JLWM8609

In this article on Texas transportation, the author states that highways like I-45 are a necessary regional link, but then advocates for the demolition of I-345 and mentions that he was one of the individuals that pushed for its demolition. How do you support necessary regional links and also support tearing down the connections to those very regional links?

http://tribtalk.org/2014/06/22/why-the-fate-of-a-dallas-highway-matters-to-all-texans/

I've never had a blowout yet, but I hope it isn't where speeds are fast, I'm not on the immediate right lane, or there's no clearance on the other side (shoulders are good, sharp drop-offs/bridges are bad). Close encounters I've never had but no serious "I'm f'd!" moments like the unfortunate situation in the dashcam video below:

A lot of people don't know this, but if you ever experience a blowout while on the highway, the key is to accelerate briefly to keep control, drive straight, and stay away from the brake pedal and keep from turning the steering wheel until the drag of the blown tire slows the car down to about 30 mph. When you get below 30 mph, then you can gently apply the brakes and steer gently onto the shoulder. See #1 and #2 on this list.

http://www.edmunds.com/driving-tips/how-to-survive-the-top-10-driving-emergencies.html

I've passed them countless times, but only in the last week have I really paid attention to the older homes on MLK near OST. When they were built, MLK wasn't even known as its prior name of South Park Blvd. It was known as Holmes Rd. If you look at old aerial views from the 40s, you can see where Holmes Rd. made a curve to the north at what is now the intersection of 610 and MLK. Part of that curve still exists as the right turn lane from MLK to the 610 WB feeder. But, back to the homes. Most of them sit on slightly less than an acre of land.

The one in the best condition is the mansion at 5151 MLK. It's owned by a church now and was built in 1910 according to HCAD, but it looks more like a 1920s or 1930s build to me.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.704455,-95.33413,3a,75y,119.58h,91.16t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sqMOCcisJ8t4e6_XV5mNqHg!2e0

The next one is hidden behind a bunch of trees. The only way you can really see it is on Bing maps. It's at 5302 MLK and was built in 1939 according to HCAD.

http://binged.it/1lFNK34

5306 MLK is also owned by the same church that owns 5151 MLK. HCAD says it was built in 1958, but Google Earth aerial views from 1953 show otherwise. It's also shrouded by vegetation

http://binged.it/1nmyZPZ

5320 MLK is also owned by the church. HCAD says it was built in 1947, but Google Earth views from 1944 show it to be present. It's  surrounded by trees and doesn't look to be in good condition.

http://binged.it/1nmzcT4

There was another one next to 5320 at MLK and Stuyvesant, but it was torn down for some apartments in the 60s or 70s, which were owned by the same church in the 90s, and torn down recently and replaced by KIPP Academy.

I wonder, who built and originally lived in these homes? They seem more like something you would've found on S. MacGregor or N. Parkwood Dr. When most of them were built, they were in what was still considered the outskirts of town. It's amazing that most of them have survived the developments that have surrounded them.

Something drastic was happening at this house today. It seems they are tearing down the garage (which originally was a carport) and the back wall of the house is gone.  It looks like 3 men doing the work by hand so perhaps it will be added to or it's being deconstructed. 

I noticed the same thing today.

 

 

What's with luxury cars and analog clocks?  A strange feature that seems to have become universal. 

Analog clocks have been the norm in luxury cars for a long time, except for perhaps a brief time in the 90s and early 00s. Nothing new, really.

It still hasn't wrapped up. There is construction around shepherd even now.

 

The Katy Freeway widening wrapped up in 2009 and the project's borders were from the Ft. Bend county line to Washington Ave. The project you're referring to around Shepherd has nothing to do with the 03-09 Katy Freeway widening.

There was an Archer Rambler on the 5000 block of Kirby by Goode Company.  I believe the dealership building is still in use.  I don't know the name of it, but I think there might have been a Lincoln-Mercury dealer close to Kirby and Alabama.

It was probably River Oaks Lincoln Mercury. I saw a nice 88-91 Mercury Grand Marquis last week that still had the River Oaks Lincoln Mercury decal on the trunklid.

I think both the Ernest J. Sterling Student Center and Thurgood Marshall School of Law at TSU would be contenders for Houston brutalism. I believe John Chase was the architect on both buildings and both opened around the same time in the late 70s.

The new store will be built at the corner of Scott and Corder. There will be a community meeting at Cullen Middle School on June 17th at 6:30pm so residents can provide input on grocery selections and meet the owner of Pyburn's. From what I've heard, the store will be 20,000 sq. ft. I don't know how large your average Houston grocery store is, but I know Pyburn's will be a welcome addition to the area, which is considered a food desert. This will be Pyburn's third location, with the others being on Almeda near BW8 and the other on Fondren near W. Airport.

