Ross

That's all well and good in the abstract, but Houston will not annex residential areas. It's much more lucrative to annex only the commercial areas that don't vote, don't use too many services, nad just send money to the center. There's also some issues with ahving to annex some really poor areas to make up for the more upscale annexations.

How many people use the HOV lanes daily? How would a light rail line from the Galleria to UH help the people commuting from Katy, Spring, etc? What should the outlying residents get for their tax money?

A billion dollars for park and ride? I don't believe that. If you include the cost of the HOV lanes, maybe, but those benefit more than just buses.

Democracy means the City of Houston doesn't get to use sales taxes paid by County residents to build a strictly Houston toy train system.

So basically, you are saying "Screw you County residents who never come into town. We appreciate your sales tax dollars building this nifty train you will never ride and that doesn't really go to or from anywhere". That's a guarantee that the legislature will get involved, to the detriment of everyone. And, I think you are also saying "Screw you Memorial Villages. You have lots of money, so pay for your own roads that are mostly used by residents of the City of Houston." You forget that Metro is a regional entity, not a dedicated Houston transit authority. If the folks in Greater Spring, etc, are going to be contributing money, they deserve some benefit.

So what's the benefit for the people who live out in the County from the Metro sales tax if the GMP isn't part of it? 20 years of cramped 2 lane roads like 1960 used to be? How do the Memorial Villages fund maintenance to Memorial Drive and other streets that are heavily used by Metro buses and residents of Houston? Road work has to be part of the transit equation.

Unfortunately, that link comes up with Buffalo Bayou across from Allen Parkway Village. That seems to be an artifact of the Historic Aerials tiling, becuase I got the same link when it was centered on Frasier Street. Your point still stands, though.

Really? There are 84 townhomes at the end of my dead end street. I dont' even notice the traffic, other than when the guy with the loud motorcycle goes by. And, all of the vehicles have to slow down to go over the speed bump in front of my house, which would tend to make them more noticeable.

I don't want to see it. Anyone who puts that much development on the West end of Galveston Island is a fool.

I hate to break it to you, but there is no $6m slush fund. The developer gets to spend the money and then hope that sales are good enough to recover the costs incurred. It's the City that gets a good deal out of the 380 by not having to lay out a bunch of cash to pay for the infrastructure upgrades.

I used to shop there a lot, expecially before Academy expanded. I haven't been that impressed with the Sports Authority stores. Oshmans was far better. Oshmans was bought by Gart, in 2001.

In the late 80's, Harry's Kenya was in the Smith Street parking garage that serves 1100 Louisiana, where Massa's is now.

Here's some good instructions on essentially putting htem on ignore http://www.wikihow.com/Unfriend-Someone-on-Facebook-Without-Actually-Unfriending-Them If that isn't what you want, Google unfriend on facebook, which will give you copious links with pictures.

That makes no sense. Houston is in Harris County, and can't be excluded when talking about total county coverage, so the total coverage is about 72% of the county. The portion of the county North of I-10 htat is not in the service area is pretty sparsely populated, and probably not a candidate area for much in the way of transit projects. The area South of I-10 is industrial and Pasadena/Baytown, who do their own thing for transit, or use the Harris County Transit program. There are a couple of issues. One is allocation of collected taxes. The data that is available makes it almost impossible to tell if the allocation is fair or not. You can't simply say that each entity ought to get 25% of the Metro taxes collected in an entity's boundaries. That ignores the City of Houston's control of most of the major commercial areas in the North and Northwest portions of the County, plus the fact that some of the smaller entities simply don't have much commercial activity. Another issue is which projects are funded. GMP money probably shouldn't go to put in sidewalks and curbs in residential areas. It should go to improve access to park and ride lots and to major transit corridors, including freeways. Improvements to Memorial Drive through the Villages would be legitimate, as well as improvements to Piney Point, Voss from I-10 to the bayou, etc. A comprehensive list of projects would be nice, but I haven't found one.

