ADCS

I personally have always presented myself as a NIMBY.  To that end I would dispute your reference to territorialism; generally when people make a purchase of a home, it is not unilateraly for the x,000SF parcel but for the community and the immediate surrounding area.  So it would stand to reason that projects, regardless of what they are, that impact the community would have relevance to a resident.

 

I get that NIMBY'ism has probably prevented good projects from ever happening, and this might be one of them.  But to discount what a person should and shouldn't care about, b/c they do not "own" the land in question, is an overreaction IMO.

 

We can agree to disagree, in the long run neither of us really have impact on the decisions made.

I would like to present a challenge - would you please lay out the disadvantages to routing the HSR through that corridor that do not have to do with the following:

1. Property values

2. Perceived neighborhood character

3. Noise and visual blight

4. Traffic disruption

Relative to the HSR? Absolutely.

But there is a general perception that the NIMBY mentality is directed at all things related to rail when its not the case.

I dont oppose HSR overall, though I don't believe it will successful as an alternative travel mode.

See, this is the sort of circular reasoning that NIMBYs use to justify what is primarily an irrational emotional response. Yes, it's agreed that the project is needed, but not anywhere near me - that's not a logical argument, that's emotional territoriality. It's based on an unjustified belief in the ownership of one's proximity, as opposed to the plat of land that one has title to.

You see this all the time in infrastructure projects - usually landowners do not mind giving up rights of way or easements - that's either a lucrative one-time transaction, or a steady source of income over the years. Their neighbors, on the other hand, are usually the biggest opponents, and the opposition is couched in terms of territoriality.

If there's a perception that the NIMBY mentality is directed at all things rail, that's probably because they're usually more successful there. There are too many strong countervailing interests in Houston to block a major road project (for example, the Grand Parkway F-2).

Before all of the NIMBY comments come rolling in, the Houston HSR Watch is supportive of improved connectivity for Houston which includes light and commuter rail.  They are not against HSR, save for the infrastructure and disruption that would have been necessary to bring it downtown.  

That's the very definition of "not in my backyard".

I wish NIMBYs were more self-aware.

What would you suggest for arterials? Widen Westheimer to 6 lanes like an LA arterial? Widen and straighten Shrpherd/Greenbriar? There aren't any good options here because of the way the City developed and the inconvenient placement of bayous and other drainage structures.

Well, inside the loop, things are about as good/bad as they're going to get. I think lower Westheimer serves its role perfectly fine, as do most of the arterials where the surrounding roads are in a grid pattern.

It's when you get to the parts of the city that were originally developed as suburbs, and the surrounding roads are in a spine pattern, that you run into problems. In my current part of town, that's Dairy Ashford, Kirkwood and Wilcrest. Spines demand large arterials (3+ lanes in each direction), and we simply don't have the space to expand them.

It's going to be expensive and politically challenging to get those roads expanded to where they need to be, but it can be done. Perhaps a penny tax on gas within the city limits could get moving in the right direction.

Like this one?

 

http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/mobility/MTFP

As long as we're treating suburban neighborhood collector streets as arterials, we don't have a comprehensive plan.

the comparison is valid. I did say LA, but I was thinking about the LA area, specifically southish LA, and into Orange County.

 

A lot of orange county grew up around the freeways, the freeways weren't plowed through the middle of neighborhoods.

 

Besides, pretty much everywhere inside the loop was built the exact same way.

 

It's interesting too...

areas of Houston inside the loop that don't have feeders are more apt to have homes built right up to the freeway (59 inside shepherd up through downtown).

areas of Houston inside the loop that have always had feeders and were built the exact same way (the gulf freeway from downtown all the way out). they tend to have commercial developments built where homes once were. Sure, it's just one or two layers deep in some cases, but in other cases, lots of houses were bought up by commercial entities.

 

These are two excellent examples of freeways that were built right through the middle of residential areas, and how they both grew independently based upon whether they had a feeder or not.

 

but don't take my word for it, please, look here: http://www.historicaerials.com/

 

Look at Houston. i10 was under construction in 1966, lots of homes were taken and then there were lots of homes right up to the feeder. then, look at today, it's all commercial. the same happens in quite a few places all over Houston. Mainly where feeders exist.

 

Now, go over to LA. Look around Orange County, the 405 specifically near where the 405 and 5 meet, where el toro airfield was. 405 was built in the 70s out in that area. No homes, nothing. freeway is built, and homes start popping up right on the freeway. the 5 existed out in that area way before it was anything other than orange groves. Now though, it's homes right up on the freeway.

 

Now, come back to Houston. Look at outlying areas where areas grew up around the freeways (Katy and Sugarland, the same as my Southern California example), it's mostly commercial developments, and really big ones, then a few hundred yards beyond those, is where the residential begins.

 

I'm not saying that different parts of the country would have grown like Houston had they used feeders, but as we're really the only example, you kind of have to draw that conclusion.

There's another huge difference - Southern California is largely incorporated, and land use zoning is widespread. That's not the case for much of the Houston area.

you can do an experiment to test my theory. I may do it myself.

