004n063

Any discussion of the charging station?

At least it's not expensive. Tbh, I'd much rather have a low-rent space for a legit taquería or pho/banh mi spot than any kind of chain, but if it's going to be a chain, a decent and reasonably priced sandwich ain't a bad place to start.

It's not that it isn't a major improvement for Shepherd/Durham, it's just that I think it's always going to be a high-speed route, and that I think if a major space-shakeup were in order there, a higher-order transit project would have been more valuable. Yale, on the other hand, is not as critical of a high-speed car route and is more consistently (and less autocentrically) mixed-use, so prioritizing pedestrians (to the point of rebuilding to a design speed of 25mph, say) seems more feasible. That said, maybe a better argument would be to run a hypothetical purple line extension up the center of Yale, rather than Shepherd. And that would, in the short term, probably limit the sidewalk widths.

I have a few thoughts I'd like to throw into the mix, @JClark54 and @j.33. I have three prefaces: 1) I ride on the busted three-foot "sidewalks" on Dunvale every day (used to ride in one of the four car lanes, but the harrassers won), and I have many students and a few colleagues who walk or ride on the same, so I am totally sympathetic to an approach that centers equity and applies a six-foot standard everywhere. 2) I don't think that Shepherd/Durham was the best first choice in the Heights for such a major pedestrian improvement corridor, though I support the project overall (I felt the same way about Bagby downtown). In my opinion, Yale would have been the best starting point, as significantly reducing automotive throughput and speed would have made more sense there, followed by 19th and White Oak, then potentially Washington, and then potentially Shepherd Durham. 3) There are many streets in Northside, Fifth Ward, Second Ward, the East End, and Third Ward where I would support investment-level pedestrian realm projects similar to the Shepherd/Durham project, including North Main, Fulton, Irvington, Hogan/Lorraine, Burnett, Lyons, Cavalcade, Lockwood, Canal, Harrisburg Milby, Telephone, Lawndale, 75th, 76th, Broadway, MLK, Scott. Blodgett, Emancipation, St. Emmanuel, Elgin, and Almeda. Among those, Irvington, Lyons, Canal, 76th, and Emancipation would, to my mind, be the best places to start. Now to the central argument. When you consider the list in preface #3 in conjunction with the costs of the S/D project, it becomes clear that the city - however urbanist-motivated its administration were - would need both an internal prioritization schema and a plan to work with TIRZs so as not to fall into a multibillion-dollar hole. So how should they prioritize? One axis could be need, which you've done a good job of articulating. Whatever my priors, I won't pretend that the people of the Heights have as much need for ten-foot sidewalks as the people of Fifth Ward do for adequately safe sidewalks. But another important axis is demand. The reality is that the area surrounding the SD project (particularly phase 1) is considerably denser, both in terms of residents and in businesses big and small, than that around any of the other streets mentioned, and that it is unlikely that, at any time in the nearish (one generation of street infrastructure, say) future, any of the other streets mentioned feel overcrowded with a six-foot sidewalk. I'm not sure Shepherd/Durham would have reached that level (the car traffic would remain a deterrent), but I can definitely see it with Yale and 19th already, so at least the neighborhood has demand for it. So to me, the key is this: the two axes mentioned above (need and demand) should not be in direct competition with one another. A street improvement project in the Fifth Ward featuring six-foot sidewalks should not compete for funds from the same bucket as those which fund a ten-foot sidewalk in the Heights or anywhere else. How can this noncompetition be achieved? To me, the answer lies in TIRZs and an expanded city sidewalk program. We need to take responsibility, as a city, for providing and maintaining minimum-standard sidewalks, which in my opinion includes six-foot pavements and shade trees. Such improvements should not require TIRZ funding (and I actually don't think that developers should be responsible for the sidewalks by default either), though obviously the city should work to obtain state and federal funds whenever possible. The city would still need to set up a prioritizing schematic, but it could do so solely on the basis of assessed need, rather than considering present and potential economic demand. The TIRZs, on the other hand, could (and would be wise to) treat their streetscapes and pedestrian realms as investment-worthy platforms for building community wealth, and proceed accordingly with capital improvements including wider sidewalks, pedestrian streets, sidewalk patio space, etc. Of course (and this is the real pie-in-the-sky bit), the ultimate efficacy of such an idea would require that TIRZs have the power to reduce automotive traffic flow on certain streets that presently serve as thoroughfares, and to allow commercial development (without presently requisite offstreet parking or lane widths) on certain streets that are presently classified as minor collectors and neighborhood streets. This could mean, for instance, narrowing the car space on Lyons, Canal, or 76th to one ten-foot lane in each direction (with bus lanes and pedestrian realm occupying the remaining space), or it could mean incentivizng pedestrian-centered commercial development on streets like (to use a currently relevant and visible example) Roberts, Sherman, and Garrow. Or it could mean both - in the same sense that an optimized bayou park system would have small "fingers" (feeder bayous, esplanades, neighborhood greenways) at regular intervals, an optimized main street system could have semi-pedestrianized mixed-use "fingers" jutting off the Shepherdesque commercial thoroughfares at regular intervals. (An obvious starting point here would be Winbern at Main, but I could see it working at 19th St) But all of this would require COH and TXDoT to consider the possibility of streets having "place" value that exceeds the value of the speed at which a large number of cars can pass through them, so I'm not holding my breath.

