Texasota

Property Rights above all! Don't let The Man tell you what you can do with your property! I run a combination brothel/childcare center/ meth lab in an abandoned gas station I just purchased, and I'll be damned if I let them gub'ment folks tell me I can't.

I honestly think the convention center, Toyota Center, BBVA Compass, Minute Maid, and the Theater District are enough for downtown to be a destination. I'm not really sure what else you could add to that mix...even in terms of music venues it's got HOB, Bayou Music Center...maybe smaller venues? There's NOTSUOH, but that's really small, and somewhat limited in terms of who it attracts. I'd love to see the Majestic become a full-time venue..

Both the CVS and the bank are an incredibly poor use of land at that intersection; I wonder under what circumstances either property owner would be willing to sell...

i would happily accept a high-quality, dedicated right-of-way, true BRT line down Richmond if that speeds up its implementation

there is another neighborhood between midtown and TMC.

I don't think they're trying to rename it so much as appending the descriptor "arts district" to its name.

Well, there are at least 4 large studio buildings in First Ward, so not sure what the LOL is about...

You can love something while also believing that it can improve. Everybody won't agree on exactly what needs to improve, but wanting to fix the problems you find in your city is just as much of an expression of love and pride as defending it is.

Right. That was my point. I have no idea what that graphic was supposed to mean.

Exactly.

That's a nifty graphic. Does it perhaps portend?

Sure, natural beauty and easy access to nature are a big part of "quality of life." Nevertheless, most of the cities mentioned have terrible freeway systems (Austin) or have actually starting removing existing freeways (Seattle). Freeways are excellent at providing convenient connections between dispersed locations, but they are equally good at creating boundaries in the communities they cross.

Some of the blocks of Capitol and Rusk are already done, and it doesn't look like any lanes of traffic have been removed, nor is there any separation between the tracks and the other lanes. It looks like a shared lane, similar to the setup in part of the medical center. The reason I keep returning to Market Square is that I believe that it's probably the easiest and most realistic prospect for a square downtown that meets your definition. Again, zero demolition would be required; all work could be done within the right of way. It's true that Public Works would balk at narrowing roads; the traffic engineers over there love nothing in the world more than widening roads. They dream about it at night. Nevertheless, there are precedents for it, and it's completely realistic to envision the Downtown Management District paying for it. You keep talking about an intimate, closed-in feel; well, Market Square is one of the few places in the city where most of the existing building stock was actually built at an intimate, pedestrian-oriented scale. That's extremely difficult to do with new construction. Narrower roads than Congress and (particularly) Preston don't really exist downtown, so unless you narrow an existing street you have to build off of Main, but I'm not convinced that Main really works as the primary connection point to a square. Squares work best when they are *between* things, not just next to one thing, so if the other three roads are too wide and busy then the square will not be used. People generally tend to walk the shortest distance possible unless they're somehow forced to, so if they have to make an unnecessary detour to get to a square they'll usually just ignore it and go on their way. Anyway, if you're hell bent on a square being connected on the rail, i think the block between Main, Prairie, Preston and Fannin makes way more sense than the block you mentioned. First of all it doesn't have an enormous office tower about to go up on it, but even beyond that, the surrounding blocks are overall at a much more appropriate scale. Of the four full block faces that border this block: Two are entirely older, more intimately-scaled buildingsOne is about half older intimately-scaled buildings and half vacantOne has a brutalist building that is...ok. It vaguely mimics a store-front rhythm, though of course the glass is smoky and opaqueAs for the four corner block? All four of them have beautiful, historic pedestrian-oriented buildings. There are two buildings on the block itself, but they are also historic, pedestrian-oriented buildings. And having their back brick walls to work with can also help give an intimate feel and provide space for public art. Preston and Prairie are both narrow (two traffic lanes, one traffic/parallel parking lanes, some protected parallel/head-in parking) streets for downtown and Main is of course Main. Fannin is wider, which is to say that its the standard five lanes of north-south streets downtown/midtown.

