Amlaham

If making fun of handicaps on TV isn't enough for "Trump supports" to realize he's a terrible human being (besides the HUNDREDS of things he's done to make our great country look bad), then you guys need therapy.

1 hour ago, ekdrm2d1 said:

 

Does anyone else think this made 610 ugly 💀

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/transportation/article/Mexican-consulate-moving-to-southwest-Houston-to-14905843.php

Not technically the Innovation District, but in the area.

2 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

The word is Rice Management has "begged" Fiesta to stay beyond the end of their lease.  This is a long-term development plan.  If Fiesta left now, we would have a vacant building or another vacant lot, probably for a number of years.

Oh that makes sense 👍

Doesn't Fiesta's lease end this month? Tearing down that building will make a huge visible difference to the area.

https://abc13.com/traffic/houstons-busiest-street-to-be-repaved/5742532/

Unrelated but the other portion of Westheimer is getting repaved (even though its in mint condition).

1 hour ago, Caleb said:

Interesting, there are hundreds of robberies reported in Galleria and it's a nicely developed area. "Redeveloping" an area to force life long residents out of their neighborhoods isn't the solution to crime. Suggesting to simply replace them is a privilege because they have no choice. No one else wanted to reside in these neighborhoods because of who was there. Now suddenly it needs to be redeveloped to fit the needs of those who moved far away to be "better off". 

I was WAITING for someone to cry about physically pulling of people out of their homes 😂. You're MADDD if you think a high density mall and the surrounding neighborhoods get anywhere near the amount of robberies that the 3rd ward gets. Don't compare the couple of crimes that happen to one of the densest areas in Houston to 3rd ward which literally has weekly crimes with 1/10 the population the galleria area has, so get your facts straight. I live in the galleria and I go to school at UH so I get know whats going on around near me :). This whole "suggesting to replace them," "force residents out of their neighborhoods," and "no one wanted to move here, so they cant have interest here" is sooooooo entitled. You buy a house--> the area increases in property value due to proximity or whatever the case--> people can either afford it or cant. You think if you bought a home it should have the SAME taxes as it did YEARS ago just because they're a minority? The 3rd ward is LITERALLY nestled between Midtown, Downtown, and the Texas Medical Center (the world's largest), its Cleary not a minority/ race issue. Property values is increases EVERYWHERE! Also, you're extremely contradicting, you're complaining that no one wanted to live there back then, and now that people want to live there because of LOCATION (not bc they have a plot to remove all minorities), you're saying its not fair because its "forcing people out of their homes." No one is being forced; you can either can afford it or can't. Oh and lastly, my "privilege" comes from my 2 immigrant parents who came here (legally) from a 3rd world country w/ nothing in their pockets/ not even a "3rd ward" roof over their heads/ started with NOTHING. So this "privileged" idea is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. My parents and almost ALL my friend's overseas parents went through the same thing and made a better life for themselves. Worry about economic development and outreach programs to kids in the 3rd ward instead the simple business/real-estate concept of supply & demand.

That is thee ugliest building i have ever seen......honestly, we're better off with that patch of grass thats already there.

12 hours ago, CrockpotandGravel said:

 



 

They put about 2 thousands dollars and slapped on the name Social Beer "Garden." This place is sooooo ugly omg. I feel like my backyard is nicer than this place.

I hope no one rents them out

On 11/6/2019 at 11:19 PM, Urbannizer said:

https://www.chron.com/business/bizfeed/article/Stonelake-Capital-tops-out-River-Oaks-area-office-14814742.php#photo-18568861

 

Why doesn't Houston have any rooftop restaurants/ cafes. I feel like our views are getting nice and we generally have nice weather. Chicago almost has 100 and their weather is CRAZY cold/ windy. 

4 hours ago, august948 said:

 

First of all, the world's largest freeway is only 21 miles long.  That's a drop in the bucket compared to all the freeway miles in the Houston area.  the HOV/toll lanes start and end along it's length and don't connect to anything except the mainlanes and surface roads.  You can't get on the HOV and even go all the way downtown, much less drive HOV all the way to Pearland or any other destination in the city.  The better idea is to make all the freeways the same size with interconnecting HOV lanes so we can run P&R style service between major destinations all over the city.  The number of mainlanes can vary even, but the important thing is to make all the HOV lanes connect in both ways throughout the entire freeway system.

You clearly only care about people living outside of Houston getting in/out of Houston. Your whole idea of "we should expand every freeway" is so illogical; what do you suppose we do at 59 near the bridges or 610 thats literally at the doorsteps of some buildings. I feel like it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that we can't expand EVERY highway in Houston. Also, this would literally take more than 50 years, billions of dollars, like idk I would assume all of this is common sense. Once again, this is METRO, worried about the highways complain to TxDOT. 

19 hours ago, august948 said:

 

I would say that this documents a specific instance in Brussels and that each city has it's own unique layout and bottlenecks, but you don't really need this article at all.  Drive the highways of Houston at 10pm and see how it flows vs 5pm.  There's a considerable reduction in cars on the highway since it's not rush hour.  Traffic flows fairly freely unless there's construction or an accident.

