ig2ba

I too would like to see bike trails in the power line ROW. The best place to start, I think, would be the power lines just inside the West Loop - going from U.S. 90A up to Washington Ave. It probably be most cost-effective to do the Braeswood to Memorial Park segment first becuase I think you would get more riders (and walkers), and it would connect nicely with Memorial Drive and the Braeswood bike trails. There's already precedent for this and I would hope it's not too difficult under Texas law to implement something like this, or what sort of (political) power the utilities have in Texas compared to other states. We do already have the Buffalo Bayou Bike Trail in West Houston that travels under power lines for a short distance. Other states have them too. For instance, here is a bike trail put in under the power lines on Power Blvd. in Metairie: http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=30.014251,-90.222688&spn=0.004747,0.009624&t=k&z=17. And I don't see why bikes and pedestrians would be more of an insurance issue than cars driving under high voltage power lines. Oddly, there are about 800 parking spots between Richmond and Westheimer under power lines. Is it so difficult to build an adequate parking garage for Highland Park Shopping Center?

There are a lot of buzzwords in the transportation and planning world, and connectivity is one of them thrown around often, sometimes with meaning and sometimes not. But it's a pretty damn important concept for bikes. I mean, if the sidewalk ends, and you are an able-bodied pedestrian, you just ... keep walking. But on a bike, the barricades, and steep slopes with glass and other sharp debris on the sides convince me not to take this path again by bike.

Increased connectivity would be a good goal for Houston. Start with light rail to Hobby, then other things. Baby steps. This city grew up as a car-oriented city. It will still be so 30 years from now.

I agree with TMC. Everyone let's out around 5pm in downtown and the egress of cars can't even being handled without a couple off-duty HPD officers per garage. I've never seen a mad rush out of the Galleria either at closing time; in my experience, it just winds down gradually. However, I avoid the Galleria like the plague in late November and December, so I might not be the best person to ask. I think Rice village would be ideal, if there were ever some sort of expansion of something in the area. Of course with the present economic climate limiting investment in projects, and the funding structure for infrastructure improvements in Houston in Texas, this is probably just another idea to put on the back burner.

Here's a video explaining a parking system which was constructed to preserve a historical area in Budapest:: Automated Underground Parking System It basically parks your car for you, uses software to find the optimum parking setup and this can be adjusted based on demand. Advantages might be: Lower space requirement Fewer opportunities for theft and vandalism because the garage is entirely enclosed. Less circling around looking for a spot. Maintenance costs. Higher or lower? No paying for valet parking. No parking lot/garage accidents with people driving too quickly. No searching for your car on the wrong level. No need for meter maids. No ticket for parking during the wrong hours, though you would probably still get a ticket for leaving your car too long. Possible disadvantages: Capital costs ... and therefore likely higher cost of parking. Possibility to be overload in times of peak demand, but I don't know how different this would be from e.g., the Toyota Center parking garage. I would think you could increase ratio of transfer areas (see video) per parking space. Size limits. No Ford F350s unless every space is made bigger. I think some might see this as an advantage though. My main question is this: would this system work well somewhere in Houston? Would City Centre (sic) have been a good place, or Pavillions? Or what about the parking garages at the Galleria? Are there any downtown parking garages which would be better as automated compared to driver-parked? Also, would there be an positive effects on traffic that could be leveraged from this type of garage?

My mistake.

Are you sure it's not just a short merge distance for your on ramp? That's what it seemed like to me, since what was previously the shoulder is now a traffic lane.

Oh, I see what you meant. I was talking about http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=42.356015,-71.186782&spn=0.002914,0.004812&t=k&z=18 and http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=42.347586,-71.082015&spn=0.011656,0.019248&t=k&z=16 which were not part of the Big Dig. There are other examples too, but I don't know if the full potential has been reached yet.

