nucklehead

how does this response relate to the question?

I'm still confused how an elevated freeway that doesn't hinder vehicular traffic, pedestrians or LRT vehicles is dividing midtown and downtown? what is on one side but not the other solely due to the elevated freeway? please be specific.

where is the best growth in midtown happening specifically? what streets specifically?

Midtown is restricted MORE in this area because all streets don't traverse the sunken portion of 59. How specifically do you see it as being not restricted?

Have you ever heard of the expression, "living on the wrong side of the tracks"? Railroad tracks divide neighborhoods. Think about elevated roadways as behaving much the same way or think of them as rivers. Even if you build lots of bridges to go across a river, it still divides a city and its neighborhoods. The Brazos River was a good example of this phenomenon in Houston for many years. For the longest time development in Houston just never could bust out across it.

After the oil bust of the 80's, I can remember that it took areas from older stalled residential developments in southwest Houston many years to recover after the city's economy picked up again. This problem arose because new planned development moved out 10 miles further from town leaving big holes or vacuums in failed developments. This was he time when development finally moved across the bridge beyond the Brazos.

So you do everything you can to keep the developments in the neighborhood of Midtown from dying during downturns in the economy. One way is to connect new neighborhoods there to long established ones. Having long term plans that out last economic downturns is another solution. Burying freeways is the best way. Just do it.

The buried freeway between downtown Dallas and Uptown is really difficult to see in pictures. This was a deliberate plan by the city of Dallas some 30 years ago so that development would never be hindered from traveling northward from downtown. During the construction boom before the crash in Downtown Dallas, land prices got so ridiculous that both Rose Hunt and the Southland Corp. took the opportunity to buy cheaper land north of downtown to build office buildings. That is really the birth of Uptown. The Art's District, the Light Rail, Victory, the planned Trinity project as well as hundreds of other smaller projects, have since combined together to create a critical mass in Uptown. Now mainstreet in Dallas is Woodall Rogers Freeway and the center of downtown will be its Art's District.

The development in Houton I speak of is just north of where the elevated feeder from 59 south ends at Westheimer. I remember seeing cranes and multiple apartment buildings being built in that part of the town. Check out a satellite map of the area. There are other smaller pockets of development going on, of course. In regards to the incredibly wide freeway interchange to the eastern side of Midtown, it doesn't look as wide when development stacks up on both sides. A huge park plaza on top of it would be really beautiful. The cityh of Monterrey, Mexico has really beautiful boulevards and plazas.

The biggest problem I can see is that people tend to live underneath elevated freeways more than on bridges (although when I lived in Southampton there was occasionally a dude sleeping on the Dunlavy bridge for some unknown reason).

The city should set them up lockers under the bridge and give them an address so that they can receive mail and be counted as a real citizen.

O.K. I know that this is a total waste of energy but here goes anyway.

See where all the rail lines converge on this map? That's downtown, NOT MIDTOWN. By your definition of hub, "the most convenient area to be in order to get around to every place where the train travels with as minimal of an effort possible", this would be Downtown, or more specifically the intermodal station which will be about a block north of downtown. This isn't the best map to show exactly where the rail lines will converge downtown, I think it's a little out of date or incomplete, but as you can see the only thing that will happen in Midtown is that the Red Line will intersect with the University line.

Get off this midtown fixation, nuckle, it is not the hub.

The first rule of higher intelligence is to assume that others are never as stupid as we think they are. Look. I don't consider those silly bus trams as trains and the sight of those things should be comtemptible to all the citizens who originally voted for trains. Please, post a map of the real choo choos! That is the map I was looking at.

whether the freeways are elevated or buried, the roads still traverse the freeways so why specifically is it a problem?

1) Master plans always change during times of economic recession. Most of the times they get totally scrapped. Greenway Plaza is just once example of how planned developments can change. Another example of altered development plans during the 80's recession is Greenspoint Mall. Thousands of apartments built in that area fell into disrepair as the neighborhood inherited a bad reputation.

2) If the elevated roadways weren't there to divide neighborhoods, then a lot of growth would come from surrounding neighborhoods as they naturally grow inward towards the necleus of Midtown. The established neighborhoods would be there prop up or nurse Midtown during times of economic recession.

