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samagon

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Everything posted by samagon

  1. samagon
    never mind that the site had apartments on it before. I'm not sure how many units there were, or will be, but the difference cannot be so great as to have warranted the backlash.
  2. samagon
    on Wayside they have an underpass, according to Google, it's 200ft from the underpass to the closest edge of the Capitol street intersection. from the tracks to Harrisburg it would be far greater distance of about 550ft.
  3. samagon
    that's no potato cam, it's that free Sahara dust filter everyone's been chatting about for Instagram. so hot right now.
  4. samagon
    thanks for the context, 29 sounds great, but 29 out of 50 sounds less great. and to get even less 'back patty' about it.... if you look at the stat 'bike trails per 100k' we have the lowest score at .3, and the average is 1.6. I know the projects are being built out, and it can't happen over night, but we have a long way to go. granted, since Houston is probably one of the most car centric cities anywhere, this is still good progress.
  5. samagon
    so then you start talking about parking meters, and residents don't want that, but it would cover some of the costs associated with the mess from the tourists. NYC and Houston are two different animals, our land isn't so expensive that we can't have surface lots strewn about our primary business district. there aren't many homes in Houston that don't have parking available for owners/renters. it isn't till you start getting into garage apartments and owners saying 'street parking only' that you get that, but I bet if you asked the city, they'd say that it is the responsibility of the owner to provide on site parking for renters, as well as those staying in the primary residence. aka, street parking for garage apartments isn't endorsed by COH, and people who want to rent their garage don't want to be inconvenienced by having to find parking for the renter.
  6. samagon
    the silos that have existed in the past are still in place, no doubt about it. such a waste of time/money.
  7. samagon
    my solution to this was to hire a contractor to make my driveway wider, you have to get a permit from the city, but yeah, if your driveway is wider so you don't have to worry about street parking, and bonus, even if someone overlaps a bit, you can still comfortably get in/out. if you don't want to spend the $5000-10,000 for concrete, another trick is to plant oleander close to your driveway between the sidewalk and street. cut it so that it doesn't make it hard for you to get in/out (or hard for pedestrians), but let it grow out into the street just enough that it makes parking next to your driveway very inconvenient. sure this makes it hard for you to park in front of your home on the street, but if the goal is to keep people from blocking your driveway, this will fix that.
  8. samagon
    https://www.khou.com/article/sports/houston-big-12-july-2023/285-09a57069-0ccf-4617-ba55-4edb4656714d that's big (12) news!!!
  9. samagon
    immediate results! https://www.click2houston.com/traffic/2022/06/08/destination-trail-new-31-mile-hike-bike-trail-system/ well, results, planned expansions. there's also a survey on the page. https://tei.mysocialpinpoint.com/destination-trail pretty big news, you'll be able to ride from Emancipation park out past Nasa.
  10. samagon
    I don't think train tracks inherently are the problem. the west side of River Oaks (and other highly affluent areas) are right next to a RR, the same as the Washington corridor. the problem is congestion that is created by such a concentration of multiple train tracks. how frequently do trains stop at grade crossings on the Washington corridor? how about the RR tracks that are next to RO? I've never seen a train stopped on Westheimer, and when I have to stop for a train that is moving, it is typically traveling pretty quickly. in the EE we have numerous tracks, switching yards, and all sorts of other things that cause the trains to sit blocking intersections. they are only allowed (air quotes) to stop for up to an hour or they get fined, which is an internally regulated affair, so unless a concerned community member is out there with a stopwatch to keep them honest, nothing happens. it is not infrequent that trains are stopped 3x a day on various crossings. the knock on effect is that in order for traffic (regular cars, commercial vehicles, metro buses) to get where they need to go, they drive down residential streets. could anyone imagine a train blocking Westheimer for up to an hour, and metro buses taking a shortcut through River Oaks? 😄 the thing is, it's a known quantity, those of us who have chosen to live here for a long time accept these negatives to live as close to the city as we can, and yet not pay Heights, or Montrose prices to do so. but to answer the question of why the EE is only recently starting to see a renaissance, and to specifically reference trains, well, there it is, while the noise is an annoyance, blocked intersections is a pestilence.
  11. samagon
    east of downtown is scaaaaaaary. that and up until recently all of the bayou on the east of downtown has been exclusively industrial. oh, and lots of trains.
  12. samagon
    and who's to say that the city in an attempt to increase property values wouldn't have created a variance for them anyway? we can only guess based on our individual experience, and optimism/pessimism.
