DaTrain

If you don't have satellite radio, a good alternative for variety are stations that webcast. You can use this site to locate webcasts worldwide, or save yourself some searching and go here.

As an Urban radio listener, this weblink is devoted to major Urban AC r&b stations that carry webcasts and have expanded playlists. Not a single station on those links is owned by Cheap Channel, CBS Radio (formerly Infinity) or Radio One. I use this to listen to R&B stations like WHUR in Washington DC, KBLX in San Francisco Bay Area (my hometown) or WBLS in New York whenever I don't feel like listening to Houston's own Majic 102.1. Speaking of the city, we still need another R&B station real bad; I know of radio markets larger than Houston that have at least two R&B stations.

Same reaction I had yesterday. I tuned in yesterday to see what they were saying about Pimp C and heard spanish. At that point I thought Pimp C is gone and now they have gotten rid of Party 104.9 for Mexican music. Then I checked this morning and it changed to 93.3, at that point I felt better. But there is still bad news with this move, I here Mean Green and some other people have left the station and also the signal isn't good on the west side. Hopefully that can be fixed and Mean Green comes back.

More bad news: 93.3 is a rimshot out of Port Arthur where it is licensed to, so there is a good chance the signal fringes out on the western half of Greater Houston.

Signal coverage map off radio-locator.com for 93.3:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?c...s=L&hours=U

compared to 104.9 where Party used to be which covered Houston a lot better even on lower power wattage:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?c...s=L&hours=U

that and the former simulcast on 105.3 out of Galveston:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?c...s=L&hours=U

Not too sure if Party 93.3 will have the same success as Party 104.9 did. Remember what happened to Power 97.5?

I was driving down the frontage road of Spur 527 (which eventually becomes Travis Street) a few days and I noticed the Midtown-style street signs say Southwest Freeway (or simply "Southwest" by Midtown street standards). And at the intersection with Richmond Avenue and at the West Alabama intersections where 527 crosses over the signs say "US 59" on the traffic signal poles. WHAT??! I thought all of 59 below 288 and 45 was supposed to be called the Southwest Freeway even w/o the frontage roads in Midtown while Spur 527 was simply called the Downtown Split. I swear this is the most ignorant sets of sign goofs I have seen.

Why? Because you know its true? Are you really going to waste keystrokes denying the impact of gangster rap on teenagers in America?

I said that because hip hop is NOT the reason why young Blacks are killin Blacks. U did not even finish reading my post. I ALSO SAID THAT BLACK ON BLACK CRIME HAS BEEN GOING ON BEFORE HIP HOP MUSIC CAME INTO EXISTENCE. And if U must know (also @ ricco 67) I went to a summit last month at UH campus called "What is Destroying the Black Community," hosted by Slim Thug, Pimp C, Latoya Luckett, Trae the Truth, Quanell and other activists on the panel. Most people in the audience are sure it isn't hip hop; it's Black folks who don't want to work for the things they want like get an education or get a job, and would rather blame the white man. I'm Black, in school, and got a job, and bump rap music in my car, and U don't see me goin around doin stupid stuff and saying, "(This so-and-so rapper) made me do it." We, as a Black people need to do better, that's all I can say.

Okay Quannell, why don't you quote some of the racially bias comments that "got you so depressed".

You watch too much Bill O'Reilly. :lol:

Get use to it? I refuse. And I have noticed lately that a lot of stations that went Mexican in the past few years have been changing back to American English language stations. Just last week in Bryan/College Station we lost a Mexican station and gained a Hip-hop & R&B station, 101.9 the beat.

When did the new urban (or rhythmic) station launch out in Bryan/College Station? And is it more or less like what Power 94/V103 Jamz used to be as far as variety in the playlist?

I'm a day late and a dollar short to this thread, but it seems that multiple times his lyrics have been posted - and then removed, due to graphic content. He may not have committed murder, but his lyrics encouraged it. And what demographic do you think listened and glorified this? Black teenage males. You people don't seem to get it, but one day you'll wake up and realize that rap music is a major crime catalyst. Remove it, and the crime will go down.

I'm so sick and tired of people blaming hip hop on murders. I'd rather blame the parents than blame it on music for kids being that way. Black-on-black crime occured way before rap music came into existence; and the CIA planting crack in black communities made the killin rate go up even worse in the late 80's to mid 90's. So get your facts str8 first.

It's sad when anyone dies, but to mourn b/c this guy was such a great rapper and whose name was PIMP C, is just ridiculous.How we can go from disucssing the Sean Taylor football situation to this is just beyond me. America is two-faced.

Well we lost several Black celebs in the past two weeks. Kanye West's mamma died from a botched plastic surgery, Sean Taylor got murdered, SF Bay Area rapper Spice 1 got shot (a day before Pimp's death). Man, this is depressin draggin thru this topic about death.

