Rail

Shots from those angles are misleading.

There are a bunch of bad angles of our skyline too that make it look like we only have 5 buildings downtown, which as it happens, are the shots media from out of state always tend to use.

Like the dreaded West side skyline view:

image.jpg

Its a perspective optical illusion caused by looking at every row of buildings from dead on, like if you looked at a row of dominos from the first domino.

Here's a better one.

image.jpg

Kinda like our skyline, their taller buildings cover up all the low and mid rise density.

Exactly: LA's skyline actually looks massive from the northwest along the 101 freeway near downtown. Houston's skyline also looks biggest from a similar angle, due to the uncannily similar layout and massing of both skylines. If 3 Cal Plaza had been built in the early 90's, LA would have a supertall on its flank just like Chase Tower in Houston. LA is getting a new supertall anyway to balance out the skyline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilshire_Grand_Tower

If worse comes to worse, I predict they'll build a second level of the West Loop trenched/underground, similar to what's being done to 635 in Dallas.

the only thing that would alleviate the West Loop problem is another N/S freeway connector to 59 between the Beltway and Shepherd. This widening will just pour more volume into the unexpandable West Loop. The W Loop can't be decked b/c of environmental (mostly noise) concerns, and it can't be widened b/c of Memorial Park on both sides of the freeway.

PEK isn't going to pass ATL within the next two years. Growth at PEK has slowed considerably with the Chinese economy.

Nope. With one Tollway closer to downtown and (soon) another one just a little out, there's no incentive to expand capacity on any major road between the two. I actually think it would be neat for them to convert SH 6 and FM 1960 into a 3/4 freeway loop around Houston in addition to SHT and GP, but unless those routes become "free" in the future, it isn't going to happen unless the development in the area gets so dense/intense (we're talking what's typical in say, Southern California) that additional lane-mileage won't take away traffic from the tollways.

The word from the Director of Airports is that IAH is getting another new international carrier and destination next year. A major Asian carrier. Sounds like it's a done deal, but not yet public. My guess is Air China with flights to Beijing. (Or it could be Asiana, with flights to Seoul)

Please let it be Asiana. Incredible airline and Seoul is a wonderful connection airport to points in SE Asia.

OZ would compliment SQ, QR, and EK quite nicely.

If I were a bettin' man, I'd say it will be NH to NRT to complement UA's existing daily service.

With the way Metro's finances are, they may very well sell the ROW they have along Westpark in the future.

I'm fine with move-over/slow-down laws. I'm NOT fine with law enforcement conducting sting operations with this law: it does nothing but back traffic up at best and cause needless lane changes that lead to wrecks at worst. Half the close calls and accidents I've witnessed over the past 5 years of driving have been when someone in the right lane feels the need to move over and cuts another driver off in the adjacent lane because they forget to look since their attention is focused on the flashing blue lights.

Yellow-painted signals are pretty common in the Eastern US. Black is more common out west. The only states east of the Mississippi River I can think of that make black standard are IL, WI, KY, GA, FL, and NY (outside NYC).

I agree with you about it being an improvement, but disagree that license plates shouldn't have to be artistic statements. Even the most extreme of minimalist design (say, black Helvetica on a white background) would express a thought that transcends the content. Everything is an artistic statement, and everything encompasses nothingness.

To me, this is much bolder, more assertive, more masculine.

I completely agree, and it's very fitting for Texas. That being said, a "little" color is okay: If they continue with the state flag design in the state outline, that would make it damn near perfect.

I went to the Aichi Expo in 2005. Thoroughly enjoyed it!

I dunno why you started a thread like this on a Houston forum, but while the architecture of most of Atlanta's tallest buildings puts most cities in its peer group to shame, there are certainly ugly sides of the city as well. Many neighborhoods of Atlanta look like half-abandoned small towns in East Texas, only with more trees. On top of that, while Midtown Atlanta is very nice, Downtown Atlanta looks quite dated from street level because little has been done to improve it in the past 20 years. The area around Centennial Park is the only notable exception to this. I would also not like having Atlanta's homelessness and aggressive panhandling problem.