You still need to keep the freeway or parallel alternative open for emergency vehicles. Also, you're thinking of it as either "flood" or "no flood". What about height of water, and likelihood of collecting in certain spots on the road? If cars are driving 45-60 mph in the rain, you really can't have ANY rain collecting on the freeways. Cars would spin out, and there would be accidents very often, if this designed-to-flood roadway started accumulating water during 30-40 rainstorms per year. Think, several times per month, you would basically cripple such a freeway - and it could happen on almost any given day during the summer months. Who would ever take their chances commuting on that thing? Now think of side streets. There are many more lane miles of sidestreets in the area, and these can hold several inches of water - even in the middle of the street - before they begin to be impassable. People don't drive as fast on these roads either. So while I would prefer to have freeways flood instead of homes, I think side streets flooding (and PARKS!) are better than either option. You're right that it's not correct to assume emissions will automatically be captured, but in theory, it allows us to limit emissions somewhat. I forget the guy's name (Gonzalo Camacho?), but whoever is touting that I-45 tunnel is claiming this could be done for Houston. I haven't looked at the proposed equipment, so I can't back this up right now. Even without any scrubbing of the air, some of the fine soot will deposit on the walls of the tunnel, which is preferable to the alternative. Who invoked Big Dig? I don't think it was me.

Trenching is a good idea, but a big caveat in Houston would be "where feasible". And it is probably not feasible to have a lot of trenched freeways here. First, it's more expensive to build. Next, there's flooding. Drainage from depressed areas is much more complicated (read: expensive) than from elevated or flat areas. Do we really want to install huge pumps and take away land for detention ponds just for the benefit of reduced noise? I don't think a cost benefit analysis for any freeway in Houston would point towards yes. Now, if the proposal is to do a cut and cover or a tunnel where you can restore some beneficial use to the topside, it making it into a park or putting businesses on top like in Boston, then I think you can recover more costs. Cut and cover would be even more expensive, especially for a topside non-park option, but there could be great benefits as well. Plus, you could reduce noise even more, reduce air pollution from cars, and depending on the design, have fewer flooding problems than a plain below-grade freeway.

Sorry, I don't understand your shortcut. Is this it?

Actually, I would like it if the government would try doing nothing for awhile, aside from fighting foreign enemies. And in the meantime get out of the way. Don't do more harm than good. And if you create temporary jobs at the expense of letting the economy reallocating people to longer-lasting jobs, would you still call that "creating" jobs? I would call that a net loss of employment and therefore not "creating" jobs.

I haven't been in Houston since they started construction on this section of I-10, so I don't know how bad it is. But I can imagine that the timing is not very good, with simultaneous construction on I-610 and I-10. You're really stretching on the suggestion to take I-45 to US 59 to I-10. It's only 3 extra miles, but I-45 in downtown, especially SB, has traffic all the time. Even on a Saturday - without I-10 construction - speeds average 40 for the whole afternoon and evening. And speeds are frequently much lower, even without an accident or an event downtown. I find myself at dead stop fairly often on a Saturday at 1 pm or so. No wreck, no rain, no festival, just congestion. I imagine this has gotten worse now. Could the road be resurfaced? Sure. Was it vital? No, I don't think so. I've been on roads that are in much worse condition and I could show you some that are currently worse in Houston. What we REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY need downtown is more lanes. I'm sure the guy you mentioned, district head of the Houston TxDOT office, knows more about managing transportation dollars for maximum benefit than any of us. But it's not entirely his call, is it? They were given constraints by the federal government which they had to follow, so they came up with their wish list of projects, took other low-priority but ready-to-go projects off the back burner and spent the money on them. Look at the connectors at BW 8 North and the Eastex freeway. Those are being funded because they can be easily started now without ROW acquisition, public comment, design, etc. You cannot argue that that was one of TxDOT's top priorities before the Stimulus money came around. Blame it on Obama or defend him until the cows come home if you like, but it's undeniable that "Stimulus Fever", which many politicians including Obama had, is responsible for this waste. Maybe TxDOT is forcing the issue of adding lanes though. If you notice, they are pushing ahead with 288 toll lanes, still planning on widening of I-45 in the future, and recently planned a sixth lane on the Katy Freeway. They even recently had a project on their website about adding lanes on 59 between Spur 527 and I-10. Crazy, right? And maybe this rework of I-10 is just a precursor to expansion. Think about it: of all the downtown freeways, this is the shortest one, has the shortest segment which is above grade, and is also the least ROW-constrained freeway. Why not expand it?

