Texas Central Project

[Sparrow]

http://m.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2015/03/11/rural-lawmaker-files-a-bill-that-could-kill-texas.html

 

 

The one thing about Metcalf that I think were missing here is not that he's against rail--he's against rail going somewhere else. He wants it for his county, so his strategy seems to be to stir up the pot of rural land owners to create backlash that necessitates using the I-45 corridor.

 

This is a little different than the Culberson anti-rail agenda. If high speed rail went down 45 it would not have a station in Montgomery County at first, but no doubt such a line would lead to a station eventually--and increased land values and property taxes--one day in the future when the "economics" favor such a station. If the rail line is way out in Grimes County, Montgomery County stands to lose out on those dollar signs. He's not a NIMBY like Culberson, he's a OIMBY--Only In My Backyard (or I'll put up a big stink so nobody gets it).

[Sparrow]

Not sure exactly how long the TCR high speed rail station for Downtown would need to be, but how about putting it on the east side of MMP where the Astros premium parking is now? Sort of a "New" Union Station.

 

There's the proposal out there to bring it toward Downtown using the I-10 corridor, just bring it a bit farther east and come south along Hamilton (all elevated of course). Any 59 expansion wouldn't effect this parcel anyhow given it's proximity to the GRB. 

 

If the city abandons Hamilton from Congress down to Texas, so be it. It's not a vital roadway anyhow. New home for the New Hope housing? With pleasure. The Astros parking lots on the east side of 59 could be developed, or at least sizable garages (with GFR of course) could be built.

 

METRO already has light rail in the area and it is very convenient for car access. A taxi stand could be created by making a dedicated taxi only lane between the station and MMP. Connect MMP directly to New Union Station and the garages/development across 59 via skybridges as well as to the GRB.  

Edited March 15, 2015 by Sparrow

[ADCS]

http://purple.city/2015/03/17/bank-grand-central/

 

This article makes a case for a public entity purchasing and banking the Grand Central site for rail-oriented development later on. Unsurprisingly, I feel it makes a strong case for the suitability of the Grand Central site as a rail hub, and the importance of the current opportunity.

[BigFootsSocks]

*jeopardy music*

It's gotten pretty quiet around this...better than the 4-5 month long intervals we were used to I guess..

[IronTiger]

$1 million dollars right now let's go.

 

 

*jeopardy music*

It's gotten pretty quiet around this...better than the 4-5 month long intervals we were used to I guess..

Unless something big is about to come around the corner, I suggest you should start lowering your bid. Just saying...

[Sparrow]

Perhaps TCR should consider the PR move of pushing rail as the anti-highway to the Rural Opposition.

 

When you build a new highway thru virgin lands development will soon come your way in the form of sprawl. When you build a rail corridor passing thru the same virgin lands--but not stopping--you provide no incentive for the suburbs to come that way. Push the idea to the Rural Opposition that failure to build the high speed rail will limit the density the city can provide and in doing so will further induce sprawl and the outward expansion of development farther into the countryside.  

 

A densifying city core correlates to slower suburban expansion rates thus preserving the rural countryside--instead of destroying it. Building rail will actually preserve farmland and the rural way of life for a greater length of time than if they weren't to build at all.

 

 

No rail = more cars + more highway lane construction + more suburbia + more time wasted stuck in slow traffic

 

 

Yes rail = fewer cars + no orange highway construction barrels + more city density + peaceful drive to Aunt Edna's farm

[IronTiger]

Perhaps TCR should consider the PR move of pushing rail as the anti-highway to the Rural Opposition.

When you build a new highway thru virgin lands development will soon come your way in the form of sprawl. When you build a rail corridor passing thru the same virgin lands--but not stopping--you provide no incentive for the suburbs to come that way. Push the idea to the Rural Opposition that failure to build the high speed rail will limit the density the city can provide and in doing so will further induce sprawl and the outward expansion of development farther into the countryside.

A densifying city core correlates to slower suburban expansion rates thus preserving the rural countryside--instead of destroying it. Building rail will actually preserve farmland and the rural way of life for a greater length of time than if they weren't to build at all.

No rail = more cars + more highway lane construction + more suburbia + more time wasted stuck in slow traffic

Yes rail = fewer cars + no orange highway construction barrels + more city density + peaceful drive to Aunt Edna's farm

Uh, bad idea. First, that's a big assumption that rail will reduce sprawl, and secondly, I think the whole "anti highway" bent has been the worst thing possible for rail in rail in America.

[BigFootsSocks]

Yeah that's a good point; there shouldn't be any "side" to this, they should all be looked at as alternative forms of getting from point A to B. I don't understand how you can ever form a "battle" between the two.

