pderry11

Perhaps somewhat ironically, despite there being LRT in the area, the region just south of the med center along Braeswood is particularly bad. Missing sidewalks, fallen down fences (looking at you, Flood Control District) burnt out street lights and relatively long distances between lights.

The western terminus of SH 225 has always bothered me. The stubby end dangling inside the loop and the cleared right of way are probably never going to be extended or used, so why not just demolish most of the stack there at 610? It's less lane mileage and bridges to maintain and with the way the east end is growing any future extension of 225 would either cost far too much or get shot down by the community (as I would expect them to.) I can imagine the existing ROW west of 610 being re-purposed perhaps as a park or sold off to developers. 

You are SOOOO right!

However, the Grand Parkway only creates more wheels, not more spokes on the wheels. And, hey, for the uniniated, the Grand Parkway only extends to 59. It's dead in the water after that. So much for the circle they all envisioned. That's because it has always been a developers dream, nothing less, nothing more. Tomorrow in Commissioner's Court should be a real hoot!

There's another spoke that never got very far. Spur 5, it was supposed to go down to Alvin along Mykawa, any news on how that's going? IIRC, the La Porte freeway was supposed to penetrate farther into the loop but they killed it.

Booths for the HOT lanes

Lincoln Property Company? They manage a crapload of low-rise apartments just on the other side of the freeway.

Oh that would be such a waste of good real estate...

They could always just tear up the Navigation ROW and put in the extension of the La Porte freeway.

: Waits for rotten vegetables and other foodstuff projectiles to be angrily hurled:

No, just kidding.

From a cursory glance at the satellite imagery from google maps it seems to make more sense from a ROW acquisition perspective to use Navigation because most of the work would occur within the land already maintained by the city or txdot. Canal is too narrow, and so is Harrisburg. Even if you were to acquire land for improving Harrisburg the cost may be a much larger portion of the budget than desirable. Of course, they may have to acquire land anyway, so it might not be that big of a deal.

It would be easier to show the places that don't have trees here.

Those would probably be parking lots.

I ran across this project for San Francisco's urban forest (http://www.urbanforestmap.org/map/) and I started thinking, why isn't there one for Houston? If there's one thing I love about this city it's all the trees we have here. The obvious challenge to something like this is: Houston is enormous.

Anyway, I thought it was kind of neat.

EDIT: The more I think about it, the less I like the title of this thread, oh well. Too late now.

On occasion when I just need to pick up one item (dish detergent for example) and get back home in order to accomplish something (such as getting the dishwasher started) I get the perception that it is on average faster if I just check it out myself, however, I have yet to actually test this hypothesis.

I live on the top floor of a little mid-rise well maybe low rise but not sure if that is a category. No grass, no plants etc and I WANT IT TO RAIN. Kind of a Pacific Northwest reverse depression maybe.

I know that feeling. North and Central Texas have some pretty bad droughts from time to time and I got really tired of those, especially with the looming specter of low reservoirs. One year a major pipe burst east of McKinney and the only water left in town was what they had in the towers. I don't want to go back to that, but I guess this summer is just further proof to me that I can't seem to escape the drought.

Or... perhaps the drought just seems to follow me? Uh oh.

to hell with the court ruling, that proposition NEEDS to happen... i jsut stated in another thread how much of a travesty it is the first impression many visitors to Houston get is I-45 between the north belt and north loop. remove ALL billboards, unsightly signage, etc and plant as many trees and natural vegetation along the freeways... that would do wonders for our image.

i apologize if i come off a little agitated... i just returned from San Francisco and it blows my mind how gorgeous that city is in comparison to ours. granted their natural geogrpahic landscape helps tremendously, but that is a city that actually cares what their landscape looks like. Houstonians just generally don't give a damn, and that's a crying shame.

The segment of 45 from the Hardy interchange to downtown is probably one of the ugliest stretches of highway in the state. There's broken, faded, or missing signage all over the place that could easily be replaced. The billboards definitely need to go as they're a distraction enough as it is. If I was willing to spend the money, I'd just take the Hardy instead (for looks), at least there'd be some trees. But even then, parts of that aren't too hot either.

so what happened to Texas Highway beautification--is there a program that still plants wildfowers? That might be a start. . . . . . . . .

