Perimeter285

TxDOT seems to have this fixation on making all Houston-area interchanges uniform even if it means downgrading them. In my mind, a cloverleaf with the surface street passing over the freeway seems much more efficient than a "diamond" interchange with traffic lights and the freeway passing over the surface street. Call me crazy.

Originally I had said, "Just FYI, the 'Richmond Road' referenced in this petition is not Richmond Avenue, it's the current Bissonnet Street."

But looking more closely at the map, I was wrong. Richmond "Road" on the map is the current Richmond Avenue, although there was a separate Richmond Road that later became Bissonnet.

If that's what they plan on doing then I'm sure 288 mainlanes users will have to go wait at the light under the bridges, or cough up $1 for faster connection.

Yeah that would be crappy, though typical, of HCTRA.

Let me preface this by saying I do not live in Pearland or any other suburb for that matter. I just travel in this direction quite often.

What is the deal with the 288-Beltway interchange? I've heard absolutely no talk of upgrading it to a full interchange or even just adding a few flyovers. It's ridiculous that two freeways are joined by a series of traffic lights, and as the Pearland area has grown exponentially the traffic situation at the interchange has only gotten worse.

Has anyone heard anything about upgrading the interchange?

Forgive me if this topic has been discussed before but I didn't see anything.

Yes, Houston is one of the most littered cities in America, but what can you expect when everything was built so ugly for so long? What's one more piece of trash in the face of rusty freeway columns, billboards, feeder roads and 1970s apartment complexes? Even in the newer suburbs, like the instaslums along Fry Road north of I-10, litter is bad because of all the cheap new houses and concrete-concrete-concrete-plain beige stucco box strip malls. What beautiful landscape are we trying to protect from litter?

That being said, no matter where I am, litter makes my blood boil.

I wasn't trying to get into a discussion of Amtrak ridership. Amtrak as a system is a joke (except in the Northeast) and I don't think more investment in this current system is the answer. It would take enormous investment in an entirely new system, such as that in Europe, for it to work. My whole argument is that even under the current awful Amtrak system, Houston has a decrepit train station compared to most that I've seen. Many other cities, no matter how small, have seen fit to invest in their train stations under the realization that it is a number of people's first impression of the city. I must be pretty naive, though, to think Houston actually cares about first impressions considering the views from our freeways.

Still, considering the money that is raised for so many causes around this city, I don't think putting together the funding for a decent train station would be so far fetched.

I realize Amtrak's system delays are the main reason people won't ride the train, but I've seen a lot of the other stations along the Sunset Limited route, and Houston's is by far the worst. Even tiny towns in Louisiana and Mississippi have nicer stations than ours. It makes it that much worse to know that they bulldozed the grand old Southern Pacific station to build the current concrete bunker shoebox. If their goal was to make train travel as unappealing as possible to Houstonians, then they surely succeeded!

It would be nice for someone to take up the cause of building a new station, which would be yet another asset for downtown and a point of pride for our city. People might even consider using Amtrak if they didn't have to wait in a building that makes the Greyhound bus station look luxurious.

Any why do you guys think that? Trae you are the one thats in love with ATL. There are just lots of things about Atlanta that I like.

*MARTA

*The tree lined freeways without development along them or feeders

*The growing entertanment industry

*The hills

*Black Mecca

Amen to the trees instead of feeders part. Houston's image would be enhanced greatly if we didn't have all these feeders lined with low-end businesses.

MARTA is good, too. The ridership is decent, although still pretty low.

Many of the major thoroughfares west of Bellaire used to have letter names (e.g., Chimney Rock was Ave. D, Renwick was Ave. E, Hillcroft was Ave. F, etc.). And of course Bissonnet was called Richmond Road at this time because it was the road that led to Richmond.

Where was the Bellaire Theater located? I've only lived in the Bellaire area for a little over four years (and no, not in a McMansion...my house was built in 1955). I can't really picture where it might have been.

