august948

The west loop is best avoided during rush hour. Not sure any of the mass transit plans I've seen are going to make a big dent in that, though.

This article says late April or May. Of course it was written in February, so who knows. Can't wait though. We got a fix last weekend when we were in Austin. http://houston.eater.com/2015/2/2/7962791/krispy-kremes-houston-comeback-delayed-until-spring Until then... mmmm....hot donuts!

Obviously you haven't been to College Station, either.

Maybe we need to add horse lanes, too?

If i were in a fun neighborhood in NYC I don't think I'd spend as much time as you do posting to this thread. Is the outside talking to the outside here?

Can you post your reference? The ones I found show Houston way further down the list. It might also be relevant that Boston and SF have built out systems whereas we're still working on ours. So, with lesser miles, the rider per mile stat goes up and might not be an apples-to-apples comparison.

It has been tried before. FWIW...here are the disadvantages from a wikipedia article on the subject... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport

I may differ from a lot of my fellow Houstonians in that I also consider a few blocks "close". Particularly if on a bicycle. If you look around the city a bit, you can already find areas outside the loop and outside the beltway (even...gasp...in Cinco Ranch) where you can live within walking distance of groceries, restaurants, cafes, etc.

I'm sure the NYC lifestyle works for some. Particularly if you are wealthy and single. And can have whatever you need delivered to your door. I'm not so sure on the advantages, though, for the rest of us. If you take away the unique cultural institutions and just focus on day to day living, how is it a great advantage to pay much more for far less living space and daily necessities?

And not everyone can or wants to get by on a loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese. Possibly both moldy given the reviews.

3 to 5 years isn't enough time to get any kind of major infrastructure built. So what will happen? Will Houston collapse on itself and be consigned to the dustbin of history? I doubt it. Employment will move out of the core, closer to where the employees live. Then it's a matter of expanding the highways further out, where it happens real estate is cheaper to purchase and there's more room for expansion anyway. Look for expansions to the tollways especially in the next few decades. Maybe, just maybe, they'll put in commuter rail, too. More or less this has already started happening.

Good for you. I haven't experienced any crime either living in Houston since I moved here 15 years ago. Call us back when you've taken the subway day in and day out for 15 years in NYC and we'll compare notes. Wait a minute...there's a Walmart and a SuperTarget within a 2 minute walk? We typically buy 3 to 4 gallons of milk, 24 packs of toilet paper, several pounds of meat, plus frozen, dry and can goods and other stuff in a single trip. That must take forever to do walking back and forth to the store there. Is it typical of NYC residents that their day is work, forage, sleep, repeat?

Two minute walk, two minute drive...what's the difference? Oh, wait, I know...I can haul 10 bags of groceries in my car. Plus other sundry large items. And get a better selection. And get better prices. How does the crime rate you are exposed to while riding the NYC subway compare to the crime rate I'm exposed to while driving down Westheimer?

Fortunately, I rarely take the Sam Houston Tollway, and then most of the times it's been because I wasn't paying attention and took the wrong exit off I-10 west bound.

So much the worse for NYC residents, then. What happens when there's a strike? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_New_York_City_transit_strike Let me know the next time you hear about Houston roads going on strike. I go to games and the theater from time to time and am at various locations inside the loop several times a week, but I go to the nearby grocery stores, other stores, and to restaurants nearly every day. Better to live close to the things you need on a daily basis and drive a little further for the occasional things than vice-versa. Besides, I can be inside the loop in less than 30 minutes and almost anywhere in Houston in 40 to 45 minutes or less. With the wife and kids in tow. And have room to bring back whatever we decide to buy. And I don't have to deal with panhandlers or being mugged at a station. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/daily-news-analysis-reveals-crime-rankings-city-subway-system-article-1.1836918

Walmart is basic, Viet Hoa and Phoenicia have ethnic groceries and Sprouts has organic. Uh...no. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/10/top-cities-people-moving-to_n_4762327.html http://nypost.com/2013/10/31/fleeing-the-nightmarish-northeast/ If you're in finance and make the big bucks to afford living in NYC, then I guess being in the financial capital of the country makes sense. For the rest of us, not so much.

I would think that is boardings. It would be difficult to accurately count the number of individual riders.

That sounds like an Aldi's. Not bad if all you want are the basics in life. No wonder New York and New Jersey rank number 2 and number 1, respectively, in states people move away from.

I rarely need to go into the center of the city because where I'm at we've got full size grocery stores (HEB, Kroger, Randall's, Fiesta, Phoenecia, Hong Kong, My Hoa, Viet Hoa, the list goes on) 2 walmarts, 2 targets, enough restaurants that you can eat in a different one each day and it would take many years to hit them all, a couple of hospitals, too many pharmacies, banks, stores of all nature. All well within 20 minutes, most within 5 to 10 minutes. As the crow files, it's only about 3 miles from Astoria to Rockefeller Center. If I lived only 3 miles from the center of the city, I could be there within 20 minutes at any time, day or night, and still have a larger place to live and a far greater selection of necessities and niceties.

That's interesting. So can my car. Or the Westheimer 82. Or the Richmond 25. Or my bicycle.

As long as you are willing to live a life limited to what you can get in 2 blocks, that's great.

From what I've heard, tow trucks swarm to an accident and then are selected by HPD on some random basis to do the work. That induces as many trucks as possible to converge on the scene for a chance to get the business. Lord help you if you are in the way while the trucks are trying to get to the scene. The clanging at the port is a common occurrence at marinas and wherever there are a lot of boats tied up. Metro is testing the new rail lines like crazy. Last week it looked like they were running a regular schedule on the purple line near UH.

It's a high speed derailment.

I see the same thing at the Fiesta at Westheimer and Dairy Ashford, plus Vietnamese and Chinese.

Depends on whether or not they can keep it to facilitation and avoid picking and choosing winners and losers.