 

As I've been saying all along, our primary transit issue is getting people into the city on weekday mornings and out of the city on weekday afternoons.  I'd love to say that all we have to do is build commuter rail and that will magically solve the problem, but will it really?

Do you have a better idea? Because having the "world's largest highway" clearly hasn't worked. Yes, highways are just as important, if not more, as a rail system especially in Houston. These highways are becoming an eyesore, 26 lanes? Is that not enough lol? A rail line would literally take up 2-3 lanes max (most likely the median). Highways are important, but they do not need any more attention. Lets focus on ALTERNATIVE modes of transportation.  

Forever 21 recently filed for bankruptcy (they want to focus on online only), A'Gaci did the same earlier this year. Topman/ Topshop closed all US stores. That entire section of the mall is gonna look dead. Is this the beginning of the mall idea becoming "obsolete." It looks like we're headed towards that idea. Online shopping is becoming more favorable, Amazon delivers literally anything to your house, Uber eats/ other apps deliver any food option to your house. There's even apps that brings other services to you like massages, car wash, home repair, cleaning services. Its all cool but at the same time....getting worried we'll all be anti-social in future.

3 hours ago, CrockpotandGravel said:

A new rendering of the rooftop bar at Lovett Commercial's East Washington or 1818 Washington Avenue in Houston.

This is part of the Sawyer Yards development or Sawyer Yards District.



The rendering is from an updated marketing brochure.
https://www.lovettcommercial.com/Pdf.aspx?id=332 (archive link)




 

This is NICE! We need more rooftops over looking our skyline!

36 minutes ago, august948 said:

 

Not a problem....

 

 

I know you may not like to hear this but we're going to need a "all of the above" solution as long as the metro area continues to rapidly rise in population.  You'll note in my post that I included brt and lrt in the possible solution and didn't say anything about not having brt or rail elsewhere as well.  What we need is a  whole region solution that's realistic.  People are not going to all sell their suburban homes and move into mid-town highrises and shouldn't be unduly punished for not adapting to someone else's lifestyle.  Our hov system is completely disconnected.  You can ride it for a while and then get dumped back into the mainlanes.  It would be much more efficient from a public transport standpoint to have hov that can move people anywhere in the city and then connect to local bus/brt/lrt to take them to their final destination.

Thats a nice BRIDGE, are you saying we should stack the highways?! lollllllll ok now what happens when they get off the highway 😭 should we stack up the feeders and local roads too when theres an INSANE amount of cars coming off a stacked highway? What do you mean "unduly punished for not adapting to someone else's lifestyle?" We literally have the world's largest highway going out to suburbs. Your statement makes it VERY clear that you're being selfish and worried about OUTIDE of Houston. You're so worried about the suburbs, and getting from Katy to Downtown Houston with less traffic (ignoring all the heaches that would come with building a DOUBLE HIGHWAY LMAO). Also Katy's population for example ~18,000 people, vs 2.3 million in Houston but yeah 😪 those poor people, they shouldn't have to sacrifice living 30 miles outside of the city AND deal with traffic, OMG THEE AGONY. I think you're forgetting something bud, Metro is in charge of PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION NOT HIGHWAYS. Also metro isn't in charge Sugar Land, Katy, Pearland, I mean the list goes on. It's literally public transportion for the CITY and you're worried about your suburban life being affected by not expanding the already obnoxious highways that literally rip through the middle OUR city. Have you thought about the people living near the Highways in Houston? You think its okay to have the highway EVEN CLOSER to our homes just to accommodate for people who aren't even in OUR city? Worried about traffic reaching out "into the suburbs" maybe try reaching out to YOUR suburb/ city/ town and establish their own bonds or whatever. Now I know im coming off anti-Hwy, but thats not true, the highway systems that we have is perfect for our city size, HOWEVER, it now time to show parts of transportation! 

12 hours ago, august948 said:

 

I don't know what you have against trees and buffalo bayou, but that won't be necessary.  We already have the freeway routes.  Those routes are already fairly well concreted in with the feeder roads, adjacent parking and other infrastructure so we'll be adding about .00000000000001% to the existing concrete surface of the city.  For that we'd get maximum mobility for the residents of the greater Houston area.  You could drive to a P&R in Katy and take an express bus (or maybe eventually trains running in the middle of the HOV) to major points in the city, and then switch over to a local bus/light rail/bikeshare/uber/whatever for the final mile.

 

I haven't ridden brt yet.   I'll drive to the galleria to try it out when they get it done.