Which HEBs have tap pay? I haven't seen one at either the Montrose one or the MacGregor one I am confused by the wording. Are you saying that the renderings above are no longer there, or that the renderings above have replaced what was previously there?

This might be my bikebrain talking, but I feel like it's part of a very suburban/car-centric notion of grocery shopping. That is, it is assumed that grocery shopping is a big trip for which people would obviously have to bring their driver's license anyway, so no harm done. In reality (mine, at least), it's often just a pop-over thing. Need to grab some basil and a bottle of wine, picking up a steak for dinner, just really feel like an apple right now. That sort of thing. When I lived in Midtown and the Midtown Whole Foods was still open, that was how I shopped 90% of the time, and I never bothered bringing anything more than a phone and the always-on pannier bag. Since it closed, though, I've switched over to HEB, and have had to turn around and bike back home to grab a wallet several times. It's not a big deal, but it's annoying and feels vaguely anti-urban to have to specifically remember something that I literally only otherwise use for airport security, just to grab some food.

Interesting! I very much don't. I feel like the current building doesn't really engage the street at all.

I agree with your overall point, but I actually think the 5th Ward segment is more of a long-term investment (and equitability) segment than a present or short-term projected demand segment. If the project isn't axed, I would expect the highest ridership stretches to be between Edloe and Wheeler TC and between Renwick/Fountain View and Westpark TC.

Even that is a phony cover, as far as I can tell. For the rest of his term, let's see how many times he uses equity to justify denying something ("how can we justify X project when Y neighborhood doesn't have Z?"), and compare that to how many times he uses it to justify providing something ("they already have this in neighborhood A, so we should make sure neighborhood B has it as well"). I hope I'm wrong, but I won't be.

I agree. I think policy discussion is often relevant in non-Politics threads, but I don't think personal insults do much to drive the conversation forward, and more likely turn off the people for whom these issues are not or have not been priorities - which people comprise a majority of Houstonians and whose open ears we need.

I just hope they get tap pay sometime this century

Isn't the site across from a Whole Foods?

Whitmire is good at making it sound like he's here for equitability, but until I see his administration put out a proposal that prioritizes something other than car speed and throughput, I'll remain skeptical.

I'm 100% with you, but tbh I think the Shepherd/Durham decision was driven by the fact that the public can plainly see that a 4-3 merge will be worse for traffic flow than 3 lanes the whole way.

FWIW - I went to the meeting today and asked about the #25. I was assured that no changes were planned for that route. Peter Eccles from Link Houston shared their alternate proposal for the 32 route, which I thought was compelling. Hopefully METRO gives it serious consideration.