ADCS

Uh... wouldn't the people who want Houston to stay car-centric and suburban be the Old Army in this case?

I can't imagine they'll put a container port inland of Barbours Cut/Bayport, but I can easily imagine larger petroleum tankers going to the West Coast that would take advantage of a wider and deeper channel.

There are plenty of wonderful suburbs for you to move to if that's what you like, along with suburban-style areas in the inner loop. Please stop getting in the way of those of us who like urban environments and want to develop some of that in Houston. There's enough space for both styles of development.

I'm guessing this has to do with New Panamax traffic. Are there any Ship Channel dredging projects in the near future?

They tended to overengineer bridges quite a bit in those days, for a variety of reasons - labor was much cheaper, math was still done on paper, material strength coefficients weren't well known, etc. Thirty years ago, engineering would have been done to a fairly precise estimation of loads. That's what leads me to believe that there's structural degradation - otherwise, what's the point of spending that much more on a double replacement?

I wonder if the interior of the box girders is starting to degrade, given the relatively harsh environment surrounding the bridge.

That's not where 59 was originally, though - its western branch came in through downtown on Main, and followed Main and Fannin all the way to the intersection with the 59 eastern branch and 90A at OST, then followed 90A's current route to Rosenberg. https://1968d90e831cd27d2017897e0c81e9a12852eb10.googledrive.com/host/0B4gwdXQk1LyieHZHSTBqd0VJSnc/old-highway-maps/1950_humble_houston_large.jpg The route here was adopted to direct traffic to the Southwest Freeway via what is now Spur 527.

http://keranews.org/post/opponents-call-more-transparency-dallas-houston-bullet-train Saw this on Swamplot this morning. A few things to note: 1. “We had gone from nobody knowing anything about the high-speed rail project between Dallas and Houston to the entire state budget being held up over it,” said Kyle Workman, the group’s president. “So from our standpoint, it was much different than a failure. There was no such thing as a failure in our case.” Workman admits to being a troll. 2. The opposition's strategy seems to be attempting to evoke empathy with plainly self-centered desires where fearmongering does not work: “If it was your house that you built that was going to be your retirement home; plans have been made your entire life to be here; or it’s land that’s been in your family for many generations; and it's suddenly fixing to be taken away, I would be curious if they had the same opinion,” said Gary Bennett, an Ennis lawyer and landowner.

https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/3ltib2/interested_in_learning_about_the_highspeed_rail/ Looks like they're starting a media blitz.

You can say that about any project. This opinion seems valid until a bridge collapses and dozens are dead.

And? That's keeping water out of neighborhoods.

Yes. Shiro is in the center of Grimes County.

Media coverage outside the DMN seems to be slanted against the project. Any reason why that might be?

A lack of zoning actually helps heavy rail - the line is fixed, but the use of the surrounding property is not. That will lead to more development more quickly that takes advantage of the heavy rail line.

Houston has plenty of buses. Frequent access to ridership has just increased by leaps and bounds. If there's anything Metro can't be criticized for at this time, it's ignoring the nuts-and-bolts in favor of glamour projects.

I'm sorry, but that's absurd. That's like saying we shouldn't count pedestrian traffic on the train, because they wouldn't have taken the train if work weren't so far away. It's like saying we shouldn't over inflate auto traffic counts, because people walk from their cars to their desks, so really, they walked to work. Each one of these examples involves a mode shift because of reduced accessibility in the other mode. Adapting mode usage to maximize accessibility and usability is the very essence of modern transportation.

Ridership is inflated because people are using the line? We should eliminate the numbers because too many people are using a particular segment of the line?

Washington has both I-10 and Memorial Drive within a half mile for moving high-speed arterial traffic. Washington is one of the few arterials in Houston where there actually is sufficient redundancy to reduce capacity. Look, I understand - you don't like rail. That's fine. But specious arguments don't get any of us anywhere.

Um, Washington to Old Katy to N. Post Oak? Something that's been a rail corridor since the 1890s? If people spent as much time and energy solving problems as coming up with them, I'm pretty sure we'd have teleporters by now

Appreciate the response. A few things: 1. Let's not diminish MaxConcrete on account of his preference toward highway-oriented development. He has performed an invaluable service for those of us who appreciate infrastructure in the compilation of both Houston Freeways and Dallas-Fort Worth Freeways, at considerable personal cost. We wouldn't have half of what we know about the Texas freeway system as easily available if he hadn't undertaken those projects. His priorities are different than yours or mine, but they're genuine, I assure you. Part of why I want TCR to succeed is that we have someone in a couple of generations writing a masterwork on the railroad with as much passion as he did about our freeways. 2. We also shouldn't box in the opposition to the downtown site that narrowly. The noisiest opponents to the downtown site in Greater Houston haven't been suburbanites - they've been residents of Rice Military who either have an unshakable belief that the line will disrupt everything they enjoy about the neighborhood (I don't exactly have a high opinion of these folks), or a more reasonable concern about property value effects (unwarranted, in my estimation, but understandable in a neighborhood of $750k townhouses). 3. TCR's biggest problem so far in Houston is that no one has seen exactly what we'd be getting. I realize that they don't want to overpromise and underdeliver, but some artist's impressions of the urban elevated sections' neighborhood impact, and what a "Grand Central Station" design could contribute to the Downtown skyline, would greatly contribute toward public awareness and the relaxation of public concerns. When you and I imagine urban HSR in Houston, we see dreams. Others see nightmares. Let's get rid of both, and see reality.

It's a bit disappointing to see how reactive and bogged down in personal politics the station site selection process seems to be. It might help if TCR/TCP presented a vision of what any station site may look like.

Developers = buildings = more urban integration. Sounds like a win to me.

They're to build a new set of roadways alongside the 59/69 roadways to accommodate 45 traffic. You can find schematics here. Note that these have been modified since they were published, though no new maps have been produced yet. The whole structure will be depressed with the intention of capping it later on, in order to anticipate the complaints you mention.

That's just it - there is no median. It's nothing but a concrete divider. There isn't really space for pylons anywhere except for the sloping embankments on either side of the freeway.

I wonder how they'd design the structure over I-10 if they go that way. It would likely require quite a bit of engineering, so perhaps we'd end up getting a "signature" structure out of it. Could be a real opportunity.