Edited March 23, 2015 by BigFootsSocks

[Sparrow]

Uh, bad idea. First, that's a big assumption that rail will reduce sprawl, and secondly, I think the whole "anti highway" bent has been the worst thing possible for rail in rail in America.

 

Really just how big an assumption is it that rail provides a disincentive to sprawl. Sprawl is development blanketing the countryside in all directions it can flow. Edge cities may develop where stops are located, but TOD is not sprawl. Do you really think NYC would have developed as it did without rail? C'mon man. There's a place for rail and there's a place for highways. It's not a this or that sort of question. Both are needed at one time or another--anyone denying that fact either has a vested financial interest or simply fails to be pragmatic and open to logical reasoning. There is not a single mode solution to the transportation question. 

 

Perhaps the anti-highway wording was wrong for what I was attempting to get across. Let just go with the phrase opposite of highway. It's not a this mode rather than that mode connotation that I intended.

 

Over the decades rural landowners have become used to fighting land takings for highway development--take the Grand Parkway or the TTC as examples. They are hard-wired to believe any takings will irrevocably effect them in a negative manner and developers are poised to pounce on farmland the very moment road construction begins. How could they possibly fathom a way that a taking of their land will benefit them in any way whatsoever? Highway development over the decades has resulted in preconceived notions before any degree of research on the matter is undertaken.   

 

The thinking is that everyone wants to know what is in it for them these days. No one is concerned about the greater good. What's in it for me--that's the bottom line. Social Capitalism. "Why should I give up my peace and quiet and part of my land just so some city folk can get where they're going faster? In what way do I benefit?"--that's what these people are thinking. So the PR thing to do is to lean on the deductive reasoning that while a train zooming past rural farmland a few dozen times each day is a personal cost, at the same time a greater benefit is received in the form of a preserved way of rural life. If they want development to continue to migrate and swallow up farm land--sure, continue to fight against the train. But let's get real rural folks--trains are nothing new. They've been crisscrossing the continent for far more than a century.

 

The image that needs to be portrayed to the rural landowners is how the rail will benefit them in the form of countryside preservation. It's called spin. PR 101. Rural landowners don't want to here how you can travel from Houston to Dallas in 90 minutes. How does that benefit them when they live hours away from both cities? Provide a vision to the landowners that their way of life will be more readily assured by developers not having incentive to buy land along the transit line as they would along the freeway--no station, no development incentive. It would be like building a gas station along I-45 if the closest exit was 100 miles away.

[Luminare]

Really just how big an assumption is it that rail provides a disincentive to sprawl. Sprawl is development blanketing the countryside in all directions it can flow. Edge cities may develop where stops are located, but TOD is not sprawl. Do you really think NYC would have developed as it did without rail? C'mon man. There's a place for rail and there's a place for highways. It's not a this or that sort of question. Both are needed at one time or another--anyone denying that fact either has a vested financial interest or simply fails to be pragmatic and open to logical reasoning. There is not a single mode solution to the transportation question. 

 

Perhaps the anti-highway wording was wrong for what I was attempting to get across. Let just go with the phrase opposite of highway. It's not a this mode rather than that mode connotation that I intended.

 

Over the decades rural landowners have become used to fighting land takings for highway development--take the Grand Parkway or the TTC as examples. They are hard-wired to believe any takings will irrevocably effect them in a negative manner and developers are poised to pounce on farmland the very moment road construction begins. How could they possibly fathom a way that a taking of their land will benefit them in any way whatsoever? Highway development over the decades has resulted in preconceived notions before any degree of research on the matter is undertaken.   

 

The thinking is that everyone wants to know what is in it for them these days. No one is concerned about the greater good. What's in it for me--that's the bottom line. Social Capitalism. "Why should I give up my peace and quiet and part of my land just so some city folk can get where they're going faster? In what way do I benefit?"--that's what these people are thinking. So the PR thing to do is to lean on the deductive reasoning that while a train zooming past rural farmland a few dozen times each day is a personal cost, at the same time a greater benefit is received in the form of a preserved way of rural life. If they want development to continue to migrate and swallow up farm land--sure, continue to fight against the train. But let's get real rural folks--trains are nothing new. They've been crisscrossing the continent for far more than a century.

 

The image that needs to be portrayed to the rural landowners is how the rail will benefit them in the form of countryside preservation. It's called spin. PR 101. Rural landowners don't want to here how you can travel from Houston to Dallas in 90 minutes. How does that benefit them when they live hours away from both cities? Provide a vision to the landowners that their way of life will be more readily assured by developers not having incentive to buy land along the transit line as they would along the freeway--no station, no development incentive. It would be like building a gas station along I-45 if the closest exit was 100 miles away.

