skwatra

I would take paint-only in a heartbeat on Weslayan. That and some street sweeping for debris removal. Obviously some sort of barrier separation would be great, but paint and a little maintenance would go a long way.

There is a mindset issue here and it won't be easy to solve. Whether you live in the Heights, Midtown, or the burbs you will likely at some point have to go long distances. So people assume they will be able to go as fast as posted (or faster!), even through 'dense' (relatively) areas trying to get to a freeway. My brother lives in SF and I get in trouble driving there. Most of the time there is enough traffic, peds, bikes, buses, that you'll be lucky to hit 20 mph. When its clear I find myself flying and my brother has to make me slow down to 25 because you never know what will be over the next hill. The difference is we never have to go more then 3-4 miles there so you just deal.

I used to live in Montrose and road my bike everywhere including the Heights. I like this idea to just help with increasing bike routes and awareness, but the MKT trail to White Oak is sufficient for me. When there was no connectivity from MKT to White Oak, I had to take Nicholson and cut across that small stretch on 11th to get to White Oak. I hated riding on that stretch which is why this totally makes sense to me. I'm not familiar with Pecore, but 11th makes sense given all the destinations on that street.

Went to Me'Lange a few weeks ago, they were still in the soft opening stage and awaiting their liquor license. A few dishes were pretty good, others average. They will be open until 3 or 4am daily.

Interesting data. Looks to be from 2000, and I assume it is mileage by lane so Houston has had a lot of expansion since then. The stats I find most interesting which I've never come across before are "% of Travel Served by Freeways" and "Daily Vehicle Miles Per Capita".

The % of travel i assume is % of car/bus vehicle travel (based on the NYC and SF numbers, can't be all modes of travel).

Any thoughts on the Daily vehicle travel of 36.9 miles per capita for Houston, and if that number has gone up or down?

24 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

I stopped reading after you said Chron article. Wikipedia is more accurate than chron.com

Its not their data. and no one has highly accurate data, just studies and surveys that point to a trend- things are getting worse.

new study from HomeArea.com

A recent survey by the Rice Kinder Institute for Urban Research shows Houston-area residents continue to assert that traffic congestion is getting worse, and in an area that adds nearly 100,000 people annually, that’s probably no surprise.

Solo drivers take 25.8 minutes to reach the office, according to a new analysis by the Associated Press.

9 hours ago, 102IAHexpress said:

You are entitled to your anecdotal evidence. And I'm not suggesting you should ignore your personal observations. However, the fact is Houston's commute time relative to other cities, has actually gotten faster not slower. If you have facts that suggest otherwise, then please post them. 

1. Houston commute times relative to other cities is not relative to my argument and I know we have to look at other models to compare, but what is important is Houston's commute times relative to 10 years ago and what to expect 10 years from now.

2. Chron article from 2018 states "Houston drivers traveled an average of 27.3 minutes to work" and from 2015 a Chron article states "Solo drivers take 25.8 minutes to reach the office". An almost 6% increase in 3 years. Of course I wouldn't count this as evidence, as they are two different studies and they likely use variables which could be altered to give you very different numbers, or they surveyed some ridiculous sample size like 100 people which is just as good as my "anecdotal evidence" which includes how all the real Houstonians I know that live and work around the city have been impacted by transportation and traffic.

3. If you have the actual source data from your visualcapitalist commute data that would be interesting, but I can't find anything. I don't think any facts have actually been presented in this discussion.

95.7 The Spot plays them on occasion. but they play hits from the 70s 80s 90s 00s.

00s? is that acceptable?

35 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

You could. But it would be misleading. NYC commuters have the longest commute time in the Country. Houston does not. But nice try. 

 

A nice visual aid of the facts: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/average-commute-time-by-state.html

 

posting a story about the most densely populated region in the country and their subway woes is misleading. And one graphic based on some census sample that's not defined is misleading too. My further discussion was what life is like getting around Houston and how congested and slow things have gotten in the last decade. LA is a better example, and I feel like that now - rush 'hour' has expanded and the reverse commute has faded. No matter where you are or what direction you're going between 3-8pm its crowded and slow and I would like more options.

I don't see the value of comparing Houston and NYC. we've been down that path many times on this forum and nothing really comes out of it. I know I did respond as such, i couldn't help it... But when i used to spend a lot of time in new york, i only took the subway to get to certain special destinations, day to day stuff everything i could possibly need was within a 10-15 minute walk.

To your question on taking a private vehicle and the advantages - yes i do like having that option in Houston. But I would like other options as well. I used to live in Montrose and would bike everywhere. Being able to take the bayou downtown and feel safe doing so even with my toddlers in a trailer was amazing. Walking to the red line and taking it to Reliant and not having to worry about parking, being able to have a few beers, and get out with no traffic was amazing. Walking to Dallas St and taking a single bus to an Astros game with my kid who loves to ride was amazing. I only drove to work (Clear Lake, the park and ride would have taken 1+ hour to go against traffic and I would still have needed my bike when I got to Bay Area) and it was amazing. BTW when I did live by work and was taking grad school classes at UH I did take the park and ride and walked to campus twice a week, for that 4-5:30 class. Coming back was much nicer in a bus where i could read and not have to worry about the gulf freeway.

now we moved to Bellaire, still inside the loop. To get downtown on a single bus to the med center, then the train would take an hour. To go 8 miles. And I picked a destination right on the rail line. 40 minutes to get to Reliant, 4.5 miles away. There are better ways to move around more efficiently, and it will take a combination of smart methods that should ideally relieve traffic and congestion, reduce emissions, and provide multiple options for residents.

you could make the same slideshow called "Tales of Highway Hell" in Houston and have equivalent scenes and stats.