3) The best growth in Midtown now is happening in an area where there are no elevated roadways to divide it from the already established surrounding neighborhood.

4) The only other area where Midtown is not restricted by elevated roadway is to its east where highway 59 has been buried below grade. The neighborhood east of Midtown, however, is perceived to be seedy.

The people in Houston don't realise how many years of hard work it took for Dallas to build the infrastructural foundation supporting Uptown. As the area really explodes in the next few years because of the opening of the next phases of the Art's District and the light rail, it will become apparent.

I guess they never got all that ecstasy out of the Dallas water supply. Just kidding.

You show up out of the blue today to tell us how Houston blew it by building a light rail line from Downtown to the TMC (two of the largest employment centers in the nation which are growing by leaps and bounds these days) by way of the nicest urban park and museum district in the state, with complete access to three professional sports stadiums, more hotels than I can think of, and a large university. And even though the ridership numbers are impressive it is still a miserable failure. Why would that cause anyone who lives in Houston to become defensive? It's so silly it's just laughable. I don't think Houston blew it at all with it's first rail line. Any normal person can see that Houston's red line may not be perfect (perfect would have been underground) but it IS a success.

The University and Uptown lines (wherever they decide to build it) will also be 'incrediby wonderful' because people will be able to ride a train between all of Houston's best assets (some mentioned above) plus 2 additional universities, the largest mall in Texas, all the uptown residential towers, BLVD place, and Greenway Plaza (another big employment center and megachurch). It will all be connected by 2012. That's just the fun stuff I can think of at the moment, there's more stuff in the works as we speak.

The other lines, although not going anywhere I want to go, will be surving thousands of people on the north, the east, and the southeast sides of town. Commuter rail will be going to the northwest and eventully out to the southwest and Sugarland. So what's the problem? Like someone said earlier, the only legitimate complaint is we have to wait for it, but make no mistake, in a few short years no one will care that Dallas had a few more miles of light rail built before Houston did.

If the only way you can feel good about the Dallas light rail system is to compare it to Houston's first 7 miles of light rail, then there must be something wrong up in the plex (I mean besides the fact that the rail won't connect the plexers with any of the fun stuff out in Arlongton). I think this is just another simple case of the usual inferiority complex Dallas guys tend to suffer from. They should open a clinic up there. - I guess that's kind of what HAIF is.

So that my pearls don't get wasted on this thread, I'm just going to try to concentrate on what I think is Houston's major problem in regards to making their mass transit work.

First off, let me say that I admire Metro's master plan for using Midtown as a hub. My definition of hub in regards to Houston's odd design is the most convenient area to be in order to get around to every place where the train travels with as minimal of an effort possible. Metro's system doesn't have a confluence point like Dart's does in downtown Dallas. It only has a middle portion and that area according to the master plan map is Midtown.

Once again, the major problem with using Midtown as a hub is that it is surrounded by 2 elevated freeways and 1 elevated feeder road.

So what can Houston do to solve this problem? Can Houston bury these freeways below grade?

Rose Hunt and Southland Life did build large office buildings to the north of downtown Dallas within the Uptown area, during the early 80's and before the crash.

Could I ask you to define some of the terms you use, please? What do you mean when you make a statement like, "absolutely no knowledge of history whatsoever," or "Your statements bear no resemblance to reality"?

I find such generalized statements really amusing.

All that office space in Downtown Dallas is vacant, hence the fewer employees. You should know that.

The percentage of empty office space in Las Colinas is not 0%. It is very close right now to the percentage of empty space downtown; so, I am still quite puzzled about the overall statistics.

Las Colinas does not have more office space than Austin. Las Colinas has 22.3 million square feet, while Austin has nearly 40 million square feet. Additionally, it is not true that downtown Dallas has more workers than Las Colinas. Las Colinas has approximately 100,000 workers to Austin's 86,000 to Dallas' 79,000.

As to your last question, of course government workers are included. Why would they not be? It may surprise you to learn that government workers also work at Dallas City Hall, the courthouses, and the County.