 

Look Sparrow, I'm just going to tell you right now that this isn't a direction the thread should go. This isn't a thread about the death of cars. This is the exact kind of rhetoric that keeps me away from subs on Reddit like Futurology which used to be fun conversations about future tech but have now devolved into circlejerks about ways to get to a non-car utopia. That's exactly what that line of think is...a utopia. What do we know about utopias? They can never exist or they are too perfect. As much as I have become alienated by driving and how much my love for train travel has grown over the years...lets face it there will always be a market for personal transportation. The best way to pitch Rail is as an alternative and not a replacement. What makes America great is the opportunity to choose and any rail supports should stay away from anything anti-car related and instead focus on the possible symbiotic relationships and synergistic possibilities of the car and rail and how high speed rail can achieve that. Taking away the car is just going to piss people off and we will being repeating history the same way pro-car killed off trains. Why eliminate the options? Cars are perfectly valid and have their best uses and so do trains. Discussing any sort of star-chamber rid the earth of all car plans is not only not interesting, but it's futile and a complete waste of time. Finally this isn't just a rebuttal of your response Sparrow, but to anyone who falls into this sort of "technological cleansing" of one type of technology.

 

Now the part that I actually found ridiculous is "spin". That shouldn't be the goal of HSR's PR campaign because they have the facts, they have the evidence, and they will soon have the environmental data to full support their position. I will be completely honest with you guys and BigFootsSocks can probably back me up on this, but TCR is pretty confident about those facts, evidence, and data that will support their argument. It's merely getting it out there to the public. They don't need to win with spin. In fact the ones doing the spinning will be those who will try to defeat it. The only way to really prevail is by winning with cold hard facts. With the science. With case studies. With hard examples. They don't have to make anything up because its a time tested tech that just needs more info out into the mainstream.

[BigFootsSocks]

I can back him up on that.

[cspwal]

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Things-you-should-know-about-that-high-speed-rail-6158903.php?t=2e1e746e8779b87a02&cmpid=twitter-premium#photo-7471355

 

Can someone explain to me why a high speed train down the current freight train corridor is such a huge deal?  There's already a train there.

Also, I think this editorial does articulate the con side argument well, but I doubt that the TCR rail would be only to Dallas and only for "elites" for long.

 

Anyway, I would think Washington avenue would make more sense for a light rail than in that freight right of way, but that's a different topic...

[ADCS]

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Things-you-should-know-about-that-high-speed-rail-6158903.php?t=2e1e746e8779b87a02&cmpid=twitter-premium#photo-7471355

 

Can someone explain to me why a high speed train down the current freight train corridor is such a huge deal?  There's already a train there.

Also, I think this editorial does articulate the con side argument well, but I doubt that the TCR rail would be only to Dallas and only for "elites" for long.

 

Anyway, I would think Washington avenue would make more sense for a light rail than in that freight right of way, but that's a different topic...

 

Elevated structure would be an eyesore in their minds.

[IronTiger]

Elevated structure would be an eyesore in their minds.

"Their" eyes? Who doesn't think elevated structures are an eyesore?

[Houston19514]

"Their" eyes? Who doesn't think elevated structures are an eyesore?

 

All of the people on this board who regularly complain that our light rail lines were not built on elevated structures.  ;-)

 

[BigFootsSocks]

For trains, I definitely don't. I love Chicagos L

[ADCS]

"Their" eyes? Who doesn't think elevated structures are an eyesore?

 

Personally, when done right, I think they can add character to a developed area. Chicago's a good example of that.

[IronTiger]

Personally, when done right, I think they can add character to a developed area. Chicago's a good example of that.

Joking aside, I think that's a subjective statement at best. I mean, I could say that "Pierce Elevated adds character to Midtown" but the truth is, elevated structures for trains are almost as ugly as highways, and I will say that I never liked the idea of an elevated LRT running down a major road corridor (highways aside, but that's different). No one builds large-scale elevated rail anymore like the Chicago L and its ilk (not for the last century), and if they do, it's on freight corridors only: the Dallas light rail system, which I am partial to, does this but primarily to go over spurs and problematic intersections. All the other existing lines are "grandfathered in" as far as cityscapes go (especially the fact that the Chicago L, etc. didn't have to worry about pesky ADA compliance*), and even today after major renovations to the Brown line, only 65% of the L lines are ADA compliant (the Dallas elevated stations are few and far between for this reason). As another reminder of why elevated lines aren't the way to go, the New York Subway that everyone so adores and holds up as a gold standard for rail-based mass transit replaced elevated lines.