  13. samagon
    there need to be more roundabouts. Sampson/York/Navigation. I don't know if there's room for a roundabout at Telephone/Broadmoor/Lawndale, but having lived right around the block from that intersection for more than 10 years, there were way too many accidents on that corner, and something needs to be done to make it safer, a roundabout would help. it's too bad there's a railroad on the Lawndale/Griggs/Evergreen intersection, but that's another crazy one that needs some help. I avoid these intersections as much as possible.
  14. samagon
    I know it doesn't happen often, and I'm not suggesting this is the scenario here, but I've seen small road projects stall for months because the contractor did the bankruptcy thing. if this is the case, it sucks, but it will eventually start moving again.
  15. samagon
    we need a 'heart eyes emoji' reaction for posts. this is a lot of awesome stuff.
  16. samagon
    and if it's something more like a BRT, you can know with a very good accuracy how many trips it can take between refuels.
  17. samagon
    there's already one at Wayside/45. I know my wife goes there frequently, but I don't know how many others go there that the area should support 2 new locations? I know this will be huge for UH students though. the Starbucks makes sense too (also from a UH student commuter standpoint). I hadn't seen that the Shipley HQ was coming here (I clearly need to follow this thread more closely), that's exciting, but also fattening, while I would normally say my body is ready, I'm not sure if it is actually ready, but it's awesome news for the area.
  18. samagon
    sorry to have kept bumping you in my responses to other people's commentary on my response to you. I didn't do so to try and get a reaction from you, only to defend my opinion which was solely in response to your statement specific to how sad it would be that people may not live to see this project completed. thanks for your feedback though, it's funny in parts.
  19. samagon
    maybe not for you. I wasn't responding to you when I made my comments in the post linked: did they move the conversation forward for @Amlaham? that poster has yet to respond to anyone since my post linked above. if you can't see how that post is directly relevant to what that poster said, I really don't know what to say, maybe read it again? at the end of the day, you have your opinion on my response linked above, and I will respect you by placing as much value on your opinion as you place on mine.
  20. samagon
    ask @Amlaham? he's who I originally was responding to on this page, then you started questioning my moral fiber. I again diverted to what I was originally responding to, so maybe you can read my responses in context, as a response to his comments, then you'll understand what the point of the statement was? or you can keep diverting to your opinion of my reason for responding?
  21. samagon
    this leaves the people of freeport totally exposed, can this loop go farther south to include Clute, Lake Jackson, and Freeport? basically, from Wharton straight down through West Colombia, pick up 36 down to Surfside Beach. from there, you can go straight through to Bolivar. nothing like a good old fashioned 6 lane highway along the beach! and on the west side, you may as well push out to East Bernard, Sealy, Hempstead. eventually at some point we're going to have to talk about one of these loops including Key West, Havana, and Cancun, with signature bridges between each.
  22. samagon
    the Netherlands is kind of an interesting use case example. they have a really amazing network of rail, but also a very extensive road network, and of course the bike paths, but they don't really enter into this example. they have a very cyclical period of rail use and car use, and it's all tied to cost. if the government raises taxes on car use (through gas tax, and vehicle ownership tax), people shift to the rail network to move around, then they aren't making enough on the roads to fund the needed improvements, so they raise the rates for the rail network, which then shifts people back into cars, and thus the cycle is renewed. even when people commute via car, they still usually land in a park and ride on the outskirts of the city, then take a tram, metro, or a stoptrein for their final leg. but yeah, to bring it back to your example, as the car use drops because taxes are too high, they have to pay for maintenance somehow, so they just adjust the rail prices, which entices more people to drive, which creates more traffic. the beautiful thing is, the users have the luxury to shift use as the prices fluctuate. and the fietsers are just watching the whole thing and shrugging. the Netherlands is on a different level though. they give every student a free train pass. they can travel anywhere within the network free of charge. could you imagine if someone tried that in the USA? lol. why are you attacking my freedom by making me pay for a student to get to school on public transportation!
  23. samagon
    well, I've also ridden my bike (trailhead for Columbia tap is right there), on these sidewalks (primarily because cars go pretty fast on the street), but point well taken.
  24. samagon
    last time I drove by, someone was living in the doorway. 😑
  25. samagon
    lol. I think that if you were to draw up a Venn diagram of people who don't already have a strong opinion one way or the other on the subject, and members of this forum, there is probably no intersection of those two groups. at which point it's a bit like yelling at clouds, which I admit I get sucked into on the i45 thread from time to time. TXDOT changed their name many years ago to be the department of Transportation, but when you read their charter, they are singularly focused on single occupancy vehicles.
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