They should have kept United's tulip and incorporated CO's globe into it.

Agreed. Right turn lights would necessitate there being a right turn only lane. That's what I've observed at intersections with right turn signals like at the Eastex at Kingwood Dr. and at Shepherd and Kirby. Perhaps just the right turn only lane without the protected right signal would help traffic flow, but then you'd still have people who don't know you can turn right on red unless a sign says "no right turn on red". They'll have 10 people blowing at them but they won't budge. I also think school buses and METROlift vehicles are prohibited from making right turns on red.

I think the school bus thing varies by jurisdiction. Protected right turn arrows are odd in a lot of places, but some states use them quite liberally. They seem to be on every other major interesection in states like Illinois and California, where there's a signal for practically every lane of traffic and additional signals at katy-corners for increased visibility. The Dallas-Ft Worth Metroplex also has more right-turn arrows than most metro areas I've been to.

On April 12, 1940, Houston mayor Oscar Holcombe announced plans for the Gulf Freeway. The plans included six main lanes and 2 two-lane sections for local traffic. Thus, the "service road" or "frontage road" was born.

Frontage roads would become a standard feature of Houston freeways. Outside of Texas, however, they are not widely used. In Los Angeles, for instance, the freeway capital of the world, they are practically nonexistent.

What would our city look like today without frontage roads? Would our freeways be tree-lined parkways like those in other cities? Where would all the businesses that line our freeways be located?

Erik Slotboom's superb "Houston Freeways" has an interesting discussion of frontage roads in Chapter 2, Freeway Metropolis.

Houston Freeways

Where would all the businesses be located? That's easy... where they are now. In Texas, most stretches of interstate highway were brownfield developments. They basically upgraded the respective US highway to interstate standards and put the old US highway lanes on the side as feeder roads. In most of the eastern US, interstates were built as greenfield corridors, meaning that most existing US highways remained surface roads.

Compare Houston's highway network with Atlanta's. Houston has only 3 signed US highways: 90, 290, and 59, but has more freeway center-lane miles than Atlanta primarily because existing US highways and certain state routes were simply upgraded to freeways. In Atlanta, practically every limited access road carries an interstate designation because they were built on completely new routes. The original US highways serving Atlanta remained: 78, 278, 19, 23, 29, and 41. All of these are major 4 or 6 lane arterials that radiate out toward Atlanta's suburbs anywhere from 1 to 5 miles from a parallel interstate. It is on these roads where you'll find those businesses you find along feeder roads in Houston.

Cobb Parkway (US 41 northwest of the city) is a prime example of this.

And here's a picture of that road a couple miles south of the previous picture, looking northbound at the interchange with I-285. Imagine Galveston Road in SW Houston looking like this. That's what would have happened if the Gulf Freeway had been built without feeders.

What intersection is that? It appears that the rail line is running right through the middle of the intersection. You don't see that too much in Houston.

I have no idea. I did a google image search to find an image of the traffic signal setup I was talking about. That's an older 70's-ish assembly that seems very common in industrial areas of the city.

They did change a bunch of lights a few years ago from left on arrow only to arrow and yield. Many Montrose intersections come to mind.

I've noticed that the arrow/yield setup is more common inside the Loop, especially with new installations.

Depending on what side of town you're on, it looks like the City is using different types of LEDs. I used to be a member of a traffic light forum, but they switched forum software and everyone had to switch over and create all new names. The new forum has all of these new rules which seem rather anti-social. I'm trying to rejoin so I can get you guys some good information on LEDs, but trying to join their new forum is like filling out government documents. You can't have an e-mail address with Yahoo or AOL or other free e-mail clients, you have to submit a questionnaire before they activate your membership. You have to answer it correctly too or else they won't approve your membership. And if you don't introduce yourself in the introductions forum within a week, they delete you. They also delete you if you don't log in over a period of months. They claim it's a way to keep the forum close knit, but from what I can see, TheHAIF has lots of lurkers and nowhere near as many authoritarian rules and we're a pretty close knit community. But, to each their own.