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Long-Awaited-Grocery-Store-to-Open-in-District-D.html?soid=1116213273384&aid=A9OqJ70ka5w

Beyonce and Journey.

I don't even feel guilty about the Hall and Oates, though. That's just good music.

You can't be faulted for liking Beyonce. You're just a stone's throw away from her childhood home on Parkwood Dr.

While "mongrel neighborhoods" seems like veiled racism (and I'm not denying that there may be a bit of that), I don't think that, especially if you consider that Riverside Terrace didn't have anyone that wasn't white living in it prior to '52 (if I recall correctly, the major demographic shifts happened after the 288 clearance), and the fact that they say "stately magnificent homes", which they wouldn't if they thought that poorly of the "mongrel neighborhoods".

Consider that after 1952, the line that separated black residents from white residents in the area moved progressively southward. In 1952, the line was Alabama St. Blacks traditionally stayed north of Alabama while south of Alabama was white. When Jack Caesar moved in, the line moved south to Cleburne, then Blodgett. By the late 50s when this brochure came out, the line was just past Southmore, and that's when you saw businesses opening up in homes such as Wyse Barber Shop and Bill Clair Mortuary.

The area was still mostly white in 1958, but demographics were obviously changing. A few years later in the mid 60s, the area was 50/50 black and white. Around that time, the line was at Brays Bayou, which was finally crossed by 1970, and then the area became majority black. I think part of that reatively late crossing of the bayou came from the fact that black residents displaced by the construction of 288 decided to stay in the area and moved south of the bayou (such as my uncle and aunt who moved from Rosedale St. to Rio Vista Dr.), while white residents took their eminent domain checks and went to places like southwest Houston.

Right, we used to stop there when we'd be hauling a car, just to check the trailer load.  There was always someone stopped there, even large 18 wheelers.  it was a nice little place although it didn't have restrooms or any conveniences.   We never understood why it was closed.  The exit/entrance to/from it are still there on both east/west sides but you can't go far.  The roadbed between entrance and exit on both sides have been removed.

I think part of the reason for its closure were its antiquated left side entrance and exit ramps. I remember having to enter I-10 from one of those ramps from the rest area and merging into the left lane full of lifted pickups doing 80 mph.

Why heavens to Betsy, the "mongrel neighborhood" in the illustration has housing stock that looks suspiciously like Riverside Terrace.

 

Check out http://thisisourhomeitisnotforsale.com/ some time.  During that same era, my grandparents got blockbusted out of the Palms Center area, ending up in Sharpstown.

You can tell they were alluding to Riverside Terrace. Mongrel reads like a code word for "negro" in this context.

Yep, don't like the touch screen stuff.  For one thing, it just leaves greasy smudges all over your screen, and then you have to clean it all the time.  Why wave my hands all around, when I can just wiggle a mouse a few fractions of an inch. 

How about the new document viewers?  For example, click a pdf file an the file viewer opens.  Lo and behold, there is no longer that "x" in the upper right corner that we've always used to exit the document.  So how in the heck do you get this thing off your screen now?  You have to go google the internet to find out that Alt-F4 is how you exit.  Excuse me?  What idiot took away the friggin "x"?

 

Attached: pdf file display of an IRS form.  Yep, that's all the viewer gives you?  See any control buttons anywhere?  You get a plus and minus sign, and a scroll bar - that's it! How to exit when ready?  Nope, no clue given.  Need to do anything else?  Tough noogies! 

I hate that, too. That's why I downloaded Sumatra PDF viewer. It allows you to view PDFs and still have the "x" in the upper right corner to exit the document.

Yeah, thats the one...RiversideT. and I agree. It has sat vacant for quite a while. Nice to know it's still there. Hope it gets some love. We have an old thread here, on HAIF, that talks about it. Yeah, ArchFan, I agree, salvage or re-use what you can, if it's being wrecked. Unfortunately, the freeways chop up original neighborhood plans, leaving a mangled version. Those houses on the outskirts of the neighborhoods are especially vulnerable. It's a shame. I'm guessing they are hoping to sell the land for future high rise development. 

Funny you should mention salvaging or re-using what you can and how the freeway chopped up the neighborhood. I heard a story of a house that was in the way of 288. When it came time to tear it down, the house wasn't razed, but instead the owner had it dismantled. Some of the materials such as bricks and windows went to build what I believe was his replacement home in the Acres Homes area, and others were able to take what materials they needed, too. I wish I knew more about that and where the home is located now.

Tower, you are correct, it's EB Rusk on the side with the tracks.  And JL, having one pole rather than two would seem to make all sorts of sense when they are all of two feet apart; beyond that, I wouldn't be surprised if they manage to find their drill and some bigger bands to move the walk signals and "one way" sign over onto the catenary pole.  Lesserthenever, we've got two brand new, shiny, gray poles, both matching each of their single purpose brethren, and number stickers, etc., so I'm still calling design error on this.