Saying that sexuality is a choice is the ultimate in ignorance. Who would choose to be gay, given the extra million hurdles that are thrown into one's life? You love and are attracted to who you love and are attracted to. Nobody chooses that. Again, if it were a choice, nobody would choose it.

That being said, I'm not certain this law is necessary or even wanted. While it's nice to know that gay people won't have to live in fear of losing their jobs if it passes, how much more must people's free will (including employers') be squeezed in this country before we're no longer the Land of the Free? Political correctness and policing of thought are a cancer in America today, and even if I do stand to gain from the passage of this law, I can't help but think it's just more chipping away of individual freedoms.

Obviously I haven't visited this post in a while! When I started it, I didn't anticipate that it would turn into Defensiveness 101!

Let me clear some things up here: when I said people drive 20 MPH in light traffic on the freeways, that was what we call an exaggeration. But it is no exaggeration to say that people drive in the range of 40 MPH on the freeways. When the general flow of a road is 60-70 MPH, can we not agree that this causes a dangerous situation? Can we also not agree that the people driving 60-70 MPH are driving more safely than the slowpokes? From a safety perspective, having these cars that refuse to keep up with the flow of traffic is akin to having random concrete poles sticking up in the middle of a lane (again, exaggeration...for effect...no undergarments in a twist, please). Either way, it's a (near) stationary hazard to moving cars which causes people to weave, brake, speed up, slow down, lose tempers and generally cause our freeways to be a mess. I'm not advocating driving 90 MPH on these dense freeways...that would be insane, and people who do that are just as much to blame as the slowpokes. However, a huge part of the traffic problem here is, as I've already mentioned, people have no concept of getting out of the way. Lead, follow or get out of the way: if someone behind you wants to go faster, move to the right. How difficult is that?

And while we're on the subject of defensiveness, people (or cities) who refuse to listen to constructive criticism are doomed.

1128 sq. ft.

Built 1955

Green Mountain

$92

Even for the size, my bill is significantly lower than most of the posts I've seen so far. Just FYI:

- I keep the thermostat on 75

- I turn off the A/C completely when I'm gone for a few days

- I have a programmable thermostat that brings the temp up to 80 during the day and back down to 75 when I come home

- I have two huge trees in my yard that completely cover my house and shield it from the sun

- I have all gas appliances (dryer, stove, water heater, furnace). Even so, my gas bill is only $22 this month.

$92 is the highest it's been all year. The month before it was $80 and it was as low as $25 during the spring.

You know, this makes perfect sense to me, because people of different cultures have different ways of life that are not always compatible with other cultures' way of life. For example, my neighborhood is well represented with white people, Asian people and latino people, and we all get along and talk to each other, but the things each of us does can drive the others crazy. Hence the misery factor. If I lived in a neighborhood full of white people, I'd probably be less stressed, not because they're all the same color as me, but because they likely come from the same background and have a similar way of life. But, other factors keep me where I am. Long story short, just because people of other cultures stress you out doesn't make you a bigot or a racist or intolerant. You are who you are and your natural reaction to the BEHAVIOR (not skin color) of others that you share close quarters with is just that, natural.

290 ceases to be a nightmare near Barker-Cypress. This thing is going to extend the nightmare to Fairfield. Way to go, Houston planners! Next stop, Brenham!

All good ones.

I'd like to add Bank of America Center. It's Houston's signature skyscraper (I guess Williams Tower might rate, too, but you know what I mean). Hard to believe it hasn't been mentioned thus far.

Every time I drive along 59 Eastex Fwy. in Downtown, I've noticed these two stub ramps near Leeland Street just north of I-45. They appear to merge directly from the median to the left lane both northbound and southbound. Anyone have an idea where these connected to at one time? They look so oddly placed; I find it hard to imagine how they ever connected to anything.