True. You could conceivably have the same car traffic and increase total trips when rail is added. That would be a win, because people would be traveling more to jobs, traveling to see more clients, traveling to more restaurants and supporting businesses, etc. If I was too abrupt, I did not mean to be, but I don't think Sealy is any place to be talking about introducing rail. People still disagree over the cost/benefits and feasibility of a line out to Sugar Land or The Woodlands. I could be wrong, but I think a line out to Sealy would be much, much later, like 2050. Even if it's just going to be a transportation "option" for people, it does need a reasonable level of ridership. As of 2007, the AADT is 55,000 to 60,000 vehicles per day. This is high compared to what a 4-lane interstate is designed for. Are cars slowed down to 20 mph at rush hour? No. Can we make do? Sure, but this is quickly approaching an unstable situation where slowdowns will become more common. Growth in the area is increasing. For comparison, the ultra-flat length of I-10 in Chambers county carries about 55,000 vpd. That is in a very flat, very straight, and very rural section with few entrances and exits, and it has been six lanes for years. In Orange County, where traffic is less than 50,000 vpd in most places, that is also being expanded to six lanes. Areas south of Ennis, TX on I-45 are even less than that, and these are being expanded to six lanes. And as for the katyfreeway.org vs. current TxDOT source, I think the katyfreeway.org schematics were just proposed; not everything there was built exactly per the drawings. If you go to some along I-10, you'll see that there's an extra lane compared to the proposal or a missing feeder lane. And I was under the impression that that Katy Freeway project was 100% finished. I think the new TxDOT proposal is what's actually being considered at this point.

So, the traffic is too thin but commuter rail would work? So, more lanes are proposed by TxDOT and the first post mentions commuter rail, and TxDOT is the one on autopilot? Sounds like a kneejerk reaction to me. After reading the materials on the website, it seems like the current 4 lanes is inadequate. 8 is probably overkill, but maybe one extra lane in each direction would be enough for the next 20 years. Any ideas how to fund this given the current funding situation? ... But who knows? If the Westpark Tollway ties in to I-10, maybe they will actually need 8 total lanes.

Landfills stink -- even after they're closed. What are they going to do with the landfill gas collection system? Have all of the gas wells go to a piping system, then cover THAT with grass, then burn the gas 1/2 mile away? Landfills sink too. A landfill can settle anywhere from 10-30% depending on what kind of waste it had and how the landfill was operated. How will they build anything on top of this hill? It seems more graphic design than engineering.

That's an excellent idea. I bet they'll catch a lot more people that way. I wish they would target more aggressive drivers rather than just speeders. Speeding is dangerous, but aggressive drivers beget more aggressive drivers ... and soon create a dangerous situation. I also think they could catch more criminals this way; I'm willing to bet that what both groups of people have in common is having impulse control problems, poor decision-making skills, and anger management issues.

Based on these ridership numbers, at this point, what kind of ridership would we expect to the airport on a subway? 500/day? Being very generous, 2000/day? Is this likely to increase drastically in the next 10 years? In 2020, being generous, would we expect 4000/day? It's a good thing that we can run a little experiment like this before we make a mistake of building something too expensive too soon. Heck, drop the price down to $3 for a few months and see what kind of ridership we get on that one. It'd be a relatively low-cost experiment and I'd be really curious to see what kind of ridership it gets.