 

Where did you ride the brt that s*cked so bad it hadn't been upgraded in 40 years?

lol what about on 59 in the montose area? Lets say you're gonna say there is space for 1 more lane in each direction, ok after that 1 lane, what are we gonna do? You were also saying in another post that we should expand more highways like i10 that expand from one highway to the next, 610 in the galleria area is literally bounded by memorial park on one portion, and feeder roads in other sections DIRECTLY next to building (no adjacent parking). So, what should we do there? Just remove the feeders all together and expand the highway? The whole "just expand the highway" thought process is so stone aged. i10 is literally "the world's largest freeway" and its STILL one of the most congested highways in Texas. Like how much more proof do we need. This is literally the 4th largest city in America with a metro population of ~7,000,000 and you want everyone to take the freeway? Do you realize all the headache that even comes with expanding the highways i610/i59 feeder is taking 6 years, they already cut down portions of 59 to 3 lanes. In 6 years it will still be the same amount of lanes north/south bound, just an extra lane going from one highway to another . oooooo no my favorite case is 290. Its been 10 years of nightmare traffic and under construction to "expand the highway" and guess what, traffic hasn't change.  you know why  the population has increased  so it's almost as if traffic was the same before traffic. One would have thought we'd learned our lesion from i10, 290, or even the new mess in 610, but no let's put all the highways under construction and expand them . It would literally take 60+ years for your idea to happen and all for +1-2 lanes? And no LRT/ BRT isn't the same, you can take ANOTHER road and that street construction. No one is telling you guys to ride the proposed LRT/ BRT, its not always about you. Lets consider a rail from uptown to downtown, lets say 500+ people ride that rail a day, lets say even say 100+ (for those who think no one will ride it), thats 100 cars OFF of the freeway! And when the population increases even more, more people along those rails will consider it using it to avoid the highways. Lastly, have you guys compared traffic along the rail in midtown to traffic along the west side of town like Richmond/ Westheimer/ Hillcroft/ Kirby/ etc (we can go all day), I work in the midtown area and its NOTHING compared to the west side! I can literally right a book of all the reasons we need to expand rail, but you guys are so sold on the idea of HIGHWAY HIGHWAY HIGHWAY; we've tried it and its not working, consider being open minded (I know its SOOOO HARD) and look at other options

22 minutes ago, august948 said:

 

25-30 lane freeways like I10 are exactly what we need if they're built to fully connect to each other with HOT/HOV lanes in both directions that seamlessly merge from one highway to the next, including the beltway and the loop.  Then you could run p&r express buses between major points in the city (say for instance Pearland to Sugarland) and have local connections take riders the final few miles.

You know what, lets just cut down all the trees/ left over nature we have left and pour cement all over the city! YOU KNOW WHAT WE SHOULD DO?!? Lets tear down buffalo bayou and build an HOV lane from downtown to 610 to Belt 8 🤯. 

These are just ~9 year difference from one intersection. Google maps doesn't let you go back further, but im sure most of you guys have seen this in person rather than referencing articles

4 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

If the topic is transportation generally in Harris County, then I have no idea what you are talking about. What is the failure? That Houston outperforms other big cities when it comes to our relatively low time spent in congested transit? How is the congestion in non-Republican metros? NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, Boston, etc.. Here, I'll give you the data. https://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility-report-2019.pdf

 

I see, so it sounds like that in order for light rail to be successful in Houston, it has to replace an already developed/safe/successful bus route(s). 

I mean, do you expect rail/ public transportation to be popular along areas with......no public...

2 hours 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)? 

Maybe.......just maybe, it has to do with the new rail being in an undeveloped/ unsafe area 😮, I'm not sure though. When the light right got expanded to third ward, I expected them to start building sky scrappers right off of Scott 😓, you're so right. Omg, I didn't even think about the parking garages in midtown, because living near the light rail should not require a car! If you want to go to the galleria, the airport, literally anywhere in Houston, just take the rail! oh.....wait. 

I don't understand the opponents' point of view? This would literally be federal money going into our streets and our infrastructure. What's their plan? Reject it and wait another 10-15 years until they decide we should expand 1 highway by 1 lane that will take 10+ years of more congestion & construction? Has anyone else noticed how beautiful Post Oak is coming out; I see a lot more people walking on the streets and busses haven't even delivered yet. In Midtown, ESPECIALLY along the rail, is becoming unrecognizable with all the new developments and residential high rises. Imagine this change occurring along Richmond and Washington ave and other parts of the city. The whole "ridership is low" theory is soo.....dumb. The areas the red line originally serves isn't very dense, we've been excited about the ~10,000 people living in the downtown area as of recently. Do you guys expect everyone around Houston to drive to the Downtown/TMC to ride it for a couple of miles? Opponents BLOCKED Metro's bond to expand to denser parts of the city previously. So why are you complaining about low ridership when opponents single handedly caused this low rider-ship?! This decision literally affects my generation, we're the ones going to be stuck with this congestion issue NOT my parents/ grandparents. None of the money is coming out of your pockets that isn't already coming out with this bond, stop being selfish. 

-End rant 

I love Whataburger but I also love In-N-Out! Thought this video was pretty cool. 

Literally looks like a Holiday Inn..... from the looks of it, it looks like they went with one side taller than the other to prevent blocking the balcony views from Arabella? I just don't understand because this would essentially be another gateway to the River Oaks district, and THAT is what they want to put up? People were saying Arabella is poorly designed but at least its modern, has a unique shape and isn't the standard brown & beige exterior like this

My favorite part is the pool facing south which will eventually be blocked :)