I know which forum you're talking about, seeing as I'm a bit of a signal fan myself. I ran across it doing a google search on traffic signals in certain jurisdictions.

Speaking of signals, I have one question about peculiar signal set-ups in Houston and the surrounding area. Why does Houston/TxDOT insist on using "left on arrow only" signals at so many intersections where a "left turn yield on green" signal would suffice, as in most other cities? I've noticed this while looking at different intersections in Google street view.

My guess is that since left-turn arrows normally come after the thru-traffic phase in Texas (as opposed to before in most other states), there isn't much added benefit in allowing turning traffic to go as long as they yield since they'll get an arrow in a few seconds after a big-enough gap appears in opposing traffic. But that doesn't explain why they use the more standard "left turn yields" in Dallas/Ft Worth and the rest of the state.

Does anyone have an answer? It would seem that this set-up would be annoying to drivers from outside the area, and probably causes more traffic back-ups than necessary on major arterials

Here are two pictures to illustrate what I'm talking about:

What's standard in most cities:

What's standard in Houston:

Not true. See figure 1-2 in the Executive Summary of the linked Master Plan

That doesn't make much sense though, why wouldn't they just move proposed runway 9R/27L south by about 1000 additional feet to avoid taking any homes? Doing so would probably provide enough spacing for a future 9C/27C (third new runway I was talking about) to the north of the existing subdivision. The facilities in figure 1-1 shown south of the proposed runway could be moved elsewhere.

If this is the same as the master plan, hardly ANY homes will be taken. The airport's existing boundaries are more than enough to accommodate two, even three more east-west runways.

Here's a link to the IAH master plan:

http://www.fly2houston.com/SPMasterPlan

The reason a runway would be placed a mile away from an existing runway is to allow for simultaneous operations in all weather/visibility conditions. I believe current FAA requirements state that such runways must have at least 4100 ft of separation between them. That's the reason Atlanta's fifth runway was built a mile south of it's then southern-most runway, and required bridging I-285.

The height of both Chase and WF seem to be a mystery. I've seen two heights listed for WF: 972 and 992. Which is correct? Or is it really even taller than that? I've also heard that WF wants to keep the height of its building a mystery.

It begs an answer becauase from most angles, WF seems to be taller than Chase.

Actually, there are only two lights in Bastrop, and another west of the city at 1209.

I have made this comment before, that as far as I know, Texas is the only State in the nation that does not have an interstate between its largest city and capitol.

I can think of one other: Nevada.

Asphalt only works better where the soil is stable and temperature variations are moderate. That is why most of the freeways in Atlanta are asphalt.

Concrete, however, is better (if properly maintained) in the long term for roads with heavy traffic. New technology makes todays brand new concrete interstates able to last for 50-60 years before a complete rebuild. Many of the expressways and tollways here around Chicago are being rebuilt with this new concrete, and it works wonders!

What the heck? I've never heard of LRT costing more per mile than what's typical for heavy rail!

Your wrong there man.

Trae, Metro Matt has it right about Dallas. It's Korean population is far bigger and more established than what you'll find in any other Southern city except Atlanta (which had close to 30,000 in 2000). I remember visiting Dallas in 1991 with my mom (I was only 8 at the time), and was astounded to find Royal Lane to be almost a carbon-coby of Buford Highway, which even in the early 90's was quite established. Royal Lane probably still looks like that today, but if Dallas' Korean community has done like Atlanta's, it's spread out tremendously since then.

Houston's no slouch though in the overall Asian department, that I'll give credit to.

I'm a signal fan, and I love Houston traffic signals. I think what I like best about them is their horizontal layout, even on spanwire! And the black ones (as opposed to yellow) remind me of signals in South Korea and Japan.

Dallas is the exact opposite. Almost every traffic signal there is installed vertically.

Is having two red signal heads for left-on-arrow-only signals unique to Houston? Or is it seen throughout Texas? I don't remember seeing a single one like it in Dallas or anywhere else in the US for that matter.