We're talking 21 year olds. Interns and co-ops that were supposed to start and had no where to report, no longer getting credit and too late to enroll in classes. Yes I'm sure it will all be worked out and yes we got paid (by the way its really surprising how many well paid people- even older ones - live paycheck to paycheck, it baffles me). Young people that were lost, all drive gone and coming back to a zero morale environment. I work with these people and the psychological component is evident.

Obviously private sector has risks and you can apply all the logical arguments you want but the emotional components are real and there is an impact.

NASA federal employees got back pay (partial checks) yesterday and today. Had one good young engineer paying student loans and a car payment who was 2 days away from being evicted... was surprised how quickly they cut these checks but was glad to see it.

Long term impacts: he has friends graduating in May who now have no interest to work for NASA or any other government agency now and have turned their eyes to the private sector.

20 hours ago, august948 said:

Roflmao

I hope wherever august reads HAIF is clean, that's a lot of rolling around on the floor....

35 minutes ago, august948 said:

would probably be a non-starter

what's your point? many in Congress including Republicans think a national emergency at the southern border today is a non-starter. the point is, if the precedent is set to attempt to use the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to push campaign promises, lots of issues could be declared 'emergencies' in the future by various administrations.

23 hours ago, West Timer said:

use that same authority to declare emergency powers for climate change laws, transgender bathrooms, voter suppression laws,  land grabs

Don't forget a national emergency on gun control.

my vote would be environmental laws as that is a world emergency.

22 minutes ago, trymahjong said:

I read that JSC requested furloughed employees do janitorial duties

I can verify that. And that's the few part-time federal employees working excepted work, and contractors.

Back to the shut down and impacts, several of the smaller JSC contracts have furloughed high percentages of their employees, one furloughed 80% starting this week. And unlike civil servants, they have no guarantee of back pay. The bigger contracts (Boeing, Jacobs) are covered through late February. Office of Personal Mgmt also sent out a second furlough letter to federal employees which is required every 30 days...

That picture is obvious an extreme example, but what this president has brought out is the worst in people. both sides. There is data that supports that, and I have felt it.

I don't think its a coincidence that I have gotten the "get out of my country" type hate in various cities in the US several times between September 2001-2002, and 2017-2018. NOT ONCE in the 15 years between.

On 1/21/2019 at 10:20 AM, HoustonMidtown said:

I am afraid you are wasting your time writing or emailing anyone in Government - you are only going to get auto-response form letters (if anything) in response - especially now when they are all getting tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of letters/emails.

Isn't that the whole point of democracy? maybe they need to get millions of letters. Either way the people can't stop voicing their concerns even if it feels pointless, otherwise we're doomed.

On 1/8/2019 at 7:47 PM, trymahjong said:

One of my kids works for NASA in Manhattan. Yes furloughed. Yes one of 800,000. They will get back pay. Those Federal contract workers also not getting to work during government shut down won’t.

Can't give details, but one of our major contractors (at JSC) are paid forward through the end of January, the other through the end of February. So contractors are still working and being paid as of now.

Given ISS is on-orbit with 6 crew, I am confident that we will do whatever it takes to keep supporting the program safely indefinitely.

On 1/8/2019 at 8:32 PM, Ross said:

That story was from December 21, and the House had not passed the bill, so there was nothing to sign.

I wasn't talking about the appropriations bill, but legislation was passed by the senate per a few sources

(separate legislation based on my understanding - but i don't really understand what is going on so i may be wrong)

Quote

The Senate on Friday passed legislation to ensure federal employees facing furloughs during a potential partial government shutdown are guaranteed back pay once the government reopens.

bottom line, I won't be getting paid this week.

Senate passed a bill to backpay furloughed workers. But i also heard that Trump didn't sign it, but can't find that detail after a quick search.

https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2018/12/senate-passes-bill-guarantee-furloughed-feds-back-pay-if-there-shutdown/153778/

I'm not sure the intent of your question. Of course this is still news, the government is basically shut down. Myself and thousands of others in Houston are furloughed and will not be getting paychecks this week most likely. Nationwide that number is ~800,000. We have a new House that looks like they will be holding their ground against the Executive so actual legislation will be at a near standstill for the foreseeable future. So whether you care about politics or not, this is news and will start to impact almost everyone.

Good luck getting home.

First off, I am against straight ticket voting - wanted to get that out there before I provide these numbers. It obviously had an impact but if you look at other results around Harris County you see that its not that straight forward:

All of these numbers are for Harris County.

Hidalgo: 49% 590,524

Emmett: 48% 572,816

Valdez: 52% 627,446

Abbott: 46% 558,958

Beto: 58% 698,580

Cruz: 41% 498,175

So there are 108K people that voted for Beto who did not vote for Hidalgo.

Yes, she got help from Beto but there are also plenty of people that chose not to vote for that race or chose not to vote for Emmett.

I was thinking about how the Astrodome referendum failed in Harris County (53% against), but that was 2013 and he won in 2014 at 84%!

And I feel like he handled Harvey well and works with Turner well.

So the Beto effect, anti-Trump effect played a roll of course but there is more to it i think.

I for one am glad that straight ticket balloting will be eliminated in Texas for the 2020 election.

Judges should not be part of a partisan election, we should be voting for judges based on individuals, not parties. Emmett is the only Republican i voted for.