Jax

a reply to your statement they are trains. No more dangerous than any other trains though.

Right. Light rail is no more more dangerous than the train that killed that dude in 1971. Were you trying to add something, or just trying to teach me some Texas history?

Truxton Hathaway

What does that have to do with light rail?

Red's right. They're far too dangerous to be toys.

I don't see how that adds to the discussion. Of course they are dangerous, they are trains. No more dangerous than any other trains though.

Each car holds up to 220 people and they can attach two cars together (on my way home from Rice at 6:30 today they were runing double cars with standing room only).

I don't know how that compares to a typical subway though.

EDIT: Montreal's subway for comparison holds 160 people per car, but I don't know how many cars they typically run at one time.

What is the truck in the first photo spraying? Some kind of insecticide for mosquitoes?

What are you doing riding on the sidewalk? You're going to hit a pedestrian!

Well... the road was one way and I didn't want to go all the way around the loop so I just rode on the sidewalk. Also that way I got to make a detour through the quad.

Back in Canada you could get a ticket for riding your bike on the sidewalk, but here in Texas as far as I can tell it's fair game (the police ride their bikes on the sidewalks). Usually the sidewalks are underutilized anyways (not at Rice though).

AAAAUGH! That makes me dizzy! Amazing, except for the cars and clothes this looks like it was done in 1963 with a Super 8 camera.

Haha, I actually sped up the video because it was too boring watching me bike slowly for 5 minutes.

I attached a small video camera to my bike and recorded my ride around the Rice campus yesterday. Cool huh?

(anybody know how to embed the YouTube video?)

I can agree with most of that.

Houston's downside is that the city is a bit out of balance and vastly favors the suburban preference over the urban one. Although you can argue that this is because of demand, I believe there are some issues with codes and variances that make it more difficult for a developer to build an urban/walkable development as opposed to a suburban (strip center, big box) development. And aren't there a lot of influential people here in Houston with ties to the oil industry, which relies on profits from gasoline? I don't think the Houston's style is purely the result of market demand.

The market will really come into play once HP, West Ave, etc. are open. If they prove to be more popular than a traditional strip center (which I believe they will be), we'll see many more urban/walkable developments in the future. If they prove to be no more popular than the average strip center, then urban development will most likely cease.

Regardless of my specific examples of my friends, my point was that a city which is built 100% for cars is never going to be very exciting and appealing to people from dense urban areas. But a city that offers both vibrant pedestrian friendly neighborhoods, as well as car/gardening friendly neighborhoods might be. The key is to offer the urban experience to those who want it, but offer the more affordable suburban option as well. I think that might be what you are getting at, and I think a lot of cities actually already do this. Houston is definitely doing a good job with the suburban lifestyle, and with a little bit of work, maybe we can have it both ways?

Not that another example will mean anything to you, but one of the friends I'm talking about is from Taipei and she is missing it very much. I don't think she considers Houston exotic or exciting, although I've been trying to show her and her husband that it's not as bad as they think. I think they like Houston a bit better after I took them out for a bubble tea on Westheimer.

It might just be appealing and exciting in the same sense that we see the neighborhood that they live in to be exotic.

It might, but it also might not.

The people who have visited me here from more "pedestrian firendly" cities (NYC, Montreal, Toronto) have have usually had a bad impression of Houston because of the fact that it's so spread out and not pedestrian friendly. They always ask me why nobody is walking and why downtown is so empty. I usually tell them that you get used to it and Houston has just as many things to do as other cities, it just involves often driving. So far nobody has said that they prefer Houston's style to the walkable cities they know.

Same goes for grad students from other cities that are more walkable. Most of them dislike Houston for the very reason that it's not very walkable (most of them also don't have cars).

Maybe it's just what you're used to, although I'm from a city that is even less walkable than Houston, and I don't like that at all.

It's not so surprising to me that they have to submit another report. That doesn't seem like a really big deal to me. Nobody is even saying at this point whether it is going to cause any delays or not, so all we can do is wait and see what happens.

I hope these lines are built on time. I know I will be using them often.

I'm sick of these "rail vs. anti-rail" discussions we have already had in multiple threads. I see the same discussion happening, with the only difference being the fact that "Puro Aztlan" is in this thread. Is it possible to discuss the implications of the latest news without comments like "Who needs these little toy trains anyway?" ? We've already gone over that a thousand times.

