samagon

If only there were no median, they could have made a comfortably sized bike lane on each side of the street.

Not many factory workers telecommute either. There's certain jobs that require attendance. If you're an "analyst level 1" there's probably not much need to work in the office 5 days a week, and it shouldn't hurt your chances for advancement if you perform well and show initiative.

isn't most of the freight moved from the port done on trains? besides, if freight is just moving through the town (not to a destination in town) wouldn't it be easy for the city to say you have to use 610? issue permits to trucks that have destinations inside the loop, and if they don't have it, they get a fine.

I can't see how removing the freeways would be good for downtown, unless they were removed farther back, and at that point, you may as well stop all the freeways at the loop. Or just trench them around downtown and cover the trenches with roads and parking lots.

J.R. Ewing. I think that show was more popular in countries outside the US than in the US.

http://www.myfoxhouston.com/story/22451826/2013/05/29/heights-residents-demand-answers-from-city-leaders Shaking the nest will hopefully yield 2 things: 1. full disclosure on how much was spent, and where it went. 2. full disclosure means that all of it will be out there, and people who are making baseless accusations will either be able to back up their statements, or won't. The comments from RUDH person are funny. I agree that their organization was devastated, that's what happens when you have an organization that is devoted to one specific task and fails, but the Heights? Far from devastated.

Ah, but for the same reason that I benefit from a super highway out in the middle of Katy, someone in California benefits from a highway out in Arkansas that goes to a paper mill, so it only makes sense that all of those that benefit from the highway pay for it. And that's how some of my money that I pay the IRS with ends up funding a bridge in Alaska.

Did you ever see the movie fried green tomatoes? Yes, there was a kid that died, and another that lost an arm because of the railroad, but when people stopped taking the railroad, that whole community died!

Someone should have told him that no one likes cold water.

Manila has above ground rail Anyway, buses and rail aren't driverless vehicles, some subways operate driverless, but they aren't really driverless, they are just remotely operated. We can call them Unmanned Tracked Vehicles, or UTVs. I guess the underground thingy in IAH is a true driverless vehicle. When we were kids our parents used to take us to the airport and we'd just ride around in that thing, I guess my sister and I were easily amused. And besides, the premise of a driverless car vs a driverless public transport, that's completely different. There's no privacy, what if the guy next to you decides to call his wife and have a personal conversation with her? If he were doing so from his driverless car, it would be, or could be an intimate discussion, or a hate fueled fight, but not so easy on public transport. Additionally, I don't want to think of the ways some drivers might 'relax' if they don't have to actually drive and have access to the internet. Does anyone want someone on public versions of driverless vehicles to do this? No thanks.

If and only if the Texans win the Superbowl, will the day the Oilers left be superseded in my mind of the being the best sporting day in Houston's history. A close second was the look on Bud Adams face when the Titans got within a yard of actually winning the super bowl. I am very glad that guy is out of our town. Oh, and I was in the dome when Mike Scott pitched his no-hitter, and I still say this. (of course, these days, everyone that lived in Houston in 1986 says they were at the dome, but I really and truly was at the dome, my mom liked to take me to baseball games).

I'd like to believe that in addition to the stadium issues that o'mally saw the potential of being the only team in town vs having to compete in the market against 2 other teams. At that time, there were no angels in Anaheim, or angels in Los Angeles that played in Anaheim, either way, no one was playing baseball in Anaheim, either for LA, or Anaheim. As well, when the Giants moved to SF, there was no one of athletic inclination in Oakland, Oakland didn't become an athletic city until 1968. So they both moved from a multi city market into a captive market. Anyway, I am sure that these reasons had a big influence on the decisions.

