kylejack

I intend to take the entire lane when there is not enough space for a 3 foot pass. I would like to see the pedestrian/bike zone extended through Midtown as well, but it's a lot more complicated with auto repair shops, the bus station, etc. Definitely Downtown, though.

Main Street is a one-lane road with little traffic, though. Few cars pass because it is not a good street to drive on. Left turns are prohibited and Main Street Square cuts you off halfway through Downtown anyhow.

All parking garages on Main Street do not have a driveway on to Main Street but rather use other streets for entrances and exits. As to cross traffic, yes, that would still go through. Think of it like how Main Street Square is handled now: The Main Street has been eliminated (allowing Bombay Pizza to have a patio and etc.) but cross traffic still goes through on McKinney and Lamar.

The Vulnerable Road Users Ordinance that was passed by Houston’s City Council requires motorists to give 3 feet of space when passing a vulnerable road user (cyclists, pedestrians, etc.) This ordinance makes it impossible for a motorist to legally pass a cyclist on Main Street in Downtown or Midtown, as demonstrated in these pictures. What if we were to close Main Street to motor vehicle traffic and make it an exclusively pedestrian and bicycle corridor? It seems to me that it would enhance cyclist and pedestrian safety, encourage the type of walkable retail and bars/restaurants that Downtown needs, decrease motorist frustration at being stuck behind a bicycle, and enhance motorist and transit safety by eliminating the motorist [illegal] left turns that still hit the Metro rail cars sporadically. Already, driving Downtown on Main Street is not ideal for a motorist. The ban on left turns and the pedestrian zone that cuts off Main Street at Main Street Square make it not very useful to a motorist for traveling through Downtown. If you add in now being stuck behind cyclists as well, it just seems to make more sense to re-route that traffic to Fannin or Travis, where there are plenty of lanes for cars to travel. With all of the new businesses coming in on the North side of Downtown (Goro & Gun, Pastry War, Batanga, Bad News Bar, OKRA, Clutch City Squire, El Gran Malo, etc.), having an even safer pedestrian environment for customers to move about promotes greater economic activity. This also ties in nicely with the city’s new BCycle rental bike program. Tourists or Houstonians visiting Downtown and renting a BCycle could be directed to our fantastic Main Street bike lane to check out the rest of Downtown or as a way to get to points in Midtown. If I count right, about 20 parking spaces would be lost along Main Street. The enhanced pedestrian, transit, and bicycle experience should easily make up for any small inconvenience this might cause. Main Street Square could be reconfigured to allow for a bike lane to pass through the current pedestrian environment. I live and work downtown and think it would really improve quality of life. I think this could get us a lot of positive national attention to take the move of closing Main Street to motor vehicle traffic and embracing other modes of transportation. What do you think?

Maybe it is you that has the unrealistic expectations if you don't think Houston will be changing. Many changes coming in the next few years.

Sure it is, just like the early street cars of Manhattan were baby steps that prepared a city for subways. Anyway, I find your logic puzzling. We shouldn't build subways because there isn't the political will for it? If that's your standard, then we should build light rail, because clearly we do have the political will for that.

Opposition to rail from Culberson and company forces smaller baby steps to be taken with rail. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Whatever would I do without the capability to go to Walmart, Best Buy, and Home Depot all in one trip?

There's some towing going on right now. A friend just saw one go by.

n/t

Odd as there is one just nine blocks away by Toyota Center.

Neat map of vehicle fatalities in Texas, 2006-2013. I see they have Leigh Boone's March 30, 2009 accident marked at Westheimer and Dunlavy, among others. thttp://app1.kuhf.org/vehicle-fatalities-texas.html

Sometimes I travel on rail by foot, and sometimes I travel on rail by bus.

Once construction finally started after the acquisition fiasco they were saying 2015, so pretty cool it will be a year earlier for the other lines and two years earlier for the North line.

I don't own a car and rarely take a bus that uses the highways. Sure, I rely on goods brought in by highway, but so too do citizens depend on employees to be brought by mass transit to work at restaurants, grocery stores, and etc. that we all shop at. Highways and mass transit are both an integral part of a well-functioning city.

It's okay to spend on both, and we are.

That's disingenuous Vick, rush hour traffic will never stop. That's the whole point of a rush hour, lots of people are trying to get home. Highway expansions have alleviated traffic problems, such as the major problems on I-10 circa 2001.

They had to take a lot of property for the last expansion, and I'm sure the dealerships and etc won't take kindly to another 40 feet or whatever. I think I missed why it is that we need a majority to ride transit for it to be a worthwhile endeavor. Why would that be?

But we're not talking about the status quo, we're talking about continual expansion of the freeways instead of looking into some other alternatives to share the burden.

Well, I would expect there to be more development along a highway that is 2,460 miles long. I wouldn't describe development along the rail corridor as "marginal", however, and I don't think running 20 lanes down the place where Red Line lies right now would be sound planning.

I pay taxes and so do you. So when you tell me to "pay up" for infrastructure, you and I already do.

One thing is that you can only expand a freeway so far before it gets absurd. Katy Freeway is what, 20 lanes at the widest parts now? How many lanes are you going to have to cross to take that exit?

China is also investing half a trillion in rail over the next several years.

I wasn't asking you for permission. It's already happening and will continue to happen.