Parkways

[IronTiger]

I don't want this to be a Pierce Elevated hijack, and I still stand by the quote in the original paragraph, bolded for emphasis:

 

Neither of us proposed doing anything stupid like replacing freeways with parkways

What's made the most sense in this discussion is trying to figure out where parkways would still work.

On that related subject, I think given the amount of ROW the light rail took up, Harrisburg Blvd. could've been a viable route for a parkway and could maintain most (if not all) of its businesses. That's what could've been a compromise plan for 225.

[Slick Vik]

I don't want this to be a Pierce Elevated hijack, and I still stand by the quote in the original paragraph, bolded for emphasis:

What's made the most sense in this discussion is trying to figure out where parkways would still work.

On that related subject, I think given the amount of ROW the light rail took up, Harrisburg Blvd. could've been a viable route for a parkway and could maintain most (if not all) of its businesses. That's what could've been a compromise plan for 225.

There's nothing stupid about that. There are cities everywhere with different ideas about how to develop than houston. Using inflammatory rhetoric instead of trying to understand the benefits is self defeating.

[Slick Vik]

Again, there would be no need for a parkway on the south side of downtown.

If you demolish the Pierce elevated and either upgrade 59/10 or re-route 45 along those two freeways, then you'd only need to put a 'parkway-like' section along the west side of downtown.

You place a spur to the north side of downtown from 45 north. You then use the trenched section of 45 to connect w/ Houston avenue and create a grand bayou bridge. You then tie the new parkway trench section w/ the existing downtown grid system of Pierce street and St. Joseph's parkway. Both of those roads can handle the traffic.

Agreed

Bravo to poster Thomas Colbert in the linked article for noticing that road construction in Texas is driven neither by needs nor wants, but by the magically reinforcing nexus of an agency (led in turns by a buddy of Rick Perry, or by some woman who used to bring him his coffee) with hundreds of billions of dollars of contracts in its gift, and a huge consulting and roadbuilding industry, with job offers and campaign contributions in its gift.

(Please note that Bubba, whatever else he may be, is not an ideologue, and this is an utterly non-partisan rant; 25 years ago it likely would have concerned Bob Bullock, to whom it is tempting, as the anecdotes pile up, to apply the word "amoral." Nor of course is it exclusive to roadbuilding: healthcare, education ... but those things, though lucrative, bear no particularly Texas stamp.)

The governorship might as well be an appointed position. It's TxDOT chair that people should be voting on, as it's TxDOT that largely determines what Texas becomes.

Until then, I don't think parkways (in Colbert's words,"serious attention being paid in the design of the roadway to the scenic and spatial experience of drivers and the development of meaningful relationships between roadway, landscape and urbanism") are something you need to seriously fear.

Truth

[cloud713]

T C Jester would make a great parkway. It already kind of functions as one along some stretches. Just needs to be trenched under Ella, 18th, 11th and elevated over Larkin and i10 to have one continuous parkway from 610 to Washington ave.

[NenaE]

I don't want this to be a Pierce Elevated hijack, and I still stand by the quote in the original paragraph, bolded for emphasis:

 

What's made the most sense in this discussion is trying to figure out where parkways would still work.

On that related subject, I think given the amount of ROW the light rail took up, Harrisburg Blvd. could've been a viable route for a parkway and could maintain most (if not all) of its businesses. That's what could've been a compromise plan for 225.

 

Yeah, can't say that I like the look of Harrisburg Blvd. with the light rail, too wide and took out too much. (Can't say that I like it on Main St. either... but that's another topic). So what are your ideas on transporting people via public transportation on a parkway? keep the metro busses, or maybe a throwback trolley system? I'm thinking of the New Orleans garden district one.

[IronTiger]

Well, unless we want to strip out the light rail, any parkway-ing of Harrisburg should've been done a decade ago or more.

 

Wayside isn't a bad candidate for conversion today: it's got a lot of the infrastructure in place. An underpass at Lawndale and the railroads, then all we need is an underpass at Harrisburg and some construction to prevent left turns and people jumping straight across the road. Maybe depress two lanes and keep the other two lanes open as local traffic lanes? That's the biggest issue I see, but when you do that you have a clear path from I-10 to I-45. Almeda Road seems like a good candidate too, take a lot of pressure off of 288.

[cloud713]

Well, unless we want to strip out the light rail, any parkway-ing of Harrisburg should've been done a decade ago or more.