I've noticed that instead of moving the old pedestrian signals downtown to new poles, they're doing things including installing new pedestrian signals to new signal and catenary poles, installing new pedestrian signals to old signal poles with different types of mast arms to accommodate the new lines of vision caused by new catenary poles being in the way of the old signal poles, and I think some of the old pedestrian signals and old signal poles are being untouched if it's been determined that their current placement is ok.

You can see in this photo posted by "rechlin" in the Houston Traffic Lights Thread in the Traffic and Transportation Main forum that new pedestrian signals and a new traffic signal are being mounted to the old red signal pole on the right side of the road. On the left side of the road, you can see the new pedestrian and traffic signals mounted to a catenary pole with the old signal pole just to the left of it.

I think they're going to mount ped signals to the catenary poles.

Instead of expanding surface lots, how about an offsite garage with shuttle service? The garage would be offsite, but near the park so there would not be a garage in the middle of the park grounds. The shuttle would be served by low floor buses to accommodate strollers, wheelchairs, and bikes. The garage would be ideally somewhere along Almeda south of MacGregor, maybe Almeda at Holcombe on that sliver of park land at the corner. I heard a rumor that Grocer's Supply wants to relocate, so maybe the garage could be located somewhere along Dixie or Holcombe. There would be stops at the zoo entrance on Cambridge, at the Miller Outdoor Theater, and the Golf Course on a circular route running from 6am-11pm daily. Of course, there would be the question of funding and utilization since the park is not at capacity everyday and there would surely be days where the buses wouldn't be running at capacity or where the lot wouldn't be full. Maybe that could be offset by sharing the garage as a place for Medical Center parking or Rodeo parking.

This is an interesting question. Apparently the term "feeder road" is almost exclusively a Houston term. Here is a map based on the above question (with a few more response choices like service road and gateway, the latter which I've never heard), showing where the term feeder road is used. Unfortunately I couldn't find the one that has different colors for all the choices and where they are common, but this just shows where feeder is used vs. not used...

 

5617c92da99eb8f8ea100e2abf2a724f.png

 

As to the original question, I love feeder roads. It makes access to businesses and side streets much easier, and as people mentioned, can be a life-saver in high traffic situations. Two local examples that I like to use are 290 westbound, where the feeder can be significantly faster than the main lanes during rush hour, even with the lights, and the Gulf Freeway northbound, where several exits in the Clear Lake area have bypasses on the feeder road so you don't even have to stop at the light, going under the overpasses for Bay Area Blvd and El Dorado instead.

Enjoy those feeder bypasses on the Gulf Freeway while you can. I used to do that when I commuted home from my old job in League City. Once the expansion project is done in a few years, I-45 will go over those roads instead of them going over I-45.

I remember hearing about this project when they did the groundbreaking of the new International terminal at HOU a few months ago. They're doing it now so there will be a smooth gateway to and from HOU when the international flights begin. Broadway should've been rebuilt 15 years ago. The dips and potholes were terrible even back then. I'm surprised that the COH didn't at least do a quick asphalt overlay of the stretch between I-45 and the airport in that time.

This is interesting.

I like feeder roads. For one thing, when there's an accident on the mainlanes and they're closed, the feeder roads can provide an alternate route that's still direct and doesn't involve snaking through residential areas. Feeder roads have also allowed for divided highways to be upgraded into freeways without eliminating at grade access to adjoining land. You can complain about clutter, but if you were in Atlanta driving down I-75, you'd probably see clutter and businesses if most of the freeways there weren't lined with pine trees and kudzu. Hmm, maybe that's the solution to the visual blight caused by feeders. Just plant a boatload of trees in the ROW between the mainlanes and feeder.

Someone posted a few years back that a plane crashed somewhere near OST around that timeframe.

Speaking of traffic lights, I see that they are replacing a bunch of the traffic lights downtown.  While I like that they are more visible, no longer just being at the right side of the street, I am perplexed at the arrangement.  All over Texas and Houston, all traffic lights are horizontally arranged, which is different from most places in the US.  However, these new lights are vertically arranged!  Does anyone know if this is a new trend, or if they are just doing this downtown, or what's going on?

 

I've only seen vertical signals like these in Houston along the new light rail lines. I asked a lady who works for the COH with signals about the new vertical arrangements and she thinks it may have something to do with visibility along the line.

We aren't the only city in TX to have vertical signals though. I've seen them in Galveston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas.

Looks like he's been in B'ham since last year.

http://cbs42.com/2012/01/01/gene-norman/