Okay. So I assume that Las Colinas has more office space than downtown Austin because it has more employees working there? And Downtown Dallas has fewer employees than Las Colinas even though it has more office space? We live in a strange world of statistics.

In regards to government, yes, governments do exist almost everywhere. I think this is a given. However, my point was that Austin will never be a great city like Dallas as long as it has way too much of it.

Absolutely false.

Excuse me? I am actually from Dallas. Uptown in Dallas exists primarily because the city had the vision to bury a portion of the freeway below grade some 30 years ago. Then in the 80's when land in downtown Dallas got too expensive, office construction began to be built north of the freeway in the area now called uptown. During that time a developer by the name of Fox (Fox and Jacobs fame) tried building houses just to the northeast of downtown. A lot of work went into the infrastructure of Uptown at different times. Uptown didn't just grow out of the ground like a weed.

I know Houstonians hate to hear this because they like to think that the area of Midtown will some day develop as Uptown did in Dallas by just magically growing itself out of the ground.

Okay, this was proposed (along with the subway at Love Field), but both were scrapped because the Feds didn't want to pay for it.

Actually Dallas ultimately wants to run a line under the existing line that passes at street level through downtown by building a subway underneath it. The line that goes from northwest to southeast would then be converted to travel through the subway. This will happen after the present system doubles and the people of Dallas see how incredibly wonderful it is.

They need to get started on that. That is a lot of freeway to bury.

You do realize that I was talking about only the downtown area and not the entire freeway loop system that encircles most of the city? That would indeed be a lot of freeway to bury. The reason I mention this is because the city of Dallas is convinced that elevated freeways cut off neighborhoods from each other and stunt development. If this theory is true, then this would mean that the Midtown area in Houston has 2 elevated freeways and 1 elevated feeder cutting it off from almost 3/4 of the rest of the city.Also one must keep in mind how developers build in a neighborhood. They don't just concentrate on a single area because that gets too expensive as completed developments tend to drive prices up to an unreasonable price. So developers will leave to focus on other areas in that same neighborhood for a while until prices come back down to a more reasonable level. That is why neighborhoods in the suburbs tend to get developed in a checkerboard fashion. This habit by developers shows why it is important to do away elevated freeways as hindrances to development. I can give an excellent example showing just how true this theory works. Take a look at one of Midtown's fastest growing areas just to the southwest of downtown Houston and you will notice that it is not seperated by an elevated freeway from the already established neighborhood of Montrose.

Wow okay, as a tourist... Like that really matters."Hey guys, let's go to Detroit, and look at their dark and abandoned office towers".

I guess what I am saying is that I never actually look into an office building at the employees when I am looking at an office building. I mean, if I am not looking into the office building at the employees, then how would I even know that the office building is empty? (How many letter I's can you find in this statement?)

I agree with you red for the most part but I think that the only way this would hurt downtown was if it was 50% vacant and up.Because........ if dallas only had 100 buildings downtown and let's say our vacancy rate was 30% that would mean 30 of the 100 would be empty.And what your saying is this would then cause an increase of crime (which it's possible) Undesireable to tourist, no business travelers would enjoy downtown.....That is untrue...because if just 30 empty buildings could cause all of this then What are the other 70 buildings doing.....................Nothing? And to keep things in perspective...DtD is on 22% vacant not even 30%.

When looking at office buildings as a tourist, I really have no preference as to whether they are occupied with working employees or are sitting empty.

Dallas, according to this June 2006 report, comes in behind Austin in the CBD rankings. Houston is 8th (number of employees downtown). We (Hou) rank first in Texas.

CBD USA

Of course, Houston is most charitable in Texas. Some interesting tidbits in here.

This article was in DBJ in May 2006.

Dallas CBD

I remember reading somewhere that the Las Colinas area in Irving has more office space than the whole city of Austin. If this is indeed true, how can it be possible that downtown Austin has more workers than downtown Dallas while at the same time it has less space than Las Coninas which has fewer employees than downtown Dallas? Could it be that government workers are included in the statistics maybe?