Wayside isn't a bad candidate for conversion today: it's got a lot of the infrastructure in place. An underpass at Lawndale and the railroads, then all we need is an underpass at Harrisburg and some construction to prevent left turns and people jumping straight across the road. Maybe depress two lanes and keep the other two lanes open as local traffic lanes? That's the biggest issue I see, but when you do that you have a clear path from I-10 to I-45. Almeda Road seems like a good candidate too, take a lot of pressure off of 288.

Yeah I meant to mention Almeda too, I've taken it a few times to avoid 288 traffic.

[Sparrow]

I think some of us are confusing parkways with Smart Streets. Related, but quite a different animal.

 

Harrisburg as a parkway? Almeda? What??? No.

[cloud713]

What's wrong with Almeda? Its limited access along most of the street with long stretches between lights. Just trench it under the cross street intersections and your golden, parkway from the Texas Medical Center to west Pearland and beyond.

[Purpledevil]

What's wrong with Almeda? Its limited access along most of the street with long stretches between lights. Just trench it under the cross street intersections and your golden, parkway from the Texas Medical Center to west Pearland and beyond.

Wasn't Almeda Rd. where the huge sink hole fell in a few years back? Give it a few more years, it may just trench itself.

[Sparrow]

What's wrong with Almeda? Its limited access along most of the street with long stretches between lights. Just trench it under the cross street intersections and your golden, parkway from the Texas Medical Center to west Pearland and beyond.

 

Maybe it's just my view, but parkways ought to have more nature and less urbanity with cars moving along curving, meandering roadways. As one of the straightest roadways in the entire metro region, Almeda is an avenue that is a great candidate for Smart Street improvements--improvements that would likely take stress off of 288. I agree that the intersections ought to be grade separated to ease the flow of traffic, but that's a Smart Street or Express Street, if you prefer.

[cloud713]

in addition to my east end "Buffalo Parkway", i propose getting rid of the bi-directional traffic flow along the north and south sides of Brays bayou/Braeswood. in place of the east flowing lanes on the north side, and west flowing lanes on the south side, i would change the travel direction of those inner bayou lanes so that they follow the same direction as the outer segments of Braeswood that are left running along each side of the bayou, and trench the inner lanes at each of the cross roads, like Hilcroft, Chimney Rock, Rice, Stella Link, Buffalo Speedway, Kirby, and Main, creating a continuous non stop parkway from almost Fondren to the Texas Medical Center. N and S Braeswood would turn into feeder/access roads if you will for "Brays Parkway" to serve all the houses, apartments, and businesses that front the streets on each side of the bayou.
i suppose it could be extended even further west, past where N Braeswood cuts over and merges with S Braeswood, but you would have to get creative with a 2 lane "parkway", almost like HOV lanes for Braeswood, put possibly trenched under major cross roads like a parkway, though it would take out the whole median of that portion of Braeswood to add 2 more lanes to that stretch of road.

i would do the same with TC Jester, from 610 to i10 redirecting the inner lanes on each side of the bayou and trenching them under the major cross roads like Ella, 18th, and 11th, so you would have an almost continuous (minus the stoplight at Larkin) Parkway from 610 to i10.


Buffalo Parkway (from the Pierce redesign thread) in Green. hard to tell but there is black (current road) on the west end where Franklin turns into Navigation turns into Jensen, before the parkway branches off east along the bayou. the black portion would be parkwayified under Canal and Navigation, for a non stop journey linking Buffalo Parkway directly to downtown. the parkway ends at the 90A/Clinton intersection, where it would split off in either direction for alternate routes for people coming into/out of downtown from i10 as well as 610E/225, or even 45S when its backed up.



Brays Parkway

this part is a little tricky since the north and south side roads dont align.. S Braeswood has to skip over north across the retention pond on the east side of 610 to run along side N Braeswood for a stretch, before N Braeswood splits off from S Braeswood to the north side of the bayou just west of Stella Link.



just a little visual of the direction changes on the north/south bi-directional traffic flow, if my description was too confusing..

left side is the current Braeswood layout.. right side is the future Brays Parkway on the inner lanes, Braeswood on the outer lanes. there would be one or two places where this layout would have to change due to some developments being on the bayou side of the roads in a few of the curves, so one of the lanes of the parkway would shift across the median while one of the access road lanes runs out/merges into the other, so the middle 2 of the 4 lanes on each side of the bayou are parkway lanes (each side of the parkway would split to straddle the medians, one lane on either side), and the inner most bayou side lane would become an access road lane to exit for the developments on the left side of the parkway (i really should of sketched that out instead, i didnt realize how confusing that would sound until i just typed it out. lol).