They got rid of all the ivy they planted along the improved segment of US-75 in Dallas several years back when the last recession hit since maintenance costs were too high. I wouldn't be too surprised if beautification right now isn't having to take a serious backseat again.

I think they ought to do away with the lights at Westheimer and Montrose and then sell tickets to the show.

I'd watch that.

I have XSi and really like it (it's the last one before they added video). There's a whole world of lenses out there for the Rebel line.

I picked up an XS not thinking that the XSi was that much of an improvement: it is. it's also amazing how all the small things add up to a better camera over-all.

they're going to rebuild 75 again?

The stretch from SH-121 north through McKinney has never been rebuilt (I don't think they've done anything up the the Grayson county line either.) It's the same old highway they had in the 60s when it was first built. Yeah, it's been repaved and a couple ramps lengthened but it's still 4 lanes with two lane feeders. The stretch through Sherman, TX is the same too. I hate those ramps...

I've never been to a magic show, but I don't believe any of the ones I have seen on TV. If I did I would have to accept that David Blaine is the devil.

Everything just looks too clean in the Honda video. It's a splice of individual parts that worked at different times at best. They're all english, you can't trust them...

Those parts did look conspicuously smooth... The tires up the ramp though, that's cheating from the aspect of using not using all OEM parts (assuming of course all of the other bits and pieces are.) From its visual interest, its Rube Goldberg-esque design and the sheer dissonance of wheels rolling uphill, I thought it was pretty neat. Keyword is neat, not stupendous, fantastic, amazing, deceptive, or cunning. Neat.

Here's the rendering. I guess that that's what I-45 looks like to a civil engineer on amphetamines.

Here's I-45 when he's on heroin.

And here's what I-45 looks like when he's on LSD.

You see, it is perfectly clear that there is no material difference between any of these renderings. They are all equally deserving concepts for I-45.

Anyone else notice how wonky that train looks? I think I'll pass, don't like it when the renderings show a train about to derail.

can we use the 350 mil on this?

Dallas is putting a deck over Woodall Rodgers, so I don't see why Houston couldn't do the same with 288.

Making the drive to Dallas this weekend.. and its about as boring as can be once you get past Corsicana.

Boring and flat.

Dead grass.

Ugly Driving Range in Ferris.

More sheer nothingness.

More dead grass.

Prison

The Trinity swamp bridge... ( which actually is quite pleasant with the trees, but its presence helps contribute to the complete lack of civilization until Boom, you're only a mile or two outside downtown. )

I concur, the bad/ugly/godforsaken part of the trip really seems to end/begin once you get to Corsicana.

If high mast lighting is so desirable, how come image-conscious DFW doesn't use it? Stop viewing this from an engineering standpoint for a moment and consider the damage these things do to the aesthetics/image/psyche of the city. The fact is, high mast lighting is ugly.

US75 through McKinney will be entirely reconstructed and relit with 12-lamp high-mast lighting. I think it's starting to catch on up here. The new Parker Rd./US-75 SPUI also uses high-mast lighting as well as a shorter segment further down that requires extra illumination. SH-121 (Sam Rayburn Tollway) is illuminated past the Dallas North Tollway with high-mast lighting as well. I think wherever they can be built, either because of a new road or reconstruction they tend to be considered. Personally I don't think they're that bad. One of the neat features on some is they have directed cut-off lighting without any funny eyelids so the light ends up on the road and not in the properties behind them.

I always thought Houston had an interesting menagerie of those things. Coming in on IH-45 from Conroe one sees the 12-lamp variety TxDOT has adopted to an old directed lighting system from way back when north of BW8 to another style (Z-pattern) from there on to the 45/10 interchange.

So far as I can tell, there are two other places in the state that use the Z-pattern lighting system found so prolifically along Houston's freeways: a short stretch of IH-35W in Fort Worth and IH-35 and 37 in San Antonio around downtown.