Check out this nice pano of Uptown Dallas:

OTHER SIZES

That picture is awesome indeed. Consider that Uptown will really start booming once they complete the next phase of the Art's district. That might be hard for one to imagine but where else is there a better place to invest?

They aren't covering all of the Woodall Rogers Freeway. Just part of it.

True. But the city of Dallas is so convinced that elevated freeways restrict development downtown that they are considering a long range plan to bury the mix masters also along with the whole freeway loop that encircles the city core.

You never cease to entertain, do you? How you can reach that conclusion based on those premises (many of which had literally nothing to do with transportation) is beyond me. But I'll attempt to address your numbered items:

1. Yes, Houston is more centralized and its urban cores are closer to one another (I'm looking forward to the thread where you tell us that Dallas is much more urban and densely developed). That is ONE of the reasons that Houston is developing a different type of rail/transit system than they are developing in Dallas. We aren't connecting (at least currently) urban "cores" that are 25 miles outside of downtown), so the lines don't need to go out that far. Those areas are very well served by P&R/HOV systems, and Dallas is a LONG ways behind Houston in that regard.

2. No, Midtown Houston is not of major importance to the rail system, at all. I don't know where you got that idea. The red line is the core of the system, yes, and the red line goes through Midtown. Midtown is developing, rather quickly. But whether it does or does not develop will have little effect one way or the other on the rail system. (The fact is, even without midtown being developed, Houston's red line is posting VERY high ridership numbers. Midtown's continued development will only add to the successful numbers.) (And btw, I'm quite certain it has escaped your notice, but part of Metro's short-term plans include expanding the capacity of the red line... quite amazing that a "blown" poorly planned system to need expansion less than 10 years after opening.)

3. Yes, we can all look at Google maps and see where Midtown Houston is located. Despite those impediments, its development proceeds apace. But I'm not sure what this has to do with the Metro Rail system??

4. There's a below-grade freeway near midtown. And.... again, what does that have to do with the rail system??

5. Again with the midtown hangup...

6. Ummm, Are we supposed to be impressed by the sprawl of Dallas, with its more than 10 miles separating its "urban cores"? Are we supposed to be impressed by the possibility that "over 100,000 people will be working in each of these four urban areas in the near future"?? (And you let us know when there are 100,000 people working in Las Colinas). And, so what if there are or may be sometime before the 24th century. If that's the case, bully for Dallas and DART in running lines out to all that sprawl. As you pointed out, Houston is somewhat different, so we build a different type train system.

7. I suppose there are indeed more people living throughout Dallas, North Dallas, Plano, etc etc. than there are inside the 610 Loop. Again, so what. One would think that such an amazingly-designed rail system that goes right through so many neighborhoods, connecting every imaginable employment center would be posting world-record ridership... and yet, not so much. Actually, DART's ridership has not been impressive at all. (BTW, FWIW, I think there are closer to 500,000 people living inside Loop 610)

Not that it has much to do with your seven "premises", but if, as you say, "the facts are clear that Dallas has done a lot better taking care of its interests of its citizens in regard to mass transit than Houston", one would think it would be reflected in ridership. Sadly for you, the numbers speak pretty loudly. Houston, with only a 7 mile starter line in operation for only a few years, is carrying 45,000 a day. Dallas, with a large portion of its system already in place (45 Miles?) and operating for more than a decade, is carrying 65,000 a day??? In addition, Houston's HOV system serves FAR more than Dallas' ever will. As I said earlier in this thread, I am predicting Houston's metro rail will carry MORE passengers than DART rail when Houston's Phase II is up and running come 2012, or very shortly after. (and as I also said earlier... that really won't be very hard for Houston to accomplish, given the record of the two systems so far.) But I'm sure you'll go on believing that Dallas has done a lot better job of mass transit because Midtown Houston has freeways practically surrounding it. ;-)

1) Please. You can't even begin to compare Houston's rail system to the one in Dallas. Are you sure you aren't comparing it to the new rail system at DFW airport? They are about the same length and carry the same passengers daily.

2) If you want numbers, take a look at the 700 million that DART was awarded by the U.S. Government to double the size of the system.