Congress and Preston! They have nothing to do with 45! And Milam and Travis are only heavily trafficed during rush hour. You're right that Capitol is changing because of light rail, but it's not being "narrowed" in the same way as Main was.

And just to address the block at Main, Fannin, Capitol and Texas, the only "narrow" street is Main, which of course has 2 lanes of traffic. The other three have 5, 5 and 4 respectively. If all it takes for you to see "square" material in a parking lot is one 2 lane street with transit, then I really don't understand why you're so opposed to considering how to address what you to perceive to be Market Square's deficiencies. I also don't understand this statement: "Much easier to build over a garage than to reduce busy streets feeding into the highway system." Easier for whom? These parking garages are privately owned, so their owners would probably need *some* sort of meaningful financial incentive to tear them down and replace them with something that doesn't directly earn them money. The streets, on the other hand, are public right-of way. They don't need to make money, nor are they expected to. And the cost of reworking a few blocks of one or two streets could largely be shouldered by the Downtown Management District, in the same way as sidewalk improvements. That's exactly what happened in Midtown when Bagby was rebuilt.

Ok. I would agree on Milam, (though only really during rush hour) but I didn't think you were suggesting that a "square" needed low traffic on all four sides. Even if Milam were bumper to bumper 24 hours a day, if Congress and Travis were less so than I think Market Square would still be able to meet your definition. Again, I'm really just arguing that we should build off of what we already have rather than trying to create something new from whole cloth. Especially since I believe that what we already have is actually pretty good and is continuing to get better.

Yeah, I'll be curious to see some before and afters here.

I just don't understand why you're against the idea of taking the closest thing we have to a square and addressing the single issue that keeps it from meeting your criteria. You cannot just artificially put a square somewhere and expect it to be successful. It's much more practical to take a place that is already popular and improve it. As to the streets being "too busy?" I honestly disagree with you, and you repeatedly stating it does not make it true. Besides, streets can be narrowed, and I think Congress in particular would be an excellent and natural candidate for that. Widen the (undersized) sidewalk on the north side and reduce traffic to a single lane + protected bike lane. Bam. An even squarier Market Square.

I kind of like the bare concrete like that. not sure they need to apply anything on top of it.

Since the Heights was platted in the 19th century and freeway construction rarely respected traditional neighborhood boundaries, no, not exactly. The southern boundary was White Oak Bayou, except for one block on either side of Heights Blvd all the way down to Washington.

Besides, if the only issue with Market Square is that the roads are too wide, then that's pretty easy to address Right now, Milam is 5 lanes, Travis and Congress are 4, and Preston is 3. On each of those streets, one of those lanes is also used for parallel parking, bringing them to 4, 3 and 2 lanes respectively. Adding high quality bike lanes with separation (which could be done relatively cheaply with restriping and bollards) could take that down to 3, 2 and 1.

It's partially an issue of perception. Having to wait at a median halfway into the road is uncomfortable; it turns one crossing into two and you're standing there between traffic moving in both directions. Now, it's a different situation with streets like Heights Blvd where the median is wide and itself an attraction and the drivable street is actually pretty narrow. In general, narrower streets are much more comfortable and practical for pedestrians. Personally, I don't want to see any more inner loop streets widened, and I'd honestly love to see a few (lower Westheimer, lower Washington, Waugh) narrowed.

Once again, you're describing Market Square. Once the residential tower in the vacant lot to the northwest is filled in particular. I just hope the International tower gets built or that block gets sold to someone interested in actually doing something with it (preferably not an office tower honestly.)

There is an executive order instructing the Planning Department to design and implement a Complete Streets policy. That has not been done yet, so what Houston's does or does not entail is not currently known.

You know it will be interesting to see how this translates into into a real building; those rendering show zero texture. Now, I'm assuming it will end up being mostly EIFS, but one can dream...