cspwal

10 hours ago, august948 said:

 

Judging from traffic and random visits to stores around town it seems like crowds are getting somewhat back to normal.  And everyone I see is wearing a mask.  Who are all these maskless people I hear politicians constantly complaining about?

The only maskless person I saw on my Monday afternoon run to the Galleria was a guy working at some sort of fresh fruit cutting stand

I think the fact that it's the only new condo building in downtown, combined with competition in that price range with east downtown and midtown, make for relatively overpriced condos for the market, but the correct price for the build cost of the building.  Probably would need a few years and some more condo competition for them to sell

21 hours ago, Triton said:

 

Yea 288 makes travelling a lot quicker now. It seriously bypasses a lot of the traffic during peak rush hour but you're definitely going to pay for it.

The only dangerous point I see so far is at 288 to the Chenevert St ramp near downtown. I've seen several wrecks almost occur there. If someone wants to get to that exit, they have to do it very very quickly across multiple lanes if they didn't take the 59 exit (from the toll lanes) earlier.

Both times I've taken the lanes into downtown, I had to just take 45 to Scott, since that exit is WAY too close to get to safely 

Even if they got rid of the transit center, that's a pretty major node in the bus network, so there would still be a lot of bus stops and busses.  Right now, 2 frequent bus routes, the quickline bus, and 2 normal routes all cross there, and none of them are really going out of the their way.  You wouldn't want the Bissonet or Bellaire BLVD busses (the two frequent routes) to go to the west park TC, and from pre-pandemic anecdotal observations, both of those routes are busy

12 hours ago, JLWM8609 said:

To be fair, there were a lot of rural landowners who were opposed to the failed, quarter mile wide Trans Texas Corridor that included two separate highways within its ROW (one for cars and one for trucks).

I think a lot of the current opposition is from that original design, where it would be taking a lot more land

You can have express trains and local trains on the same line; the counties are large enough that you can have acceleration space for the locals between each station so they don't slow down the express trains, and you can also put in points in the track for passing.

And I was thinking of a TCR branded shuttle service, where you pay TCR the same price as parking at IAH for that time period, and park at the rural station, and you would get a train ride to the station, with a shuttle to bring you to the airport, with your bags transferred from the train to shuttle.  It could be run as a loss leader to get people used to riding the train into town, or run to make a profit

The two projects are both large infrastructure, with about the same price tag, but the similarities break down after that.

The I-45 expansion is going to be 100% government funded, built, and maintained.  It's construction impact will be entirely in one part of the Houston (downtown & north Houston), while the benefits will be mostly for those who want to get from north-northwest Houston area to downtown and back.  It will displace about a 1000 people from their current homes, as well as businesses and other organization.  That being said, it might be justified to as 45-North is one of the spines of Houston.

Texas Central Rail is primarily privately funded; the land has to be paid for by a private company (even if acquired through eminent domain), the construction won't start unless they raise the capital the need, and it will be run and maintained by the private company to make money. The government will only pay for administrative and regulatory stuff that the government itself is imposing, as well as TxDot will rebuild road crossings where the line will cross.  So right there, the big $40 billion price tag is not on us (the public) but on the private investors who think they can make money.  

Additionally, the 1000 parcels that they need to acquire aren't 1000 homes - they're pieces of land that is used for farming and such right now.  It will definitely not be available to farm, but losing an acre of crop space is very different from losing your home.  And the land would be an easement, only for RR use - if they can't raise their $40B, then it stays farmland.  Finally, even a HSR is going to be much narrower than a freeway - it's about the width of a two-lane highway, which is narrower than the amount 45 is going to be expanded.

And since the train is going from Houston - Dallas, it's primarily for everyone in Houston & Dallas who would want to travel to the other place.  That's the only thing they could add - local stops in the counties, advertising a quick, seamless connection to DFW or IAH to the people who have to drive hours right now to fly anywhere.