3) The rail transportation linking DFW when all these systems get built is going to be awesome beyond discription. Just what are Metros plans in regards to linking its airports?

4) Dallas is so ahead of Houston right now in regards to rail that they have sold the whole area on rail. One example will be Denton connecting itself with Dallas in the near future.

5) I've looked at a map again and I just don't get where you say that Midtown won't be the central hub for Metro. The point about all the elevated bridges sapping development has been a long known fact outside of Houston. The city of Houston just has a problem in that it occasionally floods to the point that 1 million dollar houses go floating down the bayous.

So let me ask you, Mr. X? What would you do about this problem? When it rains a lot, Houston's below grade freeways fill up with water. How can Houston connect its neighborhoods like Dallas has. This will be of importance if the city expects Midtown to develop into the central hub of its light rail system.

Also could you please comment on Monterrey and how its rail system is light years ahead of the ones in Houston or Dallas? It is kind of funny how when Dallas gets done with its light rail system, building a subway under downtown and finishes its Trinity River project, that it will have done what the city of Monterrey has already finished doing in its city for some 10 years now. But Monterrey has roads on both sides of their river. Not just 1 like Dallas plans.

Now isn't that awesome?

It sounds like appearences is all nucklehead cares about. Doesn't sound like numbers and facts mean much to him. If metro slaps some cool racing stripes on the train then everything will be o.k. for the nuckleheads of the world.

I'm being sarcastic but deep down I want Houston to have a showy, train system one day, even if it isn't the most efficient way to move people around. I like trains for the same reason nucklehead likes trains - they're fun. Who cares how much it cost and if anybody is really riding them anywhere.

Even the coolest urban rail line in the world is a pain in the @$$ during rush hour. I wasted 8 years of my life standing in crowded MUNI trains in SF. Light rail is only fun when you don't HAVE to use it. (Standing nose to nose with a bunch of smelly weirdos in the same spot for 45 minutes is not my idea of fun.) But they're great as a tourist attraction and they make people living in second tier cities feel 'important'.

Some people just tend to be far too particular, I guess, Mr. X. Actually, I'm never really bothered by people who smell that much any place even though I consider myself a critical person with a great deal of sophistication and taste.

While spending lots of time on my Uncle's farm in Kansas as a teenager, my aunt Rosie taught me a valuable lesson that still remains with me to this day. She lovingly revealed to me a farmer's secret unknown by most city slickers at that time. She did this by smearing cow manure on my leg after I complained to her as a southern sophisticate about the fact that her farm needed a functioning toilet as well as running water. Anyway, she was absolutely right. Horse dung smells absolutely heavenly when compared to pig crap. Cow manure enhances the ambience of any barn and actually smells good when push comes down to shove.

I think perhaps we should all toughen up our senses just a tad by getting back in touch with the tasks of the lowly farmer as well as with those of us who perform necessary manual labor. Let us not forget how blessed we are as Texans to have a strong agricultural and manufacturing base to our economy. And oh yes! We should all remember to take a little time out inf our day to visit your lowly grandmothers.

Again, you are clearly clueless about Houston's MetroRail and its future plans.

Gosh, Dallas's 4 legitimate urban cores will ALL be connected "in some capacity" in the near future by light rail??? Wow. That IS a unique and well-planned system.

But wait, by your own definition, Houston has several urban cores, to-wit: downtown, midtown, museum district, Medical center, unversity areas, Greenway Plaza, and Galleria/Uptown. And ALL, yes ALL of them will be connected in the near future by light rail. Not just "in some capacity". They will be connected, all to the one rail system, all connected to each other. (And, for the record, the scheduled operational date is 2012. Not what we usually refer to as the 24th century, but you obviously live in your own little world)

Now, THAT is a well-planned system. Funny how when DART rail connects its urban cores "in some capacity" (even with mediocre ridership) it tells you that Dallas has a unique, well-planned system that is already having "incredible impact" on the area's development. . . But when Houston METRO connects its urban cores (not just "in some capacity", but connecting them) (with very high ridership on the small portion that has been completed)

it tells you that Houston "blew it." Very amusing.

