Ross

Definitely not particularly with the construction and hot lanes.

I find this comment from you interesting, being that you think driving on or through streets with the light rail is so tough. Hypocrite.

 

Nice piece of name calling, slick.

 

I think I said something to the effect that light rail makes it tough to cross through streets because the rail blocks cars from crossing the through streets, thus requiring a detour to the next available intersection that allows passage. On the North part of the Red Line, that's quite a few blocks out of the way, depending on where you are.

 

No. The northwest transit center and the surrounding area is extremely confusing.

No, its not. I've never had any problems finding my destination in that area. It's easy to get on 610 North or West, 290, Or 10.

One of the goals if HERO was to provide for the ability to bring an action in a local court rather than in Federal court. That's one reason all protected classes were included. Federal court cases are far more expensive to initiate, and may not be viable for poor plaintiffs.

As long as we're treating suburban neighborhood collector streets as arterials, we don't have a comprehensive plan.

What would you suggest for arterials? Widen Westheimer to 6 lanes like an LA arterial? Widen and straighten Shrpherd/Greenbriar? There aren't any good options here because of the way the City developed and the inconvenient placement of bayous and other drainage structures.

I feel like the problem that most people have with the NW mall site is not necessarily that it isn't in downtown, but that it isn't anywhere really. It's in a very undesirable area. Who likes that area?

Edit: to clarify, if the station was in uptown or something people wouldn't whine about it not being downtown.. because at least the station is in a destination area.

No one is taking HSR to Houston to get to NW mall.

At least some people's final destination would have been downtown, or uptown, or wherever. Literally 0% of people taking HSR are wanting to get to NW mall.

There could be thousands of Dallasites just waiting to go the antiques mall at NW Mall

Healing Waters Church (11th and Harvard) is now gone. I looked up the sale transactions on the County Clerk's site. There was a total of five lots owned by the church. They sold lot 5 and half of lot 4 to individuals, and it's subject to a $1.4 million loan, presumably for construction and lot purchase. The remaining property was sold to Harvard Heights, LP, subject to a $2.2 million loan. The lots do not appear to be part of the Historic District, so the new owners can do as they wish, presumably. I haven't driven by the house being built on the South end, but it looks pretty large from 11th. Any ideas on what's going to be built on the other lots?

Loitering is only illegal in Houston for prostitution. Panhandling is protected free speech. As long as they're not bugging people on patios they are allowed to do it.

I assume it's also illegal to loiter at a convenience store, since they are required to have a "No Loitering" sign up.

It was never a "mall", more like a glorified strip center. It was built, it didn't last long, and it's still standing across 45 from Greenspoint. Not sure what exactly the center is used for these days, but it opened with great fanfare anchored by Media Play. The shopping center was built in '94 or '95.

 

I think it's used by Level 3 as a data center or network center.

 

Master-planned is basically de facto zoning

 

But it's voluntary zoning, not forced by faceless bureaucrats that have their hands out for extra cash.

 

Absolutely, on all counts.  Note that the homes facing the Katy were in the zoned villages along there.

 

And, there weren't that many houses taken by the widening. It was mostly businesses and Old Katy Rd.

 

Or maybe we could have, I don't know, JUST HAD THE F*****G TRAIN GO ALL THE WAY TO DOWNTOWN.

JESUS CHRIST this cow town is just one massive fail after the other.

 

You do realize that it's the Feds that said no to going Downtown. I am happy with that decision, though, as it seems stupid to rip through established neighborhoods for a RoW that would actually work. I suspect the proprietors of the train will be happy not to spend the extra billion or two it would have taken to actually get to Downtown.

 

Probably sound like a broken record but this demolition is incredible. They are almost half way done with the massive steel structure. Never seen a demo go this fast.

 

It seems like they are taking it apart piece by piece rather than using an excavator to just pull it all down. It's hard to tell from the freeway as I go by, but it looked like there were guys on top unbolting the steel.

 

First, the early 2000s proposal was for construction on a go-forth basis, and not for existing highways or plans.

 

Second, that's the sort of thinking that's got us stuck with these things in the first place - it'll be difficult, so let's not do it. It's also a bit short-sighted in the way of prioritization - if so many residences or businesses are not accessible without the feeders, then why aren't we looking at fixing that? Why aren't we setting the groundwork to make such a thing feasible? At this point, it's not a lack of funding (especially if it's a 30-40 year project), it's a lack of vision.

 

There's nothing to fix. Most of the businesses on the feeders have no other access, unless you buy up whatever is behind them to build a new road for access.

