sidegate

I agree this city has a curious approach to traffic management, I won't get started on four way stop signs and try to stay on topic. Context has a lot to do with it: If it's 2am and the intersection has a camera I'd hang a right at the red, do a U-turn and proceed through it legally. If it's rush hour, I'll behave and wait my turn. But either way, a camera is a more efficient approach than assigning an officer to an intersection, for the reasons I just mentioned. They may even pay for themselves - try getting a human being to do that!

If new officers were drafted I'd like to think they'd be doing something more sophisticated than standing in 100 degree heat determining who's in an intersection two seconds after they should have stopped. That's a job a camera can do - cameras don't blink, they don't nod off, they don't chat on cell phones, they don't go for donuts. They can do the menial stuff while the cop is out using his or her brain solving and preventing more serious crimes, You bring up the argument of administrative burden which is fair enough, but every new officer that's hired brings their own administrative costs - their vehicle, their overtime, their pension, their benefits, all that costs money to administrate. These cameras have changed my behavior at intersections for the better, so they get my vote.

There's a small difference between not completely stopping at an empty intersection at 2 in the morning and sailing through a busy intersection two seconds after the lights have turned red at rush hour. If you're only risking your own life, up to you I suppose, but anyone else's, that's a no-no. Cameras help a stretched police force do their job at a time when resources are stretched then. Expand the program.

If you think "big brother" (what a hackneyed figure of speech) has the slightest bit of interest in what you, me, or anyone else is doing at any moment in time, believe me, they don't need red light cameras to figure it out, to the nth detail. If "they" wanted to follow me around, they'd expire from the sheer boredom of the exercise.

Remarkable. Two rather prolific individuals, if they're guilty. Nice work....

Great site btw, new to me....

I'm still not sure how ground level vs stilts makes any difference to the area of land that would be set aside for a park. Were they planning to devote some of the space subtended by the store to parking? I suppose in the absence of rendering we'll never know. Great, another three lane street. I'm sure with cars emptying out from both Fiesta and HEB there won't be any confusion at all there And it makes little difference if the three lane configuration stops at Alabama and everything bottlenecks back to to two lanes.

I'd like to be there for that part of it - problem is it's a long meeting (9-1) and I'm not privy to the agenda. Presumably this would be one of the major topics, therefore earlier rather than later....

Maybe so but that is also a function of people approaching intersections too quickly; the cameras don't change the behaviour of the lights, they merely monitor what happens in the intersection some considerable period of time after the lights go red.

Three renderings of the planned shop will be presented at this Saturday's Neartown meeting. I understand a vote will be taken on them. Whether HEB will honour it I know not, but it's a welcome gesture nonetheless.

Driving is a privilege, not a right. Anything that makes safer PUBLIC roads paid for and maintained by PUBLIC money is to be applauded. Privacy has nothing to do with it. If you want to be private, stay at home.

It's difficult to get everyone involved in supporting a constable, particularly in areas with higher numbers of absentee landlords who aren't as invested in the neigbourhood as owner residents. Ours had one for a while but with the small number of households contributing it became untenable.

Has to be one of the neatest empty lots in the city. You could practice your putting on that grass!

If fewer people drove Panzers to the grocery store it would be less of a problem. I've shopped there many times and if you can't park in one of those spaces you need to retake your driving test.

Either you misread my post, or are being tendentious. W. Alabama was never designed as a major artery, but has been tarted up as one in order to keep East West (read: commuters into and out of downtown) traffic moving at as good a clip as possible. Speed is very much an issue on this road....and that's coming from a neighbor.

There's probably blame to go around, but the volume and intensity of the traffic on the road certainly didn't help matters and won't in the future. We can agree I think that the road is handling more traffic than it was designed to and that the resulting stress on the system is going to increase the likelihood of accidents, particularly at junctions. The report didn't say anything about a driver stopping or being cited....

I've crossed Alabama at various times of the day thousands of times since I moved into the neighbourhood 10 years ago. The difference between what it was then and now is chalk and cheese. I know this is all part and parcel of urbanization and I accept that part of it - but the way the whole Alabama reconfiguration was steamrollered through - i.e. switch and bait - still sits very uneasily with me. I archived all my e-mails with the city on this issue, for all the good they'll do me or the neighbourhood. Anyway, many drivers, and a fair guess is that they predominantly commuters, treat it like it's a major artery, when it was never designed to be anything of the sort. How many major arteries have teachers leading a crowd of 12 year olds on a neighbourhood jog after school gets out? Here's one more thing that gives this neighbourhood character that will likely pass into memory all in the name of "Keeping Traffic Moving". I'm generally a fan of Bill White but he messed up badly with this particular street.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7221007.html Waiting for something like this to happen. W Alabama's has been a trainwreck since Spur 529.....

It's been a long time since I banked on getting anything approaching a decent meal on a domestic flight. If I'm traveling for personal reasons, I bring a lunch. Business, I eat at the airport on my per diem. Airlines and food is a joke that hasn't been funny for a long time. International flights are a bit better but of course you pay through the nose for those.

Seconded!

Another couple: Crestwood @ Memorial and Detering @ Memorial. Very frustrating to be caught at these and see one or two cars putter across one's field of vision while the ones on Memorial stack up...

Report the incident and description to the police, all you can do. And thank you for not shooting anyone!

People continuously make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. I go to a bar to drink beer, I go to a restaurant to eat. The Spanish successfully mix drinking and food with tapas, but authentic tapas is simple, honest fare (still bloody tasty!). Houston's version of tapas in the Village misses the point (waiters, sitting down at tables, etc.)

I remember, at the other end of the scale, I remember the Houston Brewery had a carpeted floor. Not sure what the ingredients for a successful brewpub are but I do know a carpeted floor isn't one of them....

Being a scientist, I'll pose a hypothesis: I wonder to what extent the trend away from brewpubs is a reflection of Houston's incremental de-Anglicization? Seems like tippling craft beers, at least in my experience, has been a past-time of a predominantly white demographic. Areas with the most robust pedigrees in the tradition are themselves predominanty white - Rockies, Pacific North West, etc....