Okay. Let us see what we agree on first.

True or false:

1) The urban cores of Houston when compared to Dallas are in very close proximity to each other. This is neither a good nor bad thing but just a differing characteristic of each metro area.

2) Midtown Houston appears to be of major importance to Houston's light rail master plan in that it will become the principle hub of the finished system.

3) Midtown Houston is confined by 2 elevated freeways to its north and south while it has 1 constrictive elevated feeder system to its west. It is also connected on its east side to an impoverished neighborhood (let us go ahead and be honest about this) by a below grade freeway. All these factors go against development working in Midtown.

4) The below grade freeway built to the east of Midtown is of the similar type that the city of Dallas designed years ago in order to connect its downtown with neighborhoods to its north (because elevated freeways stunt development).

5) Houston has no long term plans like Dallas does in regards to development in Midtown. Long term plans survive periods of economic recession; whereas, short term plans get scrapped during such economic uncertainties -- even to the point that such areas remain depressed for a long period after the area economy recovers.

6) There is at least 10 miles seperating Downtown Dallas from the urban cores of Las Colinas, the North Dallas tollway area and the former telecom area in Richardson. Over 100,000 people will be working in each of these four urban areas in the near future.

7) There are far more residents living between each urban core in the Dallas area than between the urban cores of Houston. (Figure that only about 250,000 people live inside loop 610 in Houston and compare that with the huge numbers of residents who live along Central Expressway between the urban core areas its downtown and the Telecom area in Richardson / Plano.

Even taking into account the differing characteristics of each metro area, I think the facts are clear that Dallas has done a lot better taking care of its interests of its citizens in regard to mass transit than Houston.

Qualtiy options in this case sound like duplication of effort.And are there really townhomes in Katy?And like it or not, even by train, you'll eventually have to take a bus or a cab to get to your final destination. These magial trains can't stop at every building.

There are 2 ways to get people to use mass transit. One way would be to penalize impoverished people for driving their cars while the other way would be to make all people feel special when they use the available mass transit system. Take a ride on the light rail system in Oak Cliff and you will see that DART makes all people feel special. Visit Monterrey, Mexico and ride on their fabulous system (which includes both an elevated monorail and a subway monorail) and you will see how even impoverished Mexicans feel incredibly proud of their "lightyears ahead of both Dallas and Houston" system.

In Texas the state is about to raise insurance rates to penalize the impoverished drivers. This might cause a lot of them to switch to riding mass transit; but, this fact would be a pity indeed if true.

I get the feeling reading the posts in here that a lot of people in here aren't really expressing their true opinions. I get the feeling that it isn't the light rail systems that these people in here despise, but the kinds of people who ride on them. When riding the line that runs through Oak Cliff in Dallas, I happened to notice that even the minority people riding the train felt really proud of the system.

If you happen to get the opportunity to do so, just try to talk to a person from Monterrey, Mexico about their fabulous system. They'll talk your ears off about it. I know I was impressed riding it.

Yes. Several times.

Now, let me ask you a question. Do you have any facts or figures to back up any of what you say? I just posted some numbers on another thread. Feel free to look at them or go find some of your own. The numbers simply do not back up what you say. DART has more rail miles. It started sooner. However, it has less usage than Houston's miles. I do not make that statement as a comparison, but to show that you are not basing your statements on facts, but rather appearances.

I am a big fan of rail, both inner city and commuter. However, I also understand the political dynamic that transit agencies must operate within. METRO is doing an adequate job, given the constraints placed upon them. And the park&ride is one of the best in the country.

BTW, I lived in Dallas when they started the rail system. They did not sell it at all. They shoved it down people's throats, to great protest. You should read about it before you use it as proof, because it happens to be the opposite of what you claim.

You have to blur your vision in order to understand how Dallas light rail is going to be a smashing success once it doubles in size. Right now it is incomplete and yet it already has had an incredible impact on the area's development.

I think you are out of touch with the future, sir. Things have changed from the old days when by and large white people no longer desired to live in the central core of a city. I think such people now realise that you can't out run minority people when they themselves are also trying to escape from those kinds of urban blight. So you first have to have faith that people in the future are going to be moving back towards the urban cores. That is still taking place in Dallas.