I am familiar with the ways of making cars less efficient specifically to protect the environment. We'll need to start by replacing your back seats with an overbored big block, and a piece of plexiglass to protect you and your passenger from noxious fumes. This will have 2 effects, firstly and most importantly, your car will be far less efficient, secondly it will make it faster than a stabbed rat, and by changing the drive configuration from FWD, to a mid engine RWD setup, it will handle better as well.

please consider a subscription to the Samagon Planet Saving periodical. We believe that only through using the available resources before other countries get a chance to can we better save the environment, since we know the most clean ways to burn these fuels. Ipso facto, buy the most gas hungry car you can to save the planet, I know it seems counter intuitive, but it's the only way. ^^ one of my subscribers.

I have a feeling he thought ahead and demolished the house prior to leaving, and was sure to leave lots of solvents and heavy metals strewn about the property to ensure it wouldn't be livable for hundreds of years.

I wear a wristband that says "W.W.R.M.D.?" to remind me of this every day.

No, I think you mean, rip out 59 between 45 and i10, then you could open up the east side of downtown. more people take 45 anyway, which is why I usually end up getting off 45 north, onto 59 north, onto i10 west and back onto 45 north. It's so damned crowded!

yeah, that's true, I suppose that when it has come up for vote in the past, people had their chance to speak, and the politicians didn't listen anyway.

Near East End, if the East End. Around the soccer stadium, that would make sense, but farther out towards Scott Street? No way. Not for the next 10 years at least.

This is, in point of fact, incorrect. I do not use, nor do I benefit from the grand parkway. The amount of impact that the grand parkway has on my daily life is about the same as 40,000 people a day getting to use a single rail line is to the people who live off the grand parkway. as an example of this, say there's a truck that can ship goods to somewhere I can use them 30 minutes faster by using the grand parkway. the same is true of a truck that doesn't have to deal with the traffic created by an additional 40,000 cars a day on the red line corridor.

Which was my point. I'm being tolled for roads I will never use. This is the same argument that people use for rail lines and the rail lines get shot down repeatedly for the same reason. Why there's even a ballot for rail in the first place is beyond me, it should be funded and built in the same way as a freeway.

I'm not sure what year it was, but I recall camping in Brazos bend state park with the scouts and being shaken awake by the scout master that I needed to get out of the tent and into the ditch cause there were tornadoes. It might have been 1983.

wow. To answer my own question before I even ask it, I doubt this will speed up completion of the other two rail lines. I assume there are early completion bonuses? and I wonder how much of this early completion is thanks to the few days of rain we have had in the past years?

It makes for a fun challenge too, see how long you can stay in the center most lane before you get to your exit, then bolt over at the last second leaving not only everyone that has been sitting behind you going 5 mph under the speed limit (and incidentally slumped over on their horn) in the left lane, but everyone in the other lanes will instantaneously slump over on their horns too. Coincidentally, the same game can be played on the rail, sit as far away from an exit as possible and wait until the last second to jump out of your chair and run for the exit. This is especially fun when the cars are full. I've never personally participated in either of these games, but I see people playing them all the time, and they appear to like the challenge.

Would you have chosen Sharpstown or Alief as suitable suburbs for your kids to go to school? Back when my parents were buying their house, they chose Alief, I lived at the corner of Bellaire and Kirkwood and went from elementary through highschool in AISD. When my parents chose that area, Alief was the premier school district in Houston, and I'm sure Sharpstown still had good schools as well. Now though? As the suburbs age they age quickly, hell, when I was a senior at Elsik I saw guns being brought to basketball games, there were metal detectors and drug dogs patrolling the parking lots and sniffing at lockers. If my parents knew in 1973 when they bought the house that I would be going to high school in that environment would they have chosen to live there? Likely not. I personally think that thanks to the diversity of the schools I am a better person for it, at least culturally. Anyway, your suburb might not change like Alief (and other suburbs) changed, but I think inside the city is as favorable a place to raise a child as any suburb, especially if you can trade the cost incurred for maintaining a car for the long commute for a private school. I can't find a more recent article, but if the prices for private school are still close to this, that's the cost of gasoline for one car a year... http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/private-schools-cost-less-you-may-think