IronTiger

Further proof that it's not a railroad hiding out there--on the lower left part of the picture, there's a small sign for a business or perhaps more likely, a farm.

I considered OST, but in the 1950s, OST was getting to be developed and not rural like this picture depicts. Westheimer too--in the 1950s, it's either rural or its urban, with the dividing long roughly along modern-day Vossdale. Either way, the bottom road is way too wide to be 1950s FM 1093. If there is a railroad hiding out in the shot, which some have speculated on, it's too far away from the highway. All the railroads that ran parallel to highways in Houston: Hempstead, Katy, US90A...they all aren't very far from it, and this seems to have very wide ROW between the road and the railroad (if it exists)

I wrote a post at home which I didn't post, but I don't think it's Katy Road or Hempstead, otherwise a railroad WOULD be visible.

Probably the same people who'd rather take a car instead of riding the light rail/mass transit. Remember, wherever the HSR stop actually is, there needs to be parking, which will inevitably drive up the cost even further. If you lived along the Interstate 45 corridor, why would you go out of your way to stop at the Uptown station (which from the sounds of it is where they want to put it) when you could just keep driving and not have to pay any additional tickets? That's why airplane riders are the primary demographic here--they're already willing to go a bit of the way and pay for a plane ticket and parking for a bump in getting there faster.

Yes, it is hard to get data from that. But people in a car or bus aren't likely going to be riding the train, because I have a feeling that it's going to be on a price comparable to an airplane--no way are you going to get a pass for $5, $10, or even $20.

In a way, Citykid kind of reminds me of my early days on the HAIF, someone who maybe went to Houston once or twice (along with other, much larger cities) and is enamored by the concept of mass transit. I know I made some early mass transit posts better off forgotten. That said--since then, I've gone to Houston many times, enough to get a feel for it more and more. I'm STILL learning--I realized I hadn't even seen the skyline at night until that last trip. I definitely don't judge cities by rail-based mass transit, otherwise Dallas would win over Houston hands down (sorry), nor do I hold the philosophy that the larger a city is the better and all cities must pattern themselves after that. Walmart is the (arguably) the world's biggest grocery retailer ("arguably" if you think it doesn't count because it's not a real supermarket chain) but I don't think it should be the blueprint for every retailer to achieve. Despite the wide variety of items it contains, Walmart kinda sucks. I don't think I need to defend that--most of you would agree with that or at least know what I mean. A lot of what Citykid and Slick are talking about is an experience found only in places like NYC or San Francisco (at best), or perhaps a theme park. But that's not all what city tourism is about...

Bull. Unless you're traveling around where the actual houses are, there's plenty of people walking around in the museum district. As for the whole "people and street performers", I've heard this before. One of the responses was that if you were looking for a "constant street circus", you could pay a homeless person a few dollars to entertain you. If you were looking for "street entertainment" that isn't exploitation, you should visit places like Montrose and parts of Midtown after the bars close. Seriously, though: when I went to New York City, I didn't see very much "street entertainment" (at all) as NYC is often known for having, and when my parents went to San Francisco, they didn't see a lot of weird things like that either.

Quote me something from this thread by you that inferred that "museums alone won't make Houston a tourist attraction". Apparently, you think that when people travel "mass transit" is the first thing that comes to mind, otherwise it's boring and droll.

I like your thinking.

So, a different HP Books location, or the one still there?

Well, not so much Bank of the Southwest Tower, looking for buildings proposed in the narrow window of 2004-2009, before the recession halted a lot of them.

One source I got that 130k people flew from Dallas to Houston in 2009. Assuming that the number is equal to that for Houston is equal, then that's 260k passengers a year, which if we take out Sundays, that would be about 830 people round trip per day. I don't know what fares are, but it's likely not going to be very cheap. Either the HSR needs 50 TIMES more passengers to reach capacity or its content at being at 2% capacity at a consistent basis. And that's assuming everyone on planes takes the rail, but also assuming that no one else will ride it, so it will likely never go past 5%. That looks awful on paper, of course, because it is.

