citykid09

Unfortunately I haven't heard of any plans to remove the cheesy red "smokestacks".

Those definitely should be removed. I personally don't like the building at all. It just looks out of place in downtown and then that big ugly freeway that sits at the back roof of it. Maybe its just the design of the building but I just don't like it.

Who thinks W Hotels is now thinking "Is there something about Houston that we have been ignoring?" They have Hotels in all the major cities but have skipped Houston for years. Atlanta alone has 3 W hotels.

Just Imagine coming into the city from 290 and getting on the 610 Loop west and seeing the uptown skyline then entering the West Loop tunnel. It would be very cool and it would urbanize that side of town and create a sort of Central Park for Uptown and integrate both sides of the freeway. It wouldn't all have to be a park. Some of it could be lowrise buildings over the freeway or some of it could be like the parts of the South West Freeway or the beltway near I-10 that are submergered with bridges.

The Next West Loop Reconstruction

Wouldn't it be nice if the next time the West Loop was reconstructed as a submerged freeway and a park placed at ground level? That would make the area 100% more walkable and would change the way the area is developed for the better. What do you all think? What is your idea of a better design?

There was a new movie the other day on Lifetime (not that I watch Lifetime) called The Trip to Bountiful. It was set in Houston but filmed in Atlanta. Go figure.

The last episode of the TV show Scandal had a few scenes that where supposed to be set in Houston. They showed the skyline but once they got to the scene the it was hilly and the people were shooting guns and very redneckish (fighting for their gun rights).

Haha, same here.  Heavy rail is tricky, build just one or two lines, and ridership is underwhelming (see Miami, Atlanta).  But it seems to have increasing returns the more you build (see BART, DC Metro).  

 

As far as right now, I wouldn't say there is a need for heavy rail, but in the next few decades we are quickly approaching the stage where the investment could be justified.  I would absolutely love to work on a project that analyzes commuter patterns, identifies high volume corridors, and figuring out a way to connect those areas as best as possible.  All with fancy maps and graphs.  

 

I admit I'm certainly biased in favor of building heavy rail.  Too many times I have gone to cities with their amazingly fast and efficient subway systems and thought "dammit, why can't Houston have something like this?" My thought process is that Houston deserves better than dinky light rail or BRT. 

I agree with both of you. When I go to other cities such as NYC, DC, SF, etc and ride their heavy rail, I think to myself why can't Houston have this. Light Rail doesn't even come close, especially the way Houston built it. Many of you will complain that: Houston is to spread out; Houston people like to drive; Houston people won't ride heavy rail; Heavy rail is to inconvenient, etc, but none of that is true (except for being to spread out(but not to spread out for heavy rail)). I believe that heavy rail will make areas such as Uptown, Downtown, the Texas Medical Center, etc become more densley populated.

I don't see Houston ever become an Alpha City without a heavy rail system.

 

This article is a bit misleading in that it implies you can build whatever you want in Houston, because there's no zoning. There are very high minimum parking standards in Houston. If you want to build a restaurant or barbershop without building a parking lot, it's illegal in most (all?) of the city.

I've been by some of these buildings and they are not pleasant to walk by. They may add density, but the lack of zoning certainly doesn't help with Houston's lack-of-texture problem. If you want to build a 12-story building in a parking lot in Houston, it's fine, but if you want to build a development that looks like Georgetown or Lincoln Park, if would be illegal.

This reply is very true. Houston may be feeling in the inner city, but at street level it sucks big time.

I wonder if Houston ever had a super station like TBS or WGN.???

And that will be a sad day for Houston, one I hope I am not around for. I love Hosuton the way it is, messy, unplanned,  a place where you can be yourself and succeed, with minimal interference in your life from bizarre rules foisted by central planning advocates who think they are the only people with valid views on how a city should look and develop.

 

Speak for yourself with liking the messy and unplanned aspects of Houston. Yeah I like see buildings in random places from the freeways, but when you get down to street level and realize that there is no life, no activity going, it can be very depressing. I mean here you are in the 4th largest city in America visiting for the first time, you think you are going to see a city slightly smaller than NY, LA, and Chicago. The skylines surely give you that feel but then you go throughout the city and realize that much of what you see is very suburban.

You guys complain about traffic on the streets a lot but to me, traffic makes an area livelier. But you also want to see buildings right up to the sidewalk, sidewalk cafes, people walking and shopping and riding transit, etc.

Houston is getting a lot better though; there are a lot of urban developments going up in the city right now. They are not all perfect, but they are a big improvement of the old Houston way of developing strip malls and gated garden apartments.

This might be a dumb question, but how far is Hughes Landing from the Woodlands Town Square area?

I can almost understand the $1M+ condo... it's the $4,500/month fee that blows me away  (http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearchPrint.cfm?MLNUM=12651939&CLASS=6&sType=0&print=y&leadid=6&portalid=HAR)

 

That's like another $1M mortgage.

That is the reason that no matter how much money I have I would never want to own any condo. Its like you are still renting, you don't truley own it because you have to constanlty pay that much a month. Not for me! Its amazing that that many people can afford that though.