* Sarcasm. I am not saying mass transit should not be accessible to those in wheelchairs.

[IronTiger]

Hey, one more update for you guys and not trying to mess up anything with the aesthetics of elevated rail: Grimes County (and by extension, probably all of the rural people) hate any and all projects that would cross through their area. Site for some of this. Not only are they against the HSR, Texas 249 (they put up a resolution trying to block it), they're even against a transmission line corridor.

[UtterlyUrban]

I just rode a HSR line in China. It was about a 450 mile trip. The entire route was elevated. Not a single at-grade crossing. City sections and rural sections. About 8 stops -- each lasting exactly two minutes. The line was completed, I am told, in the last 2 years.

Edited March 28, 2015 by UtterlyUrban

[IronTiger]

I just rode a HSR line in China. It was about a 450 mile trip. The entire route was elevated. Not a single at-grade crossing. City sections and rural sections. About 8 stops -- each lasting exactly two minutes. The line was completed, I am told, in the last 2 years.

I wouldn't put that as a standard: how much of that was done with shoddy materials/workmanship and/or slave labor? Who knows?

[UtterlyUrban]

I wouldn't put that as a standard: how much of that was done with shoddy materials/workmanship and/or slave labor? Who knows?

Just so that I understand. You are saying that because it is China, it is shoddy materials/workmanship and using "slave" labor? Would you say the same for a new line built elsewhere in Asia or Latin America or Europe? Or, do you reserve this view only for China?

And, may I ask, on what do you base your statements?

[cloud713]

I just rode a HSR line in China. It was about a 450 mile trip. The entire route was elevated. Not a single at-grade crossing. City sections and rural sections. About 8 stops -- each lasting exactly two minutes. The line was completed, I am told, in the last 2 years.

Is that the Beijing to Shanghai line? Not 100% sure if that's right but yeah there's some crazy elevated line built recently with a 100+ mile long bridge that's now the longest in the world

[UtterlyUrban]

Is that the Beijing to Shanghai line? Not 100% sure if that's right but yeah there's some crazy elevated line built recently with a 100+ mile long bridge that's now the longest in the world

Shanghai (I got on in Changzhou) to Zibo (where I got off) but onward to Qingdao. I was on the train for about an hour before I said: "holy cow, I think that we are on an elevated line! No grade crossings!" From that point onward, I focused on it and, best I can tell, we were elevated the entire way.......

Edited March 28, 2015 by UtterlyUrban

[IronTiger]

Just so that I understand. You are saying that because it is China, it is shoddy materials/workmanship and using "slave" labor? Would you say the same for a new line built elsewhere in Asia or Latin America or Europe? Or, do you reserve this view only for China?

And, may I ask, on what do you base your statements?

 

I don't know, regularly occurring structural failures? Harsh gulag-like labor camps? 

 

Sure, it could be safe and built with legitimate labor, but you never know...

[UtterlyUrban]

I don't know, regularly occurring structural failures? Harsh gulag-like labor camps?

Sure, it could be safe and built with legitimate labor, but you never know...

Of course, you could point to far more relevant information:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/business/global/despite-a-deadly-crash-rail-system-has-good-safety-record.html?_r=0

This information does raise specific concerns regarding construction of viaducts but also suggests that, at least currently, China's safety record is world class. The article also discusses how China has improved its aviation safety as well.

Your tag line "you never know" is certainly true. And, since you don't know and suggest by the use of the phrase that you can't, I really don't understand why you would decide to post this "information". If you don't know, then there is nothing to discuss.

[Luminare]

Technically yall are both right. China has become notorious for over engineering their infrastructure. When it comes to architectural finishes they are not the exactly the mark of quality.

 

Now can we please get this thread back to Texas?

[fkp5]

Good news. From this post on TCR's Facebook page from March 12th, it looks like they want the station to be downtown.

 

https://www.facebook.com/texascentral/posts/1588031001439640?comment_id=1588038384772235&offset=0&total_comments=6&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R0%22%7D

[jackie21love]

Good news. From this post on TCR's Facebook page from March 12th, it looks like they want the station to be downtown.

https://www.facebook.com/texascentral/posts/1588031001439640?comment_id=1588038384772235&offset=0&total_comments=6&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R0%22%7D

Hopefully, but "close" to downtown is such a vague statement…

[BigFootsSocks]

In Houston, the city that embraces its urban sprawl, "close to downtown" is definitely not a vague statement. There are only a few areas that qualify as "close to downtown" that have the capacity for this.