TheNiche

This place wasn't by chance located off of Beamer Rd. in southeast Houston, was it?

You heard correctly.

Why bother?

Um, no. Can anyone say moolah!?

Ah, don't know how I made it but it was my mistake. First link fixed.

Whut?

You asked for it. has better audio quality, this one has the original video. There was no middle ground among my universe of YouTube options....and while we're on the subject of German pastries.

I made the argument once on HAIF that a Wal-Mart Supercenter is "walkable" and got dogpiled. I stand by that assertion. It is no more or less walkable than Sugar Land Town Center; it just lacks the Disney element and caters to people that can't afford fru-fru.

I think that we can all agree that terms like "walkable" or "livable" are a little pretentious and over the top. If mobility is possible on foot, then it is walkable and If I can sustain my life in a city, that city is livable; the city's aesthetic may not be enjoyable, charming, lively, or engaging, but then those are the words that ought to be used.

Cream - Cat's Squirrel All right, all right, all right All right, all right, all right All right, all right, all right All right, all right, all right

Stevie Nicks

They don't pick up on Bohemio's coffee, a cruddy bar on McKinney in the neighborhood, or the Kroger on Polk Street. Instead they classify Kroger as a drug store and think it's located on Avenue H, east of Lockwood!

I think that the answer to that depends on which Claritas sales rep. you speak to and what line of business you claim that you're in.

Heh, yeah I noticed that myself. I'm not walking to the Valero gas station to do my grocery shopping. And I'm certainly not walking to grocery stores that are listed as existing (they don't) in the middle of an industrial area, or to the nearest bar--in Sunnyside.

Yeah, although there are some 62 psychographic categories in the PRIZM NE system, I rarely have problems identifying where the particular subculture of a neighborhood has been inadequately measured. Bear in mind that each of these categories are based upon national trends, and also that each of the categories are divided up into four groups exclusive to one another by population density at the block group level. So, for instance, Upper Crust cannot possibly coexist with Bohemian Mixers or Money & Brains in the same block group, although because Bohemian Mixers and Money & Brains are in the same density group, they can coexist in a block group. I've looked at PRIZM NE data pretty closely, and have had difficulty applying it reliably to marketing applications. EDIT: But...I suppose it might have use to someone trying to very quickly and haphazardly characterize a community to some executive that just needs to be convinced to sign off on a proposal and that doesn't really need to understand it all that well, or something of that nature. Let's just say, I'll not put my money on the line based upon this data, but others may.

I have read and interpreted it correctly, incorporated it with my own analysis, and explained the gist of it. No hyperbole.

Oh, well in that case, I'd want to live at the very tip of the Texas City Dike in a home perched atop a 100-foot-tall concrete platform overlooking all the ship traffic in Galveston Bay.

I was once stuck in Mesa, AZ (an inner suburb of Phoenix) in late summer without a car and decided on a whim to walk a mile from the hotel to the nearest park and back. Sidewalks were continuous, pedestrian crosswalks ubiquitous. It had the infrastructure. Nevertheless, I don't recommend it.

Depends on accomodations, employment, and income assumptions.

Is that what is planned, or what you suggest? I ask on account of that it makes sense, and therefore, METRO would seem incapable of doing it. ^See, Red, that's hyperbole. Scheming politicians creating a problem to justify its fix--as I understood you to be explaining--are a conceivable problem that ought to be condemned, capacity issues ought to be dealt with where peak use is the chief concern, and METRO should've purchased the right tools to do the job in the first place. ^That's the truth of the matter as I perceive it.

Oh, I see. So what you're saying is that several hundred million dollars were spent on a line with intentional design flaws so that it'd cause people massive inconvenience in the future so that those people would support spending several hundred more million dollars to fix the mistakes intentionally committed in the first place? I can see how that would be politically expedient, but you'll forgive me if I denounce such practices and would advocate that any conspirator of that sort be imprisoned. Riders per day is not a measure of the capacity of a transit system. Riders per hour at peak hours is the most effective measure. So what you're saying then, is that METRO purchased the wrong multi-million-dollar vehicles? My opinion of them is not improving. Increase the frequency downtown, and downtown will be impacted. Not as much as other areas, but it won't be pleasant for someone trying to surf the green lights that gets stopped and held over at Main every other attempt to cross it. But if you're correct and capacity can be increased if METRO just takes it upon themselves not to waste millions of dollars on the wrong rail vehicles, then I'd agree that downtown would be low on the priority list for subway service.

He's just taking a pot shot at my earlier comments. He's way the hell out there with any attempt at analogy, though.

The rails themselves can handle three without any trouble whatsoever. Downtown blocks cannot. ...not without blocking an intersection, anyhow.

I suspect that within just 15 to 25 years, the Red Line in its existing form will have high enough ridership that METRO is forced to run a parallel reliever bus service. They might first increase the frequency of rail vehicles, but you can only turn all traffic signals at an intersection red so many times per hour before complete gridlock is induced--and also bear in mind that the traffic counts through those intersections will have also grown by that time. They still won't be able to run trains more than two vehicles in length, and skywalks in the TMC prevent some any sort of attempt at creative rewiring to use a double-decker vehicle. When the design capacity is exceeded and cannot be added to the existing infrastructure, we'll find ourselves tearing out well-maintained rail that was originally financed with the intent that it be used for a much longer period of time, and (assuming that technology hasn't fundamentally changed the way we get around, such as it did in the early 20th century when busses replaced streetcars) replacing it with a far more expensive system built the way it should've been in the first place. We'll have subway Downtown and in the TMC, and we'll have elevated segments over major intersections; the project will drastically reduce auto congestion, increase average transit speeds thus inducing even greater ridership, and will allow longer trains and more frequent service so that METRO can accomodate that ridership. I'm not prepared to look out 50 to 75 years in the future. I'd be as willing to believe that cities will grow more vertically in response to better transit technology as I would that personal aircraft will cause a great exodus from the nation's cities to little ranchettes throughout the countryside. ...or that we'll be beyond even that.

They're hurting in most markets, just like all the other homebuilders. It comes as no surprise that they'd want to dump excess inventory in such places; holding costs are a delicate flower. I'm not sure that this is a trend that applies to Houston very well, though.