I work with a LOT more conservative folks than this.This crowd just 'pretends' to be conservative.LOL

And making racial bias comments too. If it was a white rapper who got into the same trouble with the law, opinions on here would be different. I'm just saying. still SMH

This topic is clearly in wrong section y'all.

WHAT? The topic was about a Houston rapper (Port Arthur native rather) who passed on, made news all over the Houston Media, and u gon tell me it was in the wrong sub-forum? I don't cosign with that. SMH

Pimp C was hardly the model of a man that did much of anything outside of his music that was even remotely positive. Unlike most other genre's he fills out the typical stereotype by trashing his competitors. http://www.ballerstatus.com/article/news/2007/07/2873/

yeah, real upstanding guy.

SMH @ the negative comments. If U go back and read the intro post, I said Pimp had his problems but that don't make him no thug (meaning to say that). I can't really judge Pimp anyway regardless because of where he had to grow up - it reflects in the songs put out since then. He had a few motivational songs out too (i.e. Broken Dreams).

And smh @ some of u blaming Pimp for what's wrong with music. If u don't like it, turn the radio off instead of whining about it. It starts in the home, u know.

They deserved that. Atlanta was coming out with gimmicky crap music (snap your fingers, etc.), that was flooding the airwaves. Pimp C just said what he had to say.

Let's not forget that folks from New York and the rest of the East Coast have been trashing Southern rap, lumpin even the most talented people with the garbage.

Pimp C Found Dead In Hollywood

After an early report from TMZ, sources inside the rapper's label have confirmed that UGK's Pimp C has passed away. TMZ reported that Pimp, real name Chad Butler, was found dead this morning in his room at Hollywood's Mondrian Hotel. After responding to a 911 call, L.A. County Fire found him in his bed. The cause of death is unknown at this point. He was 33 years old.

Pimp C was one of the most influential rappers and producers in hip-hop's history. His work with his partner Bun B in UGK over the last 15 years helped lay the foundations of Southern rap.

More to read in link: MySpace - Davey D

Damn, this is sad. I was in my car listenin to 97.9 yesterday and was shocked at the news hopin it was not true Pimp C helped put the south on the map with the UGK sound and as a lyricist and inspired many Houston rappers. Brutha had problems but he was doin big things with the UGK reunion. R.I.P. Pimp C a.k.a Sweet James Jones a.k.a Tony Snow a.k.a. Mick Jagger. U r truly missed and will neva be forgotten.

Edit - The Pimp is free a second time - this time from suffering. Condolences to his family, friends and rap partner Bun B. I'm pretty sure Bun's takin it hard.

I wouldn't. If I couldn't live in Houston, but had to stay in Texas, it would go:

1. Dallas

2. Austin

3. SA

Cosign but my list would be Dallas, Fort Worth, Galveston, Killeen or Tyler. That's for diversity in Texas plus the huge Black populations (don't ask).

^^^You DO NOT want to work at a gas station. PERIOD

I hate to add to thread that will probably be merged, but are there actual plans for what the alignment would be like on Richmond? Is it going to be the 2 lanes taken up in the middle with one lane for traffic on either side? I certainly hope not, but I don't know what else they plan to do unless it involves a lot of destruction along Richmond... Why can't they do 2 rail lanes on one side?

I was initially for the rail on Richmond, but just trying to envision this thing is giving me doubts...if they can't keep 4 lanes devoted to traffic, it'll be a nightmare

I might sound rediculous for this but, with the four lane w/o center lane configuration of Richmond Avenue, METRO should try and do something called "single-track" for this segment only; they can double-track it elsewhere along the street outside Afton. This may affect METRORail traffic eventually, but there can be signals to allow one rail car to go west first, switch signals and let the eastbound car go, or vice versa. The single track for both directions take two center lanes away but there can be minimal expansion of Richmond if need be.

This isn't anything new to the light rail game: Sacramento used single tracking early on till recent years when double tracking construction took place. Example of this:

Another one. Note that it uses one catenary instead of two:

Also, BART uses a single track for one direction merging from two tracks in the same direction in downtown Oakland; the other direction uses two tracks. But that was due to buget constraints when the system is buillt.

I noticed when I was in a different part of town that METRO got new transit buses that look like this:

pics courtesy of houstonmetrofan3530

They look just like the ones U see on Houston streets, only the front was redesigned. Compare it to this:

I remember when they had them on 288 until just a few years ago.

Low-pressure sodium vapor street lights are what you are talking about. Unlike most streetlights U see all over town with the orange glow, these LPS ones have a yellowish glow. They're still some around town on Shepherd north of 610, a couple of them on the Post Oak ramp to 610 east and at the Eastwood METRO Transit Center. San Jose has a lighting policy on this for nighttime aesthetic reasons because of an observatory on the hills, thus that city has the most LPS lights of any city. The only drawback for it is the glow matches the color of a yellow traffic light.

EDIT - The ones at Eastwood TC are gone, but at least the northbound frontage of Gulf still has LPS lights hanging from the downtown ramp bridge.