Tory, isn't Hardy now a money maker? I thought that it became self-sufficient by about 2001 or 2002. I know that when I drive from The Woodlands to downtown, I take Hardy almost any time of the day instead of I-45. There are fewer trucks, fewer trailers with bags full of grass, fewer unsecured loads, and many fewer drunk drivers. It's worth a few bucks. The only time I would prefer to take I-45 would be Thanksgiving morning or something like that.

I think it will be 10 lanes in some parts.

Or even if you're in Dallas and want to get the direct flight from Houston to Qatar rather than dealing with a connecting flight to Houston first. Or even the IAH-Moscow-Singapore flight. And you could name others ... but where's the cost-benefit analysis that says this is the best use of funds? Where are the other alternatives? Couldn't they just build a DFW --> College Station --> Houston leg first if this makes the most economic sense? Do we really need a DFW to San Antonio leg? If this is truly going to be high-speed rail, like 150 mph, it doesn't make sense to have more than a 2-3 stops per metro area. Why build high speed rail in cities when it will NEVER make it up to the high speeds in cities? A stop at IAH and a stop at either Galveston or Hobby might work, with other connecting rail or light rail at from these two or so stops to other parts of the Houston area.

But $18,000,000,000? That's huge. Aren't there ridership projections? I would doubt that the DFW to San Antonio would be cost-justified. The phrase "it would be nice" comes up a lot about this train, but is it really worth it? I could think of a lot more "it would be nice"s which cost a lot less but would still benefit Texas.

No, I'm positive that 65 is not THE best speed. I mean, what are the odds that the optimum speed limit for every speed limit is divisible by 5?!? But I was basically saying that (with the exception of the brief 2002 8-county wide 55 mph limit, the national 55 mph speed limit, and I'm sure I could find other exceptions), speed limits are generally pretty reasonable; sometimes they are too low, and they are even too high on occasion. I-10 inside the beltway could not reasonably be raised to 75 mph or probably even 70 mph. Inside the beltway, the speed limit hasn't been 70 mph for a long, long time (at least 1970s or before). From 1995 to 2002, the speed limit was 65 mph in the "urban area" stretches of the freeways - basically inside the Beltway. On the emissions part for newer cars, you are correct. However, TCEQ did find an emissions drop in large trucks - either because they were actually complying with the new limit more or because large trucks become much more inefficient as they speed up over 55 mph. So, the 65 mph was heralded as a compromise, retaining some of the emissions reduction from trucks and having cars go a reasonable speed (i.e., not 55 mph, say in northern Montgomery County).

BTW, HCTRA was granted an exemption to the 8-county environmental speed limit of 65 mph. They are allowed to set their speed limits to 70 mph if they wish; they just haven't done it yet.

That's an extreme example, but yeah it can happen and I do see it happen, just not on the Katy Freeway yet. It happens more often where there are only a few lanes. But what you've really just shown is that people also shouldn't exceed the speed of the normal flow of traffic. While I would like to go a little faster on the Katy Freeway - and the speed limit COULD be set higher - it's completely unreasonable to assume that a long line of cars merging from the feeder in an major urban area, including buses, 18-wheelers, pickups towing trailers, etc., should be merging onto the freeway at a speed approaching 75 mph. While speed limits are sometimes unreasonable, most of the time they are set pretty close to what is reasonable. I can't even drive 1-2 above the limit in the rightmost lane without some people riding my ass and making gestures and telling me to GTFOOMW!!! If you are one of the people that has the expectation of going fast-like 80 mph, do it in the 2 leftmost lanes and slow down slightly each time you move a lane to the right. It's completely doable. I know, I used to be one of those drivers. I'm just saying that I think they should patrol a little bit in the mainlanes, that's all. Oh, and the Florida Turnpike at least used to be a place where many, many people would cruise over 100 mph. It can be a pretty empty drive between Orlando and Port St. Lucie.