 

step 1:

take all the freeways in Houston with feeders in google maps and draw a box 2000 yards wide (with the freeway in the middle). count up residences.

 

step 2:

go to a place like LA, find freeways that were developed around the same time as in Houston and take the same distance of freeway in google maps, draw a box 2000 yards wide (with the freeways in the middle). count up residences.

 

I'll bet you a beer at the next haif happy hour that there are less residences when feeders exist than when they don't.

There are a couple of problems with this comparison -

1. The vast majority of development in Houston came after the development of the freeway system. Houston really didn't extend past the loop at that point, so the feeders would have come first, then the development.

2. In LA, where freeways were imposed on top of existing transit and natural corridors within a developed environment, denser development taking advantage of the previous infrastructure would have already been in place. Furthermore, LA has geographic constraints that Houston doesn't have.

Really snarky write-up by the Houston Press. I'm curious why this is their stance on HSR; mysterious land-owning benefactor, or something else?

Probably lives or has friends in the Rice Military/Wash Ave corridor. Those folks really don't like the idea, and rationality has not a whole lot to do with it.

I'm just going to flat out disagree with that.  A few backside delivery trucks during the business day don't make that much noise (and almost none at night) - certainly compared to the continuous rumble of freeway traffic, 18-wheeler air-brakes, or firetruck and police sirens screaming by.  And the benefits of the air pollution buffer far outweigh any noise.

Fair enough - your experiences may have been different from my own.

Traffic on the feeders is far less than on the mainlanes (usually), but the point is the buffers that frontage roads foster.

High-traffic commercial development is often noisier than a freeway with a sound barrier (easy to construct when the funds for feeders are freed up). Likewise, it's generally more pleasant to live next to a sound wall than it is to live next to the loading area of a strip center.

Feeder roads aren't nice to look at, but that can be easily remedied by adding dense foliage between the freeway and the feeder.  

Not too dense, though, otherwise you'll impede sight lines and then have a bunch of auto dealers down your neck, if you're that division lead for TxDOT.

There's nothing to fix. Most of the businesses on the feeders have no other access, unless you buy up whatever is behind them to build a new road for access.

 

I personally think cities without feeder roads are excruciatingly hard to get around in. If you get off at the wrong exit, it cna take hours to find a way back on to the freeway. Houston also lacks the large arterial streets that exist in LA, and carry large numbers of cars. As mentioned elsewhere, we developed around the feeder concept, and it's far too late to change.

 

I've got no problem with that strategy. I also think we need to have a comprehensive arterial plan in Houston - this is something that we've put off for far too long.

I think "hours" is a bit dramatic, wouldn't you say? Besides, with GPS, that's not nearly the issue that it would have been 20 years ago.

The reason why we have so many feeders is that some of our freeways were built along old state and US highway corridors instead of new facilities being built near or parallel to the old roads. When these 2 lane and 4 lane divided highways were upgraded to freeways, businesses and residences along those highways that weren't condemned for the freeway still needed access, and that's one reason why feeders are so popular. Examples of this are outside the loop for the most part and include SH 249 from the Beltway northward, I-45 North from Shepherd Rd. to Conroe, US 59 from Jensen to Loop 494, 610 through Bellaire, and the Katy Freeway from 610 to Katy.

 

288 was one of the few freeways built here without continuous feeders, though that would've been a different story had the state built it upon Almeda Rd. as once planned.

That wasn't really it, though - it was more the influence of rural landowners, small-to-medium sized business owners and developers in highway planning. If it were simply about maintaining frontage for existing businesses, then you'd see feeders all across the US - but you don't.

It was easier for the state highway department to get land donations (saving them the cost of takings via purchase or eminent domain) if they promised to put frontage roads next to the freeway. Given how powerful these interests have historically been in state politics, this became policy, rather than something done as one-offs where necessary. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the main motivation were simply bureaucratic inertia - since you're likely going to have to plan for them in many circumstances, why not all circumstances?

People don't vote in off-year elections, because most people don't like politics outside their own areas (such as church, business, etc). That's especially the case in a diverse city of 2.2 million, where many, if not most, people feel like they don't even know their neighbors, much less the people who live 20 miles away. You can blame nonvoters for their apathy, but really, why should they care when it doesn't affect them in more than an abstract way?

Most people don't think abstractly - it's what pertains to the here and now that's important. That's a big reason the messaging for No won - because it's easy to visualize some creep marching into women's bathrooms. It's not easy to visualize "people who you don't know, in other cities, are going to look down on you for bigotry, and that'll really come back to bite you in the backside".

I'm not trying to say this in a snarky way, but I obviously lack the ability to see freeways in Houston without the feeders. How could it be done?

 

I mean, yeah, you can say that the groundwork needs to be set, and the lack of vision, well, give me some vision. give me some groundwork.

 

And with the way most of the exits and entrances to freeways are built these days to access the feeders, how does congestion on the feeder translate to congestion on the freeway? on an exit ramp that has been designed in the last few decades, when's the last time traffic has been stacked up into the freeway allowing feeder traffic to affect traffic on the freeway?