This is Houston. We change out buildings as quickly as the weather changes.

MCDONALD'S will be gone soon

Thats the same thing I was thinking. Maybe 5 years at the most if development trends continue the way they are going. It just seems out of place now.

Ugh , the ditchs are a most given Houston flood problems, just look at midtown 15- 20 mins of solid rain and the area becomes iaccessable. as for the powerline, I once looked into why we do that and the city did at one point consider burying them, but here were a number of factors 10 it cost more and in a city the size of Houston it is just not feazable . 2) burying lines have both it pros and cons...Burying line are less likey to be struck  are damaged but buried lines can cost almost four times as much to repair when they do break(given that the area has to be ripped up and then repaired also it takes longer since a break has to be located along the buried line

I think the pros out weight the cons here. Cost should never be a factor when it comes to quaility of life in your city.

I like Washington Ave. But who skyline is that? Not ours!

I think thats in Minneapolis. I think I found it while Googling "Washington Ave Houston." It would be nice if Houston Washinton Ave could become something similar to that.

Out of all those developments, it looks like two or maybe three of them had a developer that thought, "Let's build a neighborhood that someone would want to take a walk in, and not just drive through on the way to wherever." The rest look like sheer dystopia. It's sad - you look at the State/Allen district in Dallas, another neighborhood that is all new townhome stock, and because they actually thought about the street, it is one of the most exciting districts in town. Shame to see a central part of our city wasted.

I agree, Houston has the worst streets of any large city that I have ever seen. I don't think that I have ever seen streets lined with ditches in another large city. And don't get me started on the powerlines. They are all leaning every which way and its just.....BAD!

Very nice! Only problem I have is the streets! That make everything very disjointed (ditches etc).

I never said Mayor Parker has done nothing for the city, its just that it seems that if Peter Brown had become mayor there would have been more focus on urban planning. I don't see how it would be low on there list of priorities when its a quality of life issue. Houston is a fat city because people don't walk they drive and that is something that is for the most part forced because of the way that the city is developed. What is the point of requiring a set back with parking in the front?

I looked up the Washington Ave future plans and could not find it, but any ways, I came across a Washington Ave plan in another city.

Check it out:

Here is an image of the Houston Washington Ave plan:

My question is why make plans like this when you know that they are never going to happen because the city requires huge setbacks and parking, etc? It drives you nuts! You want to live in Houston but the way that development is currently done in the city you know that you can never get a true urban experence like you can get in other cities.

None of that would happen without the support of City Council, which isn't going to happen. The current ordinance requires the setback from the street, do you really think that Council is going to change that?

Why wouldn't they? The are voted into the City Council to do what is best for the city and wouldn't all that I listed be best for the city and its citizens?

Peter Brown’s sees sidewalks, power lines and the way buildings are place on lots as major problems. I don’t think zoning would fix that, it would just tell people where something can and cannot be built. If there was a standard that building must be built up to the sidewalk, power lines were not allowed in the middle of sidewalks and that sidewalks should be a certain width then I don’t think the problem of not having zoning will be much of a problem. Also Peter Brown could have reduced the parking requirements by a bunch.

I think Regent Square will be the best urban development of all the ones going up in Houston. The reason I say this is because the development mixes in with what is already there, it doesn't have parking lots around it like BLVD place and many of the others. This will just be a part of the city that you can walk directly to from the street and not have to pass through a parking lot to get to it.

How would Houston be different if Peter Brown had become mayor instead of Parker? Peter Brown is a huge advocate of urban planning in Houston and I wonder how his ideas would have made Houston a more walkable urban city. For example, If Peter Brown had become mayor of Houston, I believe all the development on Washington Ave would have been much more like you would find in other cities (up to the street, sidewalk cafes, etc).

Here are some of his videos from around the city. He calls his self Pedestrian Pete on his Youtube Channel.

I hope the guy he has with him in the above videos is coming to work for the city of Houston.

Here is a link to all of his videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/BetterHoustonOrg/videos

An elevated crosswlak in my opinon would be very tacky when problems like this could be solved the way other cities would do it. As in, add stripes to the road so that people know that pedestians cross there, reduce the speed limit etc.

in regards to the parking strip in the front that everyone hates so much.. is it possible the Post Oak expansion will eventually take that out, so the shops are closer to the sidewalk/curb? 

and on a side note, what will happen to the chrome arches when they widen post oak?

If the city was smart, instead of looking to widen the street for BRT, they should look for ways to narrow it a bit so that pedestrians will feel more comfortable walking in the area. Post Oak has a suburban design and that area has changed a lot since the road was fist designed. I think the medians should be removed and large continues sidewalks should be put in. Just my opinion.

I agree with you that I'd have rather seen the money spent on heavy rail which would have had more ridership, more impact, and more durability. 

 

However the light rail lines in Los Angeles look similar to this. 

 

But they also have heavy rail and BRT as well.

Are you sure light rail in Los Angeles is that similar to Houston's? From what I have seen, LA's light rail is set up more like a heavy rail system.

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