kdog08

It looks the park is half the lot when including both sides, is that so and was that always meant to be?

Just an idea: Houston could be a city that hosts enough of a variety of sporting events to make it a quasi-destination city. What type of sporting events you ask? We need a greater frequency of national events like Superbowls, All-Star games (MLB,MLS, and NBA), NCAA BBall tournament (Final Four would be ideal), and college football bowl games. Internationally, we could attract a major tennis masters series, FIBA (basketball), FIFA (soccer for us yanks) and the big ones, World Cup and Olympics. Why all of this is possible? All of our "sports infrastructure" is connected by rail. We have the sports arenas/stadiums and the space to build more (Reliant Park, Rice, UH, TSU, and random underdeveloped areas alongside the lower income part of the light rail). We are currently undergoing a lot of infill of residents, hotels, and retail within 1/4-1/2 mile of rail that will make Houston more appealing for visitors. Lastly, weather surprisingly, since most of the events take place in cooler months, so a good majority would be spared our full heat blast. Pitfalls? Transportation is still an issue. If we had built the U-Line and Uptown Line, we'd be way ahead of the curve. Uptown is still Houston's center of retail and has the largest (I think) amount of hotels, which would connect our visitors to more bars and more importantly venues. However, Houston could certainly run extra Express bus service from Uptown to the Red Line and major venues in a pinch so it's not a huge issue. We need more hotels along Main St line. As for as public money involved, depends on how far you want to push it. Hosting a World Cup would probably require at least one more major venue and improvements to the stadiums of Rice, TSU, and UH (already under construction). Hosting an Olympics would require quite a bit more sports infrastructure and transportation infrastructure. Wouldn't have to be a "Mecca", but we certainly already have a good deal invested in our major pro arenas and stadiums, we have room to expand, and we've been investing in our inner core.

This. 100%.

Hooray for Superbowl!

Seriously, wth? That property has sat like that for some time now....

There's a lot to do downtown as you listed the attractions, yet it has taken the leap forward yet. As I said it's complicated. Houston's DT is large and spread out which doesn't help make it a true destination, although there have been steps to solve that issue. Along with the obvious residential base and more hotel rooms that's in the pipeline, DT is poised to take a significant step forward. I think big events like the ones I mentioned above gives Houston a chance to show off DT and midtown to the nation, state, and even to itself.

It's complicated. We need the residential base but also downtown needs to become a destination in itself. Hopefully the increased focused on conventions and luring more large scale events (more superbowls, final fours, all star games, college bowl games, etc.) will help DT gain good traction.

I disagree. Houston, with just the slightest planning, could have made our inner core freeway system aesthetically pleasing either submerging it like 59 or getting rid of frontage lanes or planting a wall of trees alongside the freeways decades ago or all of those things or combination of them, We need the mobility of our freeways connecting to downtown, but the way we did it destroyed many neighborhoods.

NYC has ~20 million people in it's metro and even with the most used rail network, it is need of massive expansion and maintenance. There is little doubt NYC moves people much more efficiently than a city like Houston. However, megacities will have mega traffic but there is a difference between NYC/Tokyo and Jakarta/Lagos in terms of transit.

Money is the deciding factor. If we could just spend the extra money and submerge it at 2-3 key intersections per line then our design would be a lot better. I don't think subway would be appropriate for Houston for many decades.

I would just like to the LRT go underground at key intersections of the proposed University and Uptown Lines such as Shepard, Kirby, Westheimer, and Post Oak. Our core is about 10 miles from end to end by the proposed and current rail so the distances are far and most folks don't ride it end to end. I think Houston's LRT model serves it well and requires an additional investment in local bus, BRT, and P&R feeding commuters and locals into the LRT in order for the city to truly have a transit system.

I was referring to Main St.'s ridership when I talked about its accomplishments. BRT wouldn't be able to duplicate this line's success when it comes to moving large groups of people as the LRT cars allow a larger capacity of people. How many buses and space would it take to transport, load and unload two train full of people at METRO's most busiest stations? For me, Main St, Uptown, and University Line would form a great backbone for our transit network, while the rest should have been BRT and P&R feeding into it.. As far as development is concerned, there has been steady growth in a 1/2 to 1/4 mile radius of the Main St Line (north of the TMC) and the planned University and Uptown line over the past decade.

Will the park and residential be constructed at the same time?

As far as a creative and relatively inexpensive solution to congestion on I10: A public-private partnership between METRO/any other sort of governmental group from Katy and beyond and the Energy Corridor Management District would be formed. P&R service would be expanded in Katy, along I10, and 99 and new routes would be added that would drop off all Energy Corridor passengers off at the P&R location at Hwy 6 and I10. From there, the EC District would work with all the companies and we'd have Shell buses picking up Shell workers, BP buses picking up BP workers, etc, etc. It could work many different ways. They could just have one private bus company that serves as the "last mile". Point is, once the passengers are dropped off the "private" side of the partnership would take over.

The problem is implementation and funds. I think a lot of cities (in particular sun-belt cities) try to stick that type of Chicago, NYC, etc doctrine of trying to make a centralized city. Houston just needs LRT connecting it's largest and densest employment and activity centers (DT, Uptown, Greenway Plaza, TMC, our 4 professional sports stadiums and our educational and cultural institutions) which happen to all be within 8 miles of each other. Not to mention, actually have enough money left over to make sure it doesn't happen at the expense of our bus network and P&R expansion. Furthermore, while Houston is decentralized, our rush our traffic is heavily inbound in the morning and outbound in the evening. A great investment would be in doubling our P&R system that could feed commuters into the core and start building ridership in places like Greenway, Woodland Town Center/Exxon, Energy Corridor, and Westchase with express bus service. . As far as BRT vs LRT; I would argue that BRT couldn't do what the Main St line accomplished and BRT should be used instead of LRT for the current expansion. Lastly, all this would ideally be done while simultaneously rebuilding our roads and highways.

To be honest, Houston has been a red-headed step child historically for a number of reasons.

Really? How does it benefit the Chron?

Lot of land undeveloped/underutilized in downtown and surrounding areas (east and north especially)......

Jebus, more Exxon?

Pardon my ignorance, but is another boom, perhaps mini-boom coming pretty soon? With all these expanding energy companies will that lead to another boom once all these new offices start to fill up with employees? Or will Houston just keep on keeping on? Assuming O&G prices stay near current levels.

Because METRO has been highly financially mismanaged.

I agree. This will be a great addition for out of town visitors as well Houstonians.

It's become a common theme on here that transit is one dimensional with just one mode of public transit (rail in particular). It would work most fine once Uptown completes it's BRT as it has a very high concentration of hotels (most in the city?). Then of course DT is connected to some of the city's best and most accessible tourist areas, along with adding more hotels. Just finish connecting Houston's core together and then connect that with "premium bus service" from the airports. It's all about progressing through steps, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Quickline down Westheimer from Hwy6 to University of Houston where it becomes Elgin. Redo streetscapes and boom we got a bustling 20 plus mile corridor. It's frankly embarrassing the state of Westheimer in Montrose.

We need to stop thinking of DT as the single core, but DT, Uptown, TMC, and Greenway Plaza as the core. I'm sure spread out office space does disperse traffic, but it's only temporary as this metro had added a million plus people per decade for 3 straight decades. Dispersing traffic only makes it more expensive once it catches up with us.