mfastx

I agree. It'd be much better if the site were consolidated with other transportation, like Greyhound and other buses and Amtrak. Much better to have everything in one place. Unfortunately, I don't think the Sunset route makes it all the way up to NW Mall. Also it being a private endeavor would likely complicate things with Amtrak. Maybe Greyhound can move their operations there eventually.

That is incredible. Seems so rare for a building in Houston to have a really cool lighting scheme. Love it.

Looks like the ball's in METRO's court to come up with a new Richmond rail referendum. Although it looks like METRO isn't at all interested in building more rail anytime soon.

A heavy rail transit system here would certainly be successful in my view. Much more successful ridership wise than the current light rail system. A few short light rail lines don't make much of an impact, but a faster heavy rail transit system that reaches out into the suburbs, much like Washington DC's system, would generate a lot of ridership. Regarding subway vs above ground, I'd imagine that only a few small portions would be in a subway (such as downtown, uptown, TMC) but most of it would be above ground. It'll never happen of course, but it's fun to dream.

Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't realize they were from different sources. I initially cited the 2010 US Census numbers that say about 5 million in 2010. Even so, calling Chicago a "failed city" is a bit of a bombastic comment in my opinion. It's still an extremely important city in the US and worldwide. If it drastically loses population over the course of the next several decades, then maybe it's a failed city.

Now that we're a little back on topic I'll respond lol. Not sure where you're trying to go on the weekend but there's other buses that run then. Can you give me an example of somewhere you can't get to on the weekend? I quickly googled a route from that intersection to Union Station and you could take the 29 only like a block away from that intersection. Also, I don't think 3/4 mile is very far. I routinely walked that when I rode the 25 home from high school every day growing up. The example you posted seemed to be an express route, not a local route. Growing up I seem to recall a handful of non-P&R routes in Houston that didn't operate on weekends, but I don't feel like taking the time to look at all the schedules. Anyway, that's just typically how it is in a more developed city. Between walking, Uber, taxis, bikeways, buses and rail, there's plenty of non-car ways to get around Chicago. I'm really surprised that you feel like you can't get around up there. I think what's driving the development of this and other downtown districts is the growing downtown population. Many people are more than willing to walk half a mile to do some casual shopping. The infrastructure improvements that are coming with it are appreciated as well. Many of the businesses in the tunnels are not open on weekends and are generally not accessible from street level unless you know where to go. Obviously it remains to be seen how successful it will ultimately be so who knows. I took my numbers from the urban area estimation: here's the 2010 estimate and 2017 estimate I found. I prefer the urban area designation as it does not take into account arbitrary civic boundaries such as city/county lines. I feel that it's the best representation of the population of cities in general. Clearly by other metrics it's a different story. See clarified post above.

Try using Google maps to see the most optimal route for your trip during the weekend. There's plenty of buses that operate on weekends in Chicago in your neighborhood. You could also walk a couple blocks (gasp) and use the rail. There's plenty of routes in Houston that don't operate on the weekend as well, so I don't see your point there. Here's why it's better than Houston's Metro: Chicago has almost 4 times more daily riders on their bus system than Houston. They also have another 800,000 or so rail riders, and that doesn't count METRA ridership. Their total daily ridership is 1,850,000 while Houston's barely approaches 300,000. So yes, their transit is miles ahead of Houston's even with their aging rail infrastructure and it's not close. Chicago's urban area might not be growing as fast as Houston's, but it is not losing population. It was at 8.5 mil in 2010 and is at about 9.2 mil in 2017. Houston's is about 5 mil. Official city limit populations are arbitrary and therefore meaningless if that's what you're going by. I do respect the fact that you're so proud of Houston that you'd say its transit system is better than Chicago's lol. EDIT: I just realized that this is wildly off topic lol, so this will by my last response on the subject in this thread. I'd love to continue the discussion in a transit thread if you'd like.

Couldn't disagree with you more about Chicago. Their public transportation system is miles better than Houston's. I've been there many times to visit a friend of mine who lives there and my experience was totally different. Chicago is a hub and spoke system that radiates out from downtown in all directions. It's extremely convenient and much superior to Houston's system, obviously. Ridership numbers will say as much. Calling Chicago a "failed city" is ridiculous. I'm just going to assume you're being sarcastic and trolling us lol.

Looks good from where I'm sitting. Let's reel 'er in, fellas!

Great post. I often cite the DC system as an example of why heavy rail could actually work in Houston. The system was built in the 70s, so it's not a typical example of "the only reason why rail works there is because it's 100+ years old." Of course, the system in Houston wouldn't be laid out quite like DC's, as DC's jobs are more centralized, but similar technology, if the system were completely built out, would clearly attain the most transit ridership.

That paneling will age well... NOT!!

Possibly, I probably shouldn't have said "long run," because we won't know whether this project is a "success" or not for decades after it's built anyway. It'd be idiotic to declare success or failure after a few short years. Huge developments will be slow to come regardless.

Actually, our new CAF cars can only go up to 40-something mph. The way our light rail is constructed (sharing ROW, distance between station locations, etc.) means that the average speed for our rail system is going to be lower anyway. And that's not even mentioning the fact that heavy rail systems generate far and away more ridership than light rail. But yes, if our light rail was like St. Louis' system, it could work.

It would be better if it had good mass transit connections, but I don't have faith that that will happen anytime soon. We aren't even close to having the airports connected by rail, and even so I'm not sure light rail is fast enough to make the connection attractive (I'd prefer heavy rail transit, but that ship has long sailed). Part of the attraction of rail is that it's easier to get to your final destination from the station than it is from the airport. I don't see that being accomplished here, NWM is far away from everything besides the Galleria.

It appears to be, yes. Hopefully, it is a bummer though because the Galleria area isn't even that close to Northwest mall. Plus, there's the I-10 barrier. Hopefully it is still successful despite the less than optimal station location, then maybe we can think about extending it Downtown or Uptown down the line. They're probably related. I'm sure they'll put something in that area to compliment the station. It's just inconvenient to get to for folks outside of western Houston, and it's in the clusterthousand dollars that is 610/290/I-10 traffic interchange.

Wouldn't say it's a waste of money (especially if it's privately funded, which I'm still skeptical of), but the decision to plop the Houston station literally in the middle of the wasteland that is the Northwest Mall area is highly questionable in my mind, and will limit the potential success of this project in the long run.

Huge shocker there... not. Predictable response from short-sighted communities and their lawmakers. We'll see if the NIMBYs succeed as they have so many times before.

So I'm assuming these buildings are lit up nicely just for the Super Bowl and will go back to being dark and bland right after?

Too good to be true.

Well that was a pleasant exchange.

Jeez, what a deadzone.

The hole has been filled! Those back windows are gonna have a great view!

Hasn't it been understood since day 1 that they would have to use eminent domain for some portions of folks weren't willing to sell? Not sure why this is being discussed.

Now it's truly a "parkway".

One can only hope.