How? Reduction in the number of exits to begin with, along with the construction of higher-capacity interchanges like SPUIs and DDIs. Identification of areas that were isolated by freeway construction and using TxDOT funds (that would be spent on the feeders anyway) to create distributive routes to these areas. It may be advisable to keep the existing feeders in certain instances, but not as the preferred alternative in all circumstances.

The congestion I'm concerned about isn't so much backing up from signals, but from the amount of conflicts that are created from the weaving that comes about when the only urban interchange design available to you is the diamond. Even the X design leads to weaving as it does not control for drivers' varied preferences in merging distance. This can be seen on the Katy Freeway in the Energy Corridor every morning.

it would be impossible to remove feeder roads. It would have been impossible to do so 15 years ago as well.

 

There are rare exceptions where the feeder could be removed without heavily impacting business, or residences, but for the most part, if you take a drive around town, you can easily see how many businesses and residential areas are accessible exclusively via the feeder roads.

 

Our town, our commerce, so much of it is designed around the feeder roads and the commitment that they will always be there, whether you are looking exclusively inside the loop or not, it's not a feasible solution. I'll warrant that's why it never got out of the proposal stages in the early 2000s.

 

Whether it's the better model or not, it doesn't matter at this point, we're stuck with them.

 

Heck, weren't we in the process (and still in the process) of adding feeder roads to I10 near the heights?

First, the early 2000s proposal was for construction on a go-forth basis, and not for existing highways or plans.

Second, that's the sort of thinking that's got us stuck with these things in the first place - it'll be difficult, so let's not do it. It's also a bit short-sighted in the way of prioritization - if so many residences or businesses are not accessible without the feeders, then why aren't we looking at fixing that? Why aren't we setting the groundwork to make such a thing feasible? At this point, it's not a lack of funding (especially if it's a 30-40 year project), it's a lack of vision.

Honestly, one of the best things we could do to our freeways is demolish every mile of feeder within the loop. It's a failed model that simply increases weaving and traffic friction leading to congestion. It may have been politically expedient in the '50s, but it's a shame that we weren't able to move on as was proposed in the early 2000s.

You state that, "Outside the loop, traffic in the off-peak direction almost always moves at posted speeds." That may be true in 2015, but look forward 10-20 years. Fort Bend County is growing, and we'll undoubtedly see more reverse commutes from Houston to Fort Bend. TxDOT needs to be proactive when spending all of this money to expand the SW Freeway than to expand it and find out that a two-way HOV is needed after all.

For years, a one-way HOV was in the plans for I-45 from 1960 to Conroe as evidenced by the extra wide interior shoulders built when I-45 was widened. In the time between the widening of I-45 and the present day, reverse commuting from Houston to The Woodlands has increased, meaning both sides of I-45 are congested in the morning. So, the plans have changed from a one-way barrier separated HOV lane to a two-way HOV lane which is currently under construction to handle that extra traffic from reverse commutes. 

 

As far as design problems at Park and Ride facilities with a 2 lane HOV and a t-ramp, TxDOT has made such a design work on the Katy Freeway at the Addicks Park and Ride.

This is a good point, especially with Schlumberger moving out to SL. No doubt many of their vendors might see it as a good idea to head that way as well.

Aren't those requirements driven by ordinance? If so, Planning can't make any changes.

Pressure can include getting ordinance changes pushed through City Council.

What are the substantive differences between King and Turner? Their websites are fairly vague in their positions.

Both seem fairly opposed to ReBuild Houston, so that's likely going out the window. Turner comes off as more of a machine politician, while King seems to be extremely pro-business.

Will either of the candidates put pressure on the Planning and Engineering departments to relax things like parking and form requirements?

I thought Westbury was becoming a sort of gay enclave nowadays. That generally speaks well for neighborhood character and property values.

I'm not terribly concerned. This is just angry social conservatives lashing out, primarily because of Obergefell. It's an off-year election, which is their time to shine (because nothing motivates politically like bigoted hatred and rage). Houston will get some bad PR, you'll see the NFL threaten to pull the Super Bowl, and all of a sudden the city will have found a loophole that lets the ordinance go back into effect.

I hate the idea of "let the incoming students decide the mascot!"

I got to vote for Cy Ranch's colors and mascot which ended up being The Mustangs, when the losing option of "Wolverines" sounded so much more bada$$

Do you think the administrators actually pay any attention to what's in the ballot box?

Not a fan. Why not honor the history of the area and call it "Klein Kohrville" or "Klein Louetta"?

Man Culberson is a total waste of life. Sorry to be so cruel but the guy is a total *&^%$#^&* for a lack of better words. How do you prevent a transportation agency from operating in the 4th major city in America because a small stretch of where your district lies doesn't want light rail running through their neighborhood? Why not just work with the agency to plan a better route? But to go to the lengths he has to prevent progress in this city is beyond words for me. I wish I could be this guy and give him my two cents.

Culberson is symptomatic of a pervasive attitude in Houston - that the government exists solely to serve one's own interests, and anything it does that either does not serve those interests, or run counter to them, must be opposed with all available resources. There's no sense of common good or sacrifice.

Any thread not posted in the trains sub forum will inevitably get off track

Amazing how rail always seems to derail these threads.