The City won't annex those areas because the City doesn't want to have to provide services to all the houses and absorb the MUD's. There is also some risk of inciitng a voting power lawsuit if the annexed areas are "too white". The City annexes the commercial areas because businesses don't vote, but can't avoid collecting and remitting the City sales tax, and the property tax is a nice benefit for the City as well. If the City had not annexed the commercial areas in the County, the Metro tax amounts would be the same as now, but would be shown as sourced in the County rather than the City. That's really what's causing the GMP to look skewed against Houston. I would really like to see data on how much Metro tax that appears to be sourced from the City is collected in the County commercial areas. Tory is right. If Metro takes too much money out of GMP and puts it in Houston rail, the County and other entities will use the legislature to resolve the issue, and that's not good for anyone.

Keep in mind that much of the sales tax Metro collects that appear as Houston sourced come from the tendrils of the City that stretch along the freeways and FM1960. Houston annexes just about every commercial area in the County. The residents of many of the incorporated cities do their shopping in Houston. For Metro to take all the money and spend it solely on rail for central Houston would be more than a little unfair to the people who paid the taxes. The University line does nothing to help the folks who live North of FM1960 get to work. or to shopping.

There's still the fiesta on Shepherd and 23rd.

I would be happier to see a bagel place there, since there aren't any North of I-10.

She, and it was after I asked why Metro had not commented on the potential for rail from the suburbs before constructing light rail Downtown. All I wanted was to know if Metro had considered the issue and had any policy statements. A link to a website would have been fine. The staffer looked at me, and said something to the effect of "I am not going to waste my time explaining the importance of light rail to someone who is obviously ignorant of the complications of transit policy and how important it is that light rail Downtown be built before any other projects can be considered". She then stomped off. Given that her job was to explain that sort of thing to the people who pay her salary, I was pretty mad. And still am, to some extent, since I think Metro is doing an exceedingly poor job of managing, designing, and implementing light rail projects.

I make a number of trips that cross the light rail lines. All of the rail lines block cross traffic. Downtown is less annoying because all the cross streets still work, but outside of Downtown, cars have to go blocks out of the way to cross the rail. Of course, I would probably be less critical of Metro if a staffer had not told me to my face I was too stupid to understand transit issues at a public meeting some years ago.

I don't know anyone who uses the train. I know a bunch of people who complain about the impact to traffic and the waste of money.

The railroad bill that granted 10 square miles per mile of track was signed in 1862 to encourage construction of a transcontinental railway. The government also issued bonds, which were repaid by the railroads, to fund some construction. Without those subsidies, the railroads would have been built, but not as quickly. Keep in mind that the land was owned by the government, so there weren't any eminent domain issues. The biggest subsidy to air travel in the early days was air mail contracts. The interstate highways were built as a defense measure to facilitate military travel. Eisenhower was a major force in bringing them into existence.

There are a lot of us who just wnat Metro to quit wasting money on stupid, inappropriate rail projects that will do nothing at all to relieve congestion in Houston. Roads and buses are the only proven transit methods here. Given the power, I would remove all the rail tomorrow. It doesn' t go anywhere useful, and does nothing to relieve congestion. In fact, I find rail makes my trips, which never go anywhere rail goes or will go, more difficult becuase of the interference with vehicle traffic.

There are over 25 types of non-profits under the Internal Revenue code, not 6. You can certainly form a non-profit to drink beer with your friends and go to strip clubs. That falls under 501c7 Social Clubs. The dues you pay are not deductible, but the club can own property, hold events (limited in income), etc.and the income from related purpose activities is exempt from tax. There are limits on how much non-exempt purpose income can be earned wihtout losing the non-profit status. Income from non-exempt purpose sources is subject to taxes.

What's lost in this is that much of the sales tax collected in "Houston" is actually paid by residents of the County and other municipal entities. Nearly all of the retail of any size in the county has been annexed by the City of Houston. So, all those County residents in Spring who shop along FM1960 are paying Houston sales tax while living 20 miles from town. Those folks deserve some consideration. I would love to see data on sales tax collections by zip or census tract.