But how many months are actually "too hot" for walking? Even in the hottest parts of summer, I don't find the evenings or the shade too bad. Of course nobody wants to walk in direct sunlight at noon in August in an environment similar to the last photo from Webdude while wearing long pants and a jacket (there is no shade). But if the streets are designed properly, I think they can be walkable in the summer, at least if you dress properly. In Webdude's first two photos, there is definitely some shade for pedestrians compared to the 3rd. I think downtown is the best environment for walkability because the large buildings provide some shade.

An important aspect of walkability, as I said before, is the environment between point A and point B. If that environment includes empty lots, parking lots, etc, whether or not you consider them beautiful (musicman) it's likely that there won't be much shade, and people will be less likely to walk. If the environment has buildings with awnings, trees, etc, it makes for a more pleasant walking environment.

I know that beauty is subjective, but I think we can all agree that blank walls, empty lots, etc. are not beautiful. If we could replace all the empty lots in Houston with cactus men and quirky elderly couples, maybe more people would walk?

Yes, yes, yes. A place is walkable not only because of distance, but there should be stuff in between point A to point B that makes the walk walkable, things to see and experience, people activity, weather. I see folks saying I am near this and I can walk to that, but what is in between?

I totally agree. One of the things I noticed about San Francisco is there is beautiful architecture, activity, and interesting sights everywhere you look. An atmosphere like that really does make walking more pleasant than abandoned buildings, empty lots, parking lots, blank walls, fences, etc.

People are more likely to walk if walking is an enjoyable experience, not just a way of getting from point A to point B.

Yeah, Walkscore doesn't calculate whether or not there are sidwalks. Here's an overview of the flaws in Walkscore...

http://www.walkscore.com/how-it-doesnt-work.shtml

Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's still kind of interesting.

Downtown Houston (Preston at Main scores 94/100 which isn't far off from my sister's apartment in Manhattan which gets 97/100. I guess they don't take into account the fact that a lot of the places in downtown Houston close early though.

But c'mon ... do any of us really walk very many places here in Houston? And by 'walk' I do not mean inside The Galleria or inside Hermann Park, or around Rice University on Sunday morning.

... I mean, really ... walk to/from our destinations.

I walk to Rice / the Medical Center daily (sometimes I ride my bike, sometimes I take the metro rail).

I walk downtown for dinner and a movie or if I feel like going to a bar (via metro rail). I also walk to the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Miller Outdoor Theater. The only restaurant I ever walk to is Cafe Express at MFAH but there are a few on Almedia that I haven't tried yet. But yeah, I walk to destinations.

Check out this website. It attempts to calculate the "walkability" of your neighborhood using google maps data. Unfortunately it doesn't take things like public transit into account (so it doesn't realize that I have easy access to downtown restaurants for example), but it's interesting anyways.

My 'hood gets a score of 69. Anybody else want to post their score?

Most likely the reason Houston ranked so low is because the walkable areas (mostly inner loop) are dwarfed by the sprawling outer loop. In most other cities, many of those outer loop areas would be considered separate municipalities and therefore ranked separately (although Houston has this interesting way of being fairly continuous outside the loop which is part of the reason it is all considered Houston I guess).

If they were comparing Houston with other metro areas, I think that would be more fair.

I am always surprised how small the population of the city of Atlanta proper is. I think it's because the municipal boundaries are smaller and the outlying areas are considered separately. That is possibly why Atlanta ranked higher than Houston.

Here's a new place on the other side of the 59 for $250k. Maybe it's not comparable with the Perry home though. Maybe it's smaller or something, but you might want to check it out. I actually went into this one over the weekend and it was very nice. Too bad I don't have a real job...

that make my life more inconvenient

Metro Rail makes things in other peoples lives more convenient, just not yours.

Looks like it's now called The Amalfi at Hermann Park.

Thanks for all of the awesome photos. This is why I love Galveston.

How exciting.

Wachovia is really opening a lot of branches in the loop since I moved here. When I moved here the only Wachovias I can think of were on Kirby near the 59 and Downtown.

Now there is one in Midtown, one at Kirby and Bissonnet, one at Kirby and Westheimer, and soon to be one at Weslayan and Westheimer.

I noticed last night that the gas station (Shell?) next to Central Market on the corner of Weslayan and Westheimer had been demolished and it looked like something was going on on that corner.

Does anybody have any ideas? I didn't catch the sign when I drove by.

People driving around with their high beams on. It seems like that becoming much more popular. Is it because our aging population is losing their night vision?

I notice that too and it drives me crazy. I was wondering if the low beams are getting more powerful, or if people are just too stupid to turn them off. The worst part is being stopped at a red light and the guy behind is really close and has his high beams on. I drive a small car, so some of the lights on the SUVs fairly high compared to my car, and the lights shine directly into my side mirrors and almost blinds me.