The Dallas area (not including Fort Worth) has 4 legitimate urban cores and all will be connected in some capacity in the near future by lightrail. The platinum corridore will be connected not to downtown, but to Las Colinas and DFW to the west. Anyway, in between each core will be substantial residential areas that will serve to help feed each urban core with workers. As they continue in their development they will add riding customers.

In Houston it looks like the bold plan is to use Midtown as a future vacuum to grow as a hub for the massive urban area that will one day develop there (maybe). This could work out quite nicely for those people who happen to still be alive upon the systems completion in the 24th century.

Midtown also has two severe problems in that the neighborhood has 3 elevated freeways and feeders blocking future growth from downtown, growth from the western Montrose area as well as growth from the southern Art's district / Medical Center area. Will the city eventually bury those elevated freeways? Nope. Such below grade freeways flood during the torrential rains from occasional tropical storms that frequent the city from time to time. Also consider that all of those elevated freeways just got rebuilt.

Bummer.

Neither buses or trains make me feel "special". When I worked in London we tried like hell to avoid the tube. It was a depressing little trip most of the time.

Dallas and Houston rail is like a ride at Six Flags. If it ever turns into the real deal like NY or London you'll feel special if you can avoid it all together.

I used to joke that the light rail in Houston only had one station (in reference to the small train ride at its zoo).

You obviously have never rode upon the train in Dallas if you think it is minor league. It is quite unique and well designed when compared to the one in Houston or even when compared to other systems around the world for that matter. Even the citizens in Dallas have started taking their wonderful system for granted as it ages. But it is really quite nice as it is designed today and consider that it is only half complete. How nice will it become when the system doubles in size the next few years?

Each one of the stations in the DART system were designed like mini museums where the history of the surrounding neighborhoods got researched before being uniquely incorporated as art work into the design of each individual station.

You speak of taking care of its citizens and it seems to me that the Metro system is the one who is all elbows and knees when it comes to having a bruising relationship with their customers. Just how much does Metro step on its citizens? Aren't they trying to sell to the public a plan to build in the southeast part of the city a tram system that uses buses instead of a light rail system? Didn't people in the city originally vote for a light rail system to be built there? Isn't Metro also trying to build through neighborhoods who by and large appose their plan to do so?

In Dallas the light rail system makes the city seem more intimate in comparison. Though it isn't perfect by any means, the light rail plan there does seem to have an overall agenda that won't disrupt neighborhoods. Metro is having to be disruptive today with its neighborhoods because the agency and the city of Houston chose in the past to give up lots of established rail rights of way; while, DART has been very careful in their purchasing of such rights of way to insure future expansions.

Consider that the Oak Cliff part of Dallas is very similar to the southeast part of Houston in the types of houses built as well as when they got built including similar ethnicities and wealth of the citizens who live in them; yet, that part of Dallas was served quite special by Dart by the way it got the very first line built in the over all system.

At least one part of Houston is getting it right, though. Recently the zoo there decided to expland its rail and add another station.

Admit it Houston. You blew it.

Clearly, you are basing your comments on only the perceived attractiveness of trains over busses, and not any empirical evidence. If you had actually looked at transit numbers, you would have found that METRO's park&rides are jammed with riders, and that it is routinely hailed as one of the most efficient transit models. Maybe developers won't build next door (check out the Cypress and Kuykendahl P&Rs by the way), but people pile in from surrounding neighborhoods to ride it. So, if the point is actually using it versus merely looking good, then yes, I agree that it is a VW to Lambohrgini comparison.

Your use of the term real estate craze is a bit over the top. At best, it is a tiny niche market, that gets a lot of publicity, but does little to solve transit concerns. Right now, the only "craze" in real estate is the number of foreclosures occurring due to the subprime collapse.

A transit concern? Have you ever rode the train in Dallas? I must admit that the city of Dallas hit a smashing home run with their light rail system. The first line built went to Oak Cliff of all places and it was well planned. It cuts right threw a very beautiful creek that runs through the Dallas zoo.

