane and the bike lane, but they wanted to focus on more unobtrusive (shorter) offerings. They don't want anyone sitting on the planters that might be in the buffer zone. Updated timeline: https://i.imgur.com/9Q5Iw1V.jpg Pretty much the same as before. They said that they would have another meeting in the spring that would be between 90 and 100% plan completion.

I can't imagine that happening. Even if Terminal A were expanded a bit, I think that the current checkpoints that they have would be acceptable, they would just need to be fully utilized. I can't remember ever seeing all lanes open (especially south)

Well, is it really going to go? Sounds like only half of it is in the listing. Will be interesting to see if this gets redeveloped and how quickly.

YEESH. People are still going to have food delivered if the prices are that high.

I know this would never be apples to apples, but the Ivy Lofts project that didn't work out that used "micro units" was 550 units in 28 stories. The tower was only on half of the lot (other half was a parking deck). No idea on lot size differences.

Open House for the Bagby redesign happening on Thursday, December 6 1730-1900 Program begins at 1800 Julia Ideson Building Reading Room 550 McKinney St https://i.imgur.com/0OHhtRH.jpg Pretty sure I'm gonna go, so I'll report back to y'all what is said.