Every once in a while, I come across an old thread, dated from circa 2005 about a promising new development that it is scheduled to be built in the inner city, and it turned out that it was canned in the 2008-2009 recession. What buildings do you wish were built from that era that weren't (and permanently canned)? Keep in mind, this applies only really to projects in the 2003-2008 era, and not projects from the 1980s (sorry, I wish Bank of the Southwest Tower was built too, but not the time or place). For starters, I thought the Shamrock Tower (even though it aped the name and concept of the defunct hotel) was kind of neat, and I definitely would've liked to see the Holiday Inn get renovated into condos, as was proposed. What about you?

There was a thread on TexAgs about the new probability that it wouldn't go through CS because they don't think it will reach the numbers they want. Before you cry "well, I could have told you that", someone did number crunching and this is what he turned out: Obviously, it's not going to be 100% capacity, but does 45,000 passengers a day sound at all realistic?

Yes, the parking garage is original. There's also a conference center at the foot of it, which was part of the original Shamrock, though according to Swamplot, the conference center (not the garage) will be razed soon.

Kroger in general I've found works as a second best alternative to H-E-B in most cases. I don't like it because the quality from store to store is inconsistent, worse brand names (although that one isn't quite fair, since the HEB brand names tend to go above & beyond the norm), the noxious Kroger Card has to be used to get an equivalent price to H-E-B, and stores generally tend to be smaller and less upscale than H-E-B (at least, that's my experience), while on the plus side, they tend to have more lanes open and have a simpler layout (maybe because of smaller stores, but most H-E-Bs force you through a maze of some sort). I haven't been to a Randalls store before, but if the combined Albertsons/Safeway can get it moving in the right direction like what Albertsons has been working on with the United division--namely, comparable prices to H-E-B/Kroger and no shopper's card, they just might bump Kroger to third place. Either way, I'll have to go to it before I rate it on my list. I've been to a Trader Joe's now (but not Aldi, WF, or Central Market, either) and while I do like it, it's hard to put it on a list like I would Kroger or H-E-B. Fiesta at least crosses the gap where it's "special" enough to put it on the list but "mainstream" where I could bunch it with Kroger/H-E-B, while H-Mart and TJ's are on the "exotic" side of the scale. I like them, of course, but they'd never work as a "real" grocery store for me. Maybe an ideal grocery store would involve Fiesta's bakery, H-Mart's seafood department, Trader Joe's cleanliness (at least I seemed to get that impression), Walmart's general merchandise department, H-E-B's store brands, and Kroger's layout. Yes, that would work, I suppose.

That last post was harsh, admittedly. But the last part of your post, it sounds great, though judging by your posts in the last 12 months (and even on this thread!) you could've had me fooled...one would get the impression that you try to seek out people that say Houston is boring to confirm your worldview and that you really love places like Atlanta and New York City more. You sure that's not the case?

I know METRO's taking baby steps, but as a whole, across the nation, mass transit could use a lot of work!

Traffic could worsen, but while some demand "trains now before it's too late", I think it neglects bus systems, the real backbone of the system. And even if you don't add transit out to the suburbs, more people still drive cars, even in the city. While cars will probably be the preferred source of transportation for an indefinite period of time, we should improve the bus system, and try to actually find out why people don't ride the buses: It doesn't go where you want to go? Create better transit routes. It's unsafe? Add security. It's dirty? Clean the buses up, getting new ones if necessary. It's too crowded? Run more buses in those routes. The other reason the "wait until traffic worsens" idea is a poor reason for forcing mass transit is that reinforces the idea that mass transit is a "last resort" type option, which is what it's tended to be for the last 30-40 years.