 

I personally think cities without feeder roads are excruciatingly hard to get around in. If you get off at the wrong exit, it cna take hours to find a way back on to the freeway. Houston also lacks the large arterial streets that exist in LA, and carry large numbers of cars. As mentioned elsewhere, we developed around the feeder concept, and it's far too late to change.

 

No kidding.  Anyone out there remember what happened to traffic congestion after the 80's oil bust? 

 

Reason I ask is rush hour traffic in the energy corridor seems the same or worse than it used to be even though we keep hearing about layoffs.  Did traffic congestion fall off a cliff after the 80's bust or is that a false indicator?

 

 

Keep in mind that I-10 was 2 lanes each way then, expanding to 3 in the latter part of the decade. Traffic was still bad, but it got better as all the folks from Michigan left (before the bust, it seemed like every other car had Michigan plates, as construction workers, etc headed down here for work)

 

As an aside, there was a situation (late 70's or early 80's) where Gulf Oil was accused of staging a stalled car on the Southwest Frwy to make traffic even worse for a commercial.

 

Heisenberg and Schrodinger were riding together in a car and were stopped by police. The cop asked Heisenberg, who was driving if he knew how fast he was going. Heisenberg replied:

 

"No, but I can tell you exactly where I was"

 

That annoyed the cop, so he searched the car. upon opening ht etruink, he asked Schrodinger "Sir, did you know there's a dead cat in the trunk?" Schrodinger replied "I do now"

In Texas, the situation is made worse by the lack of funding from the State, which mans the universities have to chase dollars.

So I am happy that UT is investing more in our city but would be happier if it was growing the TMC footprint.

 

 

Is there a piece of land this size closer to TMC? I doubt UT was able to get what they wanted at a price they were willing to pay.

 

Thats a lot of hassle for inferior donuts that are sweet enough to cause a diabetic coma on the first bite. Shipley's have the perfect balance that prevents coma induction until the third donut.

What are the substantive differences between King and Turner? Their websites are fairly vague in their positions.

Both seem fairly opposed to ReBuild Houston, so that's likely going out the window. Turner comes off as more of a machine politician, while King seems to be extremely pro-business.

Will either of the candidates put pressure on the Planning and Engineering departments to relax things like parking and form requirements?

Aren't those requirements driven by ordinance? If so, Planning can't make any changes.

No Allen Center or Kellogg. The taller black building is the Centerpoint Building that was given a top hat in the 90's. The Kellogg looking one is the HPD building.

The signature western skyline before the signature.

Great photo, thank you for sharing! Any more?

 

I should have known that was the Centerpoint building. I worked in 1100 Louisiana for a while, and looked out at it every day. The HPD building would have been the Entex building at the time of the picture

 

ew, car-oriented

 

It's not like anyone would be walking to that location. It's not really close to any residential, and Ella in general is an awful pedestrian street.

 

My guesses, Facing Southeast near the McKinney Street ramp into Downtown. City Hall on the left with the Shell building behind it, Tenneco Building, One of the Allen Center buildings, Kellogg Tower, Hyatt Regency on the far right, and what is now Total Plaza to the left of the Hyatt. No clue what's in front of the Tenneco building, but it's whatever was there before the Wells Fargo (Allied Bank) tower was built.

Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore. I can keep going. It may be disruptive but I would rather have a rail line built with cut and cover then nothing at all. Also boring is prohibitively more expensive.

Regardless you're against rail so it's just another excuse from you.

Delhi appears to be using 19 TBM's for tunneling, and cut and cover for stations.

I am not against rail per se, just against rail done stupidly.

Qatar's metro rail projects are all using cut and cover

No, they aren't. The Lusail project will be cut and cover, the rest will be bored tunnels according to the project website

http://www.qr.com.qa/English/Projects/Pages/Tunnelling.aspx

Lusail is not a populated area, so cut and cover isn't disruptive.

Here's a story about one of the 21 boring machines being damaged by tunnel flooding http://dohanews.co/doha-metro-boring-machine-damaged-in-unexpected-tunnel-flood/

Vancouver did it recently. Auckland New Zealand also

Auckland built 3.4km of rail, with about a third cut and cover, the rest bored. That's not much rail. Vancouvers mayor promised no more cut and cover, do I'm guessing it was not a popular construction method there.

Lol cut and cover has and is being used in cities much more important than Houston. Westheimer is not champs elysees calm down.

Which "important" cities are currently doing cut and cover? There's a reason London hasn't done cut and cover for over 100 years. It's very disruptive. Deep tunnels are a better choice.