That is what Dallas did right and Houston failed to do miserably. Dart set out to sell the people on the idea first. Houston set out in a panic to catch up by running a line between its downtown and the medical center. Why would people live in downtown Houston and commute to the medical center or vice versa? The whole system is poorly designed. Even the foundational grade beneath the rail itself was so poorly conceived that drivers have a hard time differentiating its tone to the color of street pavement next to it.

Come on now. Quit living in denial. Houston blew it big time.

Figure that Dallas will have completed in the next 5 years the equivalent of what Houston dreams of having complected in the next 25. The city is also quickly catching up with

Houston in building another loop around its city and adding HOV lanes.

Another factor you need to take into account when considering transit is the differences between the metropolitan areas of Houston and DFW. Most of the urban area that Houston has exists within a 9 square mile area taking in downtown, midtown, art's district, medical center, college districts, uptown (Galleria), and Greenway Plaza.

In Dallas there are multiple urban types of areas that are seperated by 10 mile vacuums. For example, there will be over 100,000 people working in both downtown Dallas and another 100,000 working in Plano / Richardson in the near future. Between these two areas is a huge residential area along Central expressway and these people will have the opportunity to commute to work either way on the train. The same opportunity will be created for residents to work and live in either downtown Dallas or Las Colinas when that line opens up. So the vacuums created in Dallas are far more extinsive there than in Houston.

In Houston it looks like the master plan centers on the area of Midtown as the vacuum for its lone line.

In the future Dallas will better have its traffic flowing in both directions along its freeway systems which will make them the more efficient.

"FWD Airport"? That's rich. Don't get me wrong - Ft. Worth is a very nice city on a great growth path, but if local gas fields were the key to domination, Midland-Odessa would have become the #1 megapolitan of Texas long time ago...

Uhm . . . there was a time in which Midland was the richest city per capital in the world. Look at its magnificent skyline and compare it to Tyler's or Longview's -- some other dynamic small cities in Texas.

I think water might be a problem in that part of Texas in regards to building a magapolitan area there. Texas has 40,000 square miles of sand dunes in and around that region.

The gas fields are believed to be the largest in the lower 48 states. Add to these gas fields all the warehouses and expanding manufacturing that Fort Worth covets while Dallas despises them and the smaller city has a healthier infrastructure for future growth. Dallas has lots of office buildings indeed, but they are being built from the top down on an eroding foundation of small business. This is why Dallas has millions of square feet of office space empty out during every recession while the city of Fort Worth has more of a stable economy.

This tower may or may not get built - most of us are not actually real estate experts who can truly say if this is a brilliant project or impending failure. At this point in this thread those possibilities has been well addressed.

So, aside from that speculation, I would be more interested in hearing the opinions about the building itself, and its overall impact on the surrounding area IF it does actually get get built.

In my opinion, the rendering makes it look like a fairly unique and interesting building that would probably add a lot to the skyline, but at 42 stories it will completely dwarf its low-rise Arts District neighbors (and Woodall Rodgers Park) and stand somewhat isolated.

Perhaps it isn't much different than the Trammel Crow Center looming over the district, and if anything ever happens with the old Lone Star site across from the Meyerson, it might fit in better.

All in all, I think it will be a nice asset if it does get completed, although it may not be the best fit for that site.

Not only is this project going to get built, but don't be surprised if a lot more projects similar to this get started in order to match the timing of the completion of this next phase of the Art's district. The city of Dallas has been working too hard for decades to build this thing and it is going to be a smash hit on global proportions when it is completed.

Add to this the planned building of a park plaza over Woodall Rogers Freeway, the new bridge accross the Trinity, the booming Victory and Uptown areas, the new corporations headquartered in the Art's district and the ultimate completion of the Trinity River project and one has all the ingredients necessary for major development to happen in and around the Art's district.

I think it's too far away from Downtown.

That is the middle of downtown. The Art's district in Dallas is along the new Main Street of Woodall Rogers Freeway. Check out all the development going on in that area and you will see that the vast majority of it is being built 2 or 3 blocks from Woodall Rogers. This is why the building will get filled up.