Rehan

7 minutes ago, Luminare said:

 

This is pretty great. One change. I would make Shepard the boundary between the districts.

Would not argue with that at all.

Of course it is all theoretical at this point until after the census and reapportionment. The blue area to the west was the newly created CD-39 in my model. It consists of all of western Harris County bounded by FM 2978, a tiny stretch of 249, Jones Rd, 1960/Hwy 6, and Westheimer. I had to shift CD-7 further east to make up for the population it ceded in the west.

15 hours ago, dbigtex56 said:

Until 2013, portions of it were.
Imagine my shock and dismay when suddenly my neighborhood was cut from District 18 (Sheila Jackson Lee) and added to District 7 (John Culberson) in a shameless act of gerrymandering. 
I lived in the Montrose for nearly 35 years. I believe that the election of Kathy Whitmire in '81 scared the living crap out of Republicans, who suddenly realized that this little neighborhood had a great big voice. Since then it's purposely been chopped into mincemeat at the city, county, state, and federal level. 

Hoping that the next round of redistricting is not as ridiculous as the last. I took some creative liberties with a few voting districts to make smoother lines, but here is my CD-7 submission:

Looks like McKalla is the only viable option left.

http://www.mystatesman.com/sports/soccer/mckalla-place-the-good-bad-and-ugly-for-possible-mls-stadium-site/0CNAWFzLEM9bRvNtfPJJlK/

Construction on 249 (Spring Cypress to 2920) is scheduled for this fall.

Don't know what's going in the shopping center, but this is it.

http://edge-re.com/Properties/Houston/~Hwy290,atMueschke_NWC,Cypress,Texas/Hwy290,atMueschke_NWC,Cypress,Texas.pdf

Update: http://impactnews.com/articles/fort-bend-county-expanding-westpark-tollway-and-fm-1093/

Looks like construction will begin soon.

San Antonio - http://www.viaprimo.com

Not to argue on semantics (bus/BRT).

In regards to Houston though, even as a 'big fan' of rail, I don't think we're ever going to be able to implement a system that doesn't primarily use buses. We can't lay tracks every few miles apart so that everyone is within a reasonable distance to a rail stop.

This is what they're doing at the Barker Cypress@290 intersection: http://impactnews.com/articles/construction-at-barker-cypress,-hwy.-290-intersection-to-begin-this-month

Been working the polling place in Cypress (Cypress Top Park) this week. Only two people of the hundreds I have talked to have flat out said they were voting yes because they were afraid we (in uninc. Harris Co.) would be losing out in millions on local projects. I think the majority of people who have even just a little bit of good information on this (regardless if they are from in the loop or the suburbs) know the GMP are not the best way for our transit dollars to be spent. I'm sure the vote will be close, but I'm optimistic that common sense prevails in the end.

In response to mfastx - True. I'm sure Metro will continue the GMP on some scale. To me one of the big differences will be that light rail expansion will not be effectively shut down until 2025.

Sweet! I won't have to drive all the way to 1960@Eldridge when its built.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Proposal-would-add-toll-lanes-to-U-S-290-and-3462888.php

Chronicle article on Harris County's vote Tuesday on approving the toll agreement with TxDOT.

By the time it starts expanding, will they have completed the Grand Parkway from Interstate 10W to 290? Seems like they would, given the construction in the area.

http://katytimes.com/news/article_06de35f8-dd5a-11e0-8f20-001cc4c002e0.html

According to this article from the Katy Times the timetable was 28 months from September 2011. So around January 2014 segment E should be complete.

Segments F1, F2, & G (290 to 59N) . Ground breaking scheduled for early 2013...

http://txdot.gov/news/005-2012.htm

I think this would probably be a county issue, so I would bring it up with Commissioner Radack's office.

Opened today. Went at 6:30 expecting a crowd but there were only about 5 tables taken. One thing that I can say is definitely better at this location: parking.

I could be wrong, but I think the construction at Bauer is SH99 (Grand Pkwy).

The Branch School on Sherwood Forest. We attended their open house last weekend. Nice place and I think falls in the price range you're looking at.

The Branch School

I was in Beaumont on Tuesday for work and decided to drive back on 90 just to change things up. So does anyone know when the new section opens up? It looks like its getting really close to completion, from the parts I saw anyways, but I couldn't find any info on it opening.

Yeah I know, way to resurrect a 10 month old thread...

I would bike everywhere if I could, but serious question - do you people sweat? I do, in buckets, especially when it's 95 degrees and I'm wearing pants and long sleeves. Add biking to that and I might catch on fire. My workplace doesn't have a shower and I wouldn't want to be taking 2 a day anyway.

If I lived in Calgary I would bike to work every day, and know of dozens there who do (year round, snow and all).

Same reason I don't bike. I sweat even when its in the 70s, just walking when its sunny. A bike in Houston does nothing for me.

I miss puffy tacos. No one has them in Houston. (or at least not that I know of....)

Amazon Grill

If I could be guaranteed that my kids wouldn't go to Bush High or Hodges Middle, we'd consider moving there.

Hey now! I went to Hodges Bend...oh yeah, good call.

I lived in Mission Bend and went to HBMS & Austin HS some years ago so its weird seeing the new 1464 alignment. I hadn't driven through this area in probably about a year until today. I agree with AK123, looks nice.

Now I'll tell you what makes me batty about that HOV lane - why in the world is it "closed" on weekends? What's the point?

The 'HOV lanes' are closed on the weekends because it is not peak driving hours. Once the tolls are in place these lanes will be open 24 hrs a day. Of course the 'HOV lanes' will only be applicable for those 12 hours a day Mon-Fri that are in place now. If I understand correctly (I think I do), even if you have 2+ in your car on a Saturday or 10PM on a Friday, you would be paying a toll for using those lanes.

Nice. There's a Carl's Jr in a truck stop, I think Love's, just outside of Dallas on 45. I usually stop there either on my way in or out when on business. I grew up in California, so yeah I'm kind of a fan of their burgers.

I graduated from UH in '03 and unless things have drastically changed in 5 years, which I doubt, then this thread is silly. When I lived in the dorms my first year I would sometimes go to class in whatever I woke up in. (All that late night studying I guess... )

I will say that there wasn't a dress code in the business school back then. I literally only 'dressed up' for making presentations when it was appropriate. Otherwise it was usually a button down or polo shirt and jeans (not some designer stuff, more like PacSun). Also it seemed like people were usually in flip-flops, t-shirts, and shorts for most of the year even in my upper level classes.

i dunno, i rather like pittsburgh. i wouldn't live there but it was far better than i had expected.

I concur. I was in Western PA for a wedding in late May and got to spend some time in Pittsburgh before returning home. From what I had heard about the city I wasn't expecting much, but the second I saw downtown after emerging from the Fort Pitt Tunnel I was impressed. Sure I wouldn't say it's one of the nicest cities I've been to, but the overall vibe I got of the city from the geography/buildings/people/etc was a pleasant one. As for the weather, maybe I was just lucky because it was a cool/windy day with minimal humidity that kind of reminded me of Chicago.