Well, #1 can help--but if buses and mass transit continue with crap like "disorderly conduct" and other shenanigans, it won't produce long-term riders. Young Millennial-age hipsters like Ms. "Lamps" may take the bus (even after college), but again, if the buses are bad enough, then they'll try to rely on friends with cars or get a bike. However, trying to just wait until traffic gets worse and hope that the masses get on mass transit is a pretty terrible approach and ties into more of the "I hate private automobiles" mindset. It also doesn't help the problems of the existing bus system. It's not just intra-city: buses have terrible scheduling even here in the Texas Triangle and the terminals are generally dirty and run-down. To illustrate, said friend did try to get a trip to Austin via bus, but it takes 7 or so hours and includes a 4-5 hour layover in Waco. A route going way out of the way doesn't help. A reason why Amtrak failed in College Station, as well was also due to poor scheduling: the trains never ran on Saturday, ruining any plans like going up for the game or down to Houston for a weekend, too bad! As for being "run-down", for years, the bus terminal was located in a converted UtoteM store. I think that the general sketchiness of the bus system is why the "airport direct" line failed when tested by METRO. Had it been a private shuttle, it might've worked. But the bus system just has a bad rep.

There's two more things that I want to elaborate on: 1. Remember that Italian guy I mentioned in the "Houston and Tourists" thread? Well, he also mentioned his less-than-fun bus ride to another part of town, and he said that he was the "only white guy there" (and his skin is considerably darker than most "white people") and basically talked about the feeling of being not welcome. Trying to convince people to "go outside their comfort zone" isn't going to cut it. Even if people decided to try it, any negative experiences will just dissuade people from riding it or confirm what they've heard. METRO (or other transit agencies) need to breed a feeling of safety, comfort, and cleanliness, which buses have scored poorly in (and still do badly in in many inner-city locations). 2. I think another thing that harms mass transit is an obsession on ridership numbers. This indirectly causes suburbanites to not ride mass transit at all, simply because MT isn't accessible (best chance for a park and ride to the inner city). With mass transit either non-existent or inaccessible, suburbanites will of course take the freeways and private automobiles on most occasions. (Who can blame them?)This of course reinforces the whole "buses/mass transit are for minorities and the dregs of society" stigma. By providing more access, even suburbanites can "join the party" and improve the PR, thus (eventually) increasing ridership.

One of the frustrating things about the United States, as you may know, is the general reluctance of mass transit. Europe has its trains, but there's just no analogue to that in the United States, and it's a bit sad that mass transit just isn't as popular as we would like. A lot of this manifests as some sort of attack on highways and the private automobile, and with that belief, it's easy to see conflicts come into play in mass transit and mass transit funding. However, I decided to take a step back and try to see the bigger picture--why aren't people riding more mass transit? I think part of the problem is it has a bad reputation. Trains, of course, have been discussed more times than we can count, and trains have the unfortunate problem of requiring density to really cook, which is why it works in Europe, India, and the Northeast but not so much here. Even so, buses are the more economical choice in so many instances. But buses, as you may know, have a pretty poor reputation. This article on Megabus kind of explains a lot of the problems and solutions. It goes onto state a brief history of the bus in America. Both inter-city and intra-city bus service has suffered, and now, most people who can afford it avoid the bus system. The purpose of this thread is to not to get another tired rails/highways discussion but rather to improve buses (and mass transit as a whole) by talking about it. One of the biggest problems is a lack of security on buses. Remember the AC Transit bus fight? That never should've gotten escalated to the point where punches were thrown, and that's the type of crap that cause people to stop riding (specifically, the woman seen in the video dubbed "Amber Lamps" was ID'd later on a Facebook posting saying she wouldn't ride on the bus again). What do you think could improve the PR of buses and by extension mass transit? Try to keep it positive!

Uber's in trouble in Cali for a lot of things, including promising one price and making it another, and also not screening drivers, which have led to some assaults. http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/entry/view/id/744975

Does the move have anything to do with the fallout from when that lady was trampled by a horse?