Y'all act like flea markets and "hood malls" are the same thing. SMH

I'm boggled about this, especially given the afterthought that Houston is a flat city and the rest of Harris County is flat as well. So here's the question: if Houston was going to grow, expand, annex and swallow whole all the urbanized countrysides of yesteryear 4 decades ago, how is it that most of the streets on the outskirts (outside the Loop) didn't get converted to 1-mile-apart grid patterned streets? The city may be flat, but if I were to pull out a map of the city and look at it, it looks like these were rural roads 50 years ago that only got widened and the slight curves and wayward directions are still in place. From what I researched, Chicago converted their streets to predominately grid patterns 100 years ago; Phoenix, Vegas, Dallas (outside of DT and Midtown), LA and Miami have the grid pattern in place with a few exceptions in given portions of town. And their terrain is flat as a pancake.

Do any of the older Houston urban heads have an explanation to why the street pattern is what it is today? Now as far as inside the Loop is, most of the streets are grid patterned in DT, Midtown, Upper Kirby, Heights, Fifth Ward, South Park north of Loop and Third Ward to name a few. And its not the suburban-style cul-de-sac twistin and turnin layout of neighborhood streets I'm talkin bout, it's something else I can't quite put my finger on.

Dave Chappelle holds it down as one of the funniest. "I'm rich b**ch!" Block Party was good tho.

I was feeling Bernie Mac back in the day especially in the Original Kings of Comedy. But when he got his own show on Fox, he got less funny after the first season.

IMO, the most unfunny comedians ever are:

Not feelin his corny-ass jokes

Times like this I wish Heights would go back to being its own city as an enclave. tsk tsk tsk, that's what Houston city boundaries do to U: swallow your town whole. Othern than that, its more informative.

Well, what is METRO's policy towards red light runners? Where should we define the dividing line? Should we let them off the hook entirely?

Bettter yet: We could install signals in the buses that trigger the lights to stay green longer when they arive. In fact, the state of Texas could organize a similar system for truck drivers.

BRT systems have pioneered this. They started doing it in LA when Metro Rapid hit the streets there. This is how limited stop bus routes that used to have to stop at lights got upgraded to rapid bus routes.

Pics from wikipedia:

MIDTOWN. The traffic arm gantry shown is unique to the city.

Similar example in Westchase

UPTOWN

DOWNTOWN. Old pic but Houston's prolly the only Texas city to have a single traffic signal hang from a pole as opposed to just all gantries.

Well the Mass lighting in Houston, is not the most urban attractive look, but is anything in Houston?? With the size of Houston freeways, you must have Mass Lighting systems like we have, it the used the regular lights it would look horrible, if you notice the freeways in Houston without HOV lanes in the center do not have mass lighting. On some freeways if you pay attention you can tell how they have changed the lighting over the since since the first started installing them in the early 1980's. I am a fan of the regulaer center freeway lighting though.

My eye may be a bit too keen, but in that reference several bridges have those tabs where light poles were supported by screws. On the other side of the guardrail to protect from being knocked over in case of an accident.

I live a couple of blocks from north loop. I dread the day mast lights come to the area. It will be the last time I will be able to enjoy some darkness at night. We tend to forget about the people who live near freeways when decisions like mast lighting are made. I did research on light pollution when working on my masters in public health. The environmental damage done by excessive lighting is only now beginning to be understood. I am aware that north loop will soon be undergoing upgrading. I for one, will be fighting the inclusion of mast lighting, and hope the neighborhood associations along north loop will join.

Obviously U were referring to the North Loop segment between Gulf Freeway and TC Jester. I don't drive down there that much but just the other day I did, and from the looks of it, more masts have been intalled days or weeks ago with the median lighting still in place soon to be taken down. Once that happens the South Loop through the SE will be the last segment with the median lighting - not counting the Ship Channel bridge.

In this blog, HPD, METRO, HISD, City of Houston, and Harris County Sherriff Dept have all been caught runnin red lights.

http://blogs.chron.com/cityhall/archives/2007/05/post_3.html

Metro and school buses, police cruisers and public works trucks were among the vehicles caught running red lights, according to data released under the Texas Public Information Act.

The citations represent a tiny fraction of the 34,000 violators cited since September, but they are unwelcome to the agencies involved and have resulted in disciplinary action against some drivers.

more in blog

Here is the worst example of the five running a red light:

U R not gonna be pleased with the next frame:

What the hell is wrong with METRO???! They ticket drivers for crushing their cars in the METRORail trains, but when their back is turned, some METROBus driver thinks goin 50 mph thru the red light is OK. Bastards. >

AYE !

But, it should be called, "PLastec's PistS". I wanted to put Plastic on ignore, but he is such a train wreck that I just have to look !

Cosign. Am I the only one that finds PlaStiC's posts funny as hell? Everytime I read a word spelled the Plastic way, I crack up. :lol: :lol: