Ross

The fact is that most of these developments' residents have no interest in incorporating, as they view it as just another chance to pay more taxes.

The guests have it worse. Longer lines, more pointed questions, according to my colleagues from other countries.

That's not necessarily a Magnolia company. Lots of commercial guys use addresses in the sticks to reduce insurance costs. Definitely a call the police situation.

When my car was in the shop after Allison, I took the bus to work. A 15 minute drive became a 45 minute trip. Mass transit may get you there, but not always as fast.

Voss/Hillcroft, same street.

Wasn't Pinos on Voss? One of Marvin Zindlers favorite places? I ate there a number of times. Decent food and service

Honestly its way to big for any one developer to handle. The city should be carrying the responsibility of masterplaning the area and then divide up the various projects to many different developers. Thats how it should be done, but the city refuses to take any responsibility for any semblance of city planning.

What makes you think the City has any capability whatsoever to lead the planning for this? And that's ignoring the fact that the City doesn't own the property or have any interest in the property, and thus has no say in how it gets developed, other than the effects of the relevant ordinances.

there is some sort of work going on in the old Eckerds building. There was a large dumpster outside, a manlift, and some workers. I could not really see what was going on inside.

From Google Earth, it looks like there was an antenna there in the 70's. It must have been replaced with the existing structure at some point. I haven't found any way to get historical records out of the FCC. And, it looks like the tower shrank in the mid 2000's

I was talking about from a public transit perspective.  We would have been more advanced and had more ridership by this point if the late 80's light rail plan had been built.  

 

But that pales in comparison to the early 80s heavy rail plan which would have been better than anything proposed since. 

 

EDIT: Oh yea and Houston has the worst roads of any city I've ever been to, they just put that money towards cheaply patching roads, the did a shitty job.  So roads are not any better at this point. 

In general, the roads are better than they were before Lanier came along. The Downtown streets were torn out completely, and properly engineered for the first time. Those projects took longer than expected due to the amount of crap buried beneath the streets. I recall Louisiana had telephone poles and rails buried in the ROW. You could see how poorly built the prior streets were by seeing the layers, with dirt at the bottom, topped by oyster shell, then brick, then many layers of asphalt.

West U really did it right. They voted in a tax increase, and redid just about every street in the city.

Houston wasn't ready for transit in the 80's. No one had a real clue as to what to do, and hte majority of growth was in the suburbs, with very few people interested in anything inside the Loop.

Not Alicia, the tower wasn't built until 1995, 12 years after Alicia. If the tower is shorter than the FCC data shows, which is 102 meters, American Tower needs to submit some amendments.

In any case, for the OP, the FCC database might be a good place to start your search for unused antennas.

Suit yourself, Slick, but your message is not effective at all because of your incessant whining about the meanies that allegedly killed streetcars. It's sort of like the guy that keeps talking about the touchdown he scored in high school 50 years ago. No one cares but him.

There's a 200 footer just east of I-45, north of the North Loop. It's on Neyland St. but I'm unsure of the physical address. It is unlit at night, has had a lot of the cabling stolen, and has nothing apparently on it. Been unused since the 1990s, IIRC.

Is that the one at 131 1/2 Basswood?

Here's the FCC page for it http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistration.jsp?regKey=610194

If it is unlighted, send a note to the FCC and the FAA. They jump on that sort of thing

You need R-Panel inside closures, like these http://shop.bestbuymetals.com/products/3-foot-closures-r-panel-outside-or-inside

This might be of use as well http://www.bestbuymetalroofing.com/pdf/r-panel-install.pdf

You're such a moron it's hilarious. People prefer cars because the system is built for cars. Go do some research. Houston was a streetcar city. Cars were considered a failure. Why would someone spend half a year's salary for a car when they could take public transport for 5 cents? Certain bribed politicians in office decided that streetcars could not raise their fares and had to pay for maintenance of the entire roadways that they were on, basically bankrupting them.

 

My great grandfather made a great living in Houston selling cars, starting in 1911. He started with Krit, and then sold Overland and then Willys, then moved to LA in 1920 or so to sell Fords after he and my great grandmother divorced. He worked at a dealer where the Marriott in the old Humble building is on Main. People wanted cars, and those who could afford them, bought them. Once they had cars, a whole new range of leisure and work options opened up.

You need to get over your misery about the streetcars going away. That happened a long time ago, and no amount of whining today is going to change it. At some point, Houston will expand rail. It isn't going to happen quickly, but it will happen when it makes sense to a majority of the population.

Do you know LA had thousands of miles of streetcar tracks at one point? It only become car centric because of certain nefarious actions that took place.

Thousands? A single thousand, maybe. Good article here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric

Keep in mind that most of the streetcar operations were gone by 1960, and, absent a time machine, are irrelevant to today's conversation, regardless of whether the causes of the decline were nefarious or because residents of cities in the South and Southwest realized that cars were a great thing that opened up a myriad of new lifestyle options.

HCAD maps are a good place to start, as are the Harris County Tax office block books(http://www.hctax.net/Property/Resources). The closing documents should have had a copy of the survey. The Harris County Clerk's website has images of deeds available.

Some of this is from our experience owning a townhome in Midtown, where the only common property was the mailbox area, and that was owned by the HOA. Everything else was split up to where someone owned it.

Look at the plats. In this situation, the property line is likely the midline between the houses, and there's likely an easement that grants all of the other owners access to use the driveway. There isn't any shared property, most of the time. There should have been a lot of documents at closing that made add ll of this clear.

True story: I heard a police siren while stuck and freaked out because I thought they were going to ticket me.

In Houston, you have to try much harder than that to get a ticket.

Not here Slick.

Ross. Don't!

You're no fun

No brother they're going to take my car keys from my cold dead hands

You would love that, Slick, since you are all about telling everyone else what to do.

Most of the suburban park and rides in the outlying suburbs have adequate parking, so I'm not sure why you think this would be any different. In addition, it's not like people would have to give up their cars entirely or have to utilize mass transit everyday, but it certainly would be a convenient option for some days. You're telling me you wouldn't want an additional hour or two every day on the train where you can work on stuff/stream videos/listen to music while relaxing instead of fighting traffic?

I live 3 miles from work, so it doesn't really affect me. I was commenting on what colleagues who commute have said. which is mostly, they prefer to drive on, regardless of traffic

You think people wouldn't?

None of my colleagues who would be likely users seem willing to give up their cars. Conceptually, it's a good idea, but I am somewhat skeptical about actual usage. I also don't trust Metro to build it with enough parking at the outlying stations. If the stations are hard to access, no one will use it.

Do you actually think anyone would use commuter rail?

Quiet zones don't involve walls, just reconfiguring streets so trains don't have to sound their horns. The streets get redone at the crossings to make it almost impossible for a car to bypass the signal arms.