There's more homes that will be demolished (~1000) than parcels of land that Texas Central still needs to acquire (~900)

I don't understand why Texas Central doesn't even try to placate them with small stations in each county; you can have local trains that stop there, but still have express trains that make the 90 minute trip between Houston & Dallas

15 hours ago, houstontexasjack said:

That bicyclist in the bottom rendering looks uncomfortable.

His seat is adjusted too low, and the bike itself looks like it might be too small 

You can see the old facade starting to emerge in the new pictures

They should paint the columns white and just make it match the MFAH facade

Living next to a straight train line with no immediate at grade crossings isn't too bad.  If it was curved though, that's pretty bad.

College apartment faced a curved train track on a mainline, and that's when I bought my first pair of noise canceling headphones

What about the corner with the Chase Bank?  Wasn't that going to be redeveloped?

The city council approved a plan to temporarily close off main street between Commerce and Rusk for use as outdoor seating for the restaurants and bars on main street.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/Houston-OKs-plan-to-let-downtown-bars-15736736.php

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City Council on Wednesday approved, after some delay, plans for the More Space Main Street program which would close the road to automobiles and allow bars and restaurants to create outdoor seating spaces in the street.

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The program, which city officials approved as a pilot until March 2022, includes possibly closing Main downtown from Commerce to Rusk, depending on which businesses seek to participate. 

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Barriers would be placed to close Main Street off to traffic, while allowing cross streets to continue for vehicle use.

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Aimed at helping the bars and restaurants weather the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the plan to close Main builds on the More Space program Houston’s planning department created to allow restaurants to use their parking lots to provide al fresco dining.

Here's the relative agenda item: https://houston.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/CoverSheet.aspx?ItemID=21005&MeetingID=453

Also the high line is a lot narrower, so doesn't impact the surface level environment as much as an elevated highway

Saw this on twitter - the groundbreaking was today on a new development.  The website https://www.grandparksquarehtx.com/ seems to be light on details of the development, but it looks like 2-story townhouses.  

Some more information on another website 

https://forwardtimes.com/local-houston-developers-present-groundbreaking-event-to-launch-grand-park-square-located-in-houstons-greater-ost-south-union-area/

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Young Black entrepreneurs will invest in this new urban planned development to reenergize the historic neighborhood and its residents Houston

A groundbreaking event to commemorate the beginning of a new 16 single-family home urban planned community in Houston’s Greater OST/South Union area will be held on November 14th, 2020, which will be the first in its zip code in over 10 years.

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Grand Park Square will include modern homes that are attractively priced. Keeping homes within this development at an attractive price is essential to the cause of empowering South Union. The development will be created with community members in mind, ensuring the integrity of OST/South Union will be maintained.

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“Grand Park Square is the first urban planned community and our goal is to recreate the suburban home buying experience in an urban setting,” says Junious of the development.

The ground breaking appears to have been at 4630 Ward st; I can't tell what the extent of the development will be though.

I would hate to be trying to raise capital for anything that depended on lots of people in one spot

I think the "TH" was damaged - when they revealed it last week, it had a full "THE" but was shortly became "E", so I'm thinking they will probably make some EIFS TH to match the rest of the letters

A sword??

When I passed by this morning, it looked like some of the bricks might have been chipped at?  I don't know if twas already like that, or if they are going to remove those bricked up sections

I wonder why they tore it down if it was just going sit vacant

The bicycle laws do address cyclists riding 2 abreast in a lane

https://transport.tamu.edu/Alternative/bicycles/statelaw.aspx

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8. Persons operating bicycles on a roadway may ride two abreast.  Persons riding two abreast on a laned roadway shall ride in a single lane.  Persons riding two abreast may not impede the normal and reasonable flow of traffic on the roadway.  

You could argue either way on whether road cyclists (who tend to go a decent clip) riding 2 abreast in the right hand lane of a two lane section of road are impeding the normal and reasonable flow of traffic.  On one hand, they do slow down anyone behind them to 15 mph (most likely), but on the other hand those cars can just pass in the left hand lane, and the group is more compact if they are riding two abreast, so it takes less time to pass them.

Or a super skinny super tall