Add Broadway to the long list of Houston streets that need to be bulldozed and started over. There's a complex two blocks from my house that looks almost uninhabitable. Unfortunately, it's in the interests of the powers that be (like Mayor White, whom I support most of the time) to keep these places open. Houston depends heavily on the super-poor for cheap labor, and these are the only places they can afford. Bulldoze them, and the poor will move ever-closer to the "better" neighborhoods. We wouldn't want that now, would we?

My parents each had 1982 Buick Regal coupes. I seem to remember them being all the rage at the time, along with their sister cars, the Olds Cutlass Supreme, Pontiac Grand Prix and Chevy Monte Carlo.

I know that interchange gets bad, but as we've all said, it's under construction, and the congestion there pales in comparison to 610 West Loop at 59 Southwest. Talk about a sick interchange. Even after the improvements they made recently it is a nightmare.

This is so fascinating! I've lived in Sharpstown for four years, and I've always been interested in what the neighborhood was like in its heyday. There is no turning back time, but hopefully the people of this area can work towards a new heyday for Sharpstown. My street in particular is lovely, and so are many others despite the appearance of the major thoroughfares and their crappy strip malls and apartments.

I find it odd that people keep accusing me of generalizing and being totally oblivious to the fact that traffic actually moves at the speed of light but that I'm just ignoring reality.

Let me remind you of two things: 1. I like Houston and want it to thrive. 2. I've lived here for four years, and I'm describing what I see on a daily basis.

How is this generalizing? How is this negative stereotyping?

Yes, maybe 10 car lengths is an exaggeration, but not by much. I run into situations constantly where traffic is not nearly heavy enough to justify the low speeds.

I'm not some out-of-towner that wants to put down Houston. I live here, so I want it to be a great place to live. Spending half my life stuck behind someone that has nowhere in particular to be is not my idea of fun.

By the way, I don't drive 90 MPH. Closer to the speed limit, maybe 5 MPH over. But even at that speed, and even when traffic is not heavy, I find myself weaving and passing people like they're parked. You can't tell me that these people are driving intelligently.

Wow...I couldn't possibly respond to all that, but excellent point about how the feeder roads cause so much chaos, and how few through lanes there are. Your final statement pretty hits a really good point: this city is loaded with cheapest possible solutions to enormous problems. I'm not saying that throwing money at problems fixes them. I don't want to pay more and more taxes. But when you can just look at a structure, whether it be a freeway or whatever, and think "cheap," then you know there's a problem.

TJones, I hope you're not implying that I'M a yankee! Born and raised in the South, thank you. You don't have to be from the North to know stupid driving when you see it.

I don't know about this Chinese consulate or whatever, but I think Houston's high immigrant population also contributes to the problem. Anyone who's driven in Mexico knows how chaotic it can be. That chaos has just been imported...along with people who drive 10 under the speed limit to avoid any confrontations with the police, INS, etc. But I digress...I seriously don't want this forum to become a discussion on immigration.

A point brought up earlier about the design of Houston's freeways contributing to mysterious slowdowns is a very good one. Houston's freeways are famous for cramming as many lanes as possible into narrow rights-of-way with huge mainlane humps passing over the surface streets so that nobody can see what's ahead of them and continuous feeder roads with innumerable driveways with cars turning in and out of businesses directly onto the freeway with way too many entrance and exit ramps for the mainlanes where there's barely one foot between the travel lane and the barrier wall and no landscape barrier between the freeway and the commercial mess all of which contributes to a severe case of claustrophobia. PHEW! Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure, and this is the situation that most of us drive in every day!

For all you people that are getting run off the road by fast-moving traffic in the Houston area, please tell me where that happens. I would gladly move there. What I see most of the time in the areas I drive is sloooooooooooow traffic.

Another problem I think is people's disregard for the concept of left lane = fast lane. I see people driving all different speeds at all different points on the freeways. 50 MPH in the left lane, 90 MPH in the right lane, 30 MPH in the center lanes. No wonder traffic here is such a cluster-(you know what).

I think what I'm getting at is that we'll never be able to build our way out of traffic congestion because bad driving is the majority of the problem.