IronTiger

What's the best take out? I mean, there's gourmet and there's takeout, but surely Houston has more than just the usual suspects (Papa John's, Domino's, Little Caesars, etc.)

Rail in the middle of the freeway wouldn't be for passenger--the rail services freight and that's what it would continue to do. No spurs, no stations. I think that "easy quick solution" is "adding LRT down major roads" which is a bad idea in many aspects as it slows down light rail, screws up traffic patterns, and throttles major thoroughfares. The reason why it's done this way is primarily because the ROW is cheap (not ridership numbers--that's just an estimated number to bring in funding). As for "comprehensive transit system" that's been discussed many many times and has been decided that at best, a traditional system that would funnel into downtown wouldn't work because Houston is spread out. However, this not the space to discuss it. The original topic was if an underpass or overpass for Westheimer could be done, and NO, the way the OP is describing it will NOT work for this purpose:

See, Cerberus SAID they wouldn't do anything with the markets or brands for now (consolidating brands, etc.) but I must note some facts: - The closest Albertsons pre-Safeway merger post-2011 was Baton Rouge and Dallas-Fort Worth, 260 and 230 miles away, respectively. These are both part of the Dallas-Fort Worth. - United is a subsidiary of Albertsons LLC, which has stores in Plano now. Because of Albertsons ownership, they had to close a few stores. - Swamplot reported that the entire Houston division of Randalls was laid off, but IF that's true, then Safeway's Dallas division operated (pre-merger) the Dallas Tom Thumb stores, the Austin Randalls, and the Houston Randalls. - Apparently in 2011, the D-FW division (which includes BR) closed enough stores to make money. A new store in Denham Springs, LA opened in 2011, but there there's no Kroger or HEB to worry about. I can easily see AB Acquisitions (Albertsons + Safeway) consolidating the Safeway and Albertsons divisions in Dallas, but I'm wondering that since it's not Safeway in control of the wheel anymore (which had just killed Dominick's and was fast driving Randalls into a pit), what's the next plan? Would they open any Randalls, or even introduce the Albertsons name back into Houston since the Randalls name has been so tainted? Or would they try to sell it off to a buyer like BI-LO/Winn-Dixie? It seems it would be more advantegeous to keep it--the Randalls distribution center could take over for the Louisiana stores...

I think again, that if they were redo 610 west loop, the rail would go IN the median, as there's no spurs down that section. That way, there's no need for an overpass/underpass. I wonder if BRT could work on right of way...

Northline Mall closed in 2007 and was torn down for a strip center anchored by a Walmart Supercenter. The community college in the former Britts moved to separate facilities on the property.

Even nuttier than my Pearland-to-the-airport idea is the reimagining of the Blue Line (not the University Line, since it really wouldn't hit universities anymore). The western portion, of course, follows the existing University Line layout except underground (preserving trees, turns, and traffic lanes) and cuts out extraneous stops. Between Wheeler and Greenway Plaza, there's just three stops: Shepherd/Kirby, Menil, and Montrose/St. Thomas. The subway glides underneath Greenway Plaza and finally has parking at Weslayan, the first surface station, before gliding over the tracks, stopping at Pin Oak (Newcastle moved), Bellaire (parking), then west, not just to Hillcroft but the transit centers near the Westpark ROW, which left ROW for a light rail. This eventually goes to Bella Terra in the greater Katy area. Heading east, the Gold lines (the Gold line parallels Blue since Bellaire, see my post above on how that changes) and Blue head up with Red (Gold stops at UH-Downtown) but Blue takes another turn. While this could be spun off into a new color, it circles around and heads underground, and stops near the Saint Arnold brewery at the Saint Arnold stop. Parking is there at Semmes and Providence. Going east, the map says it's street running, but because of the railroad, it still moves underground. Stops are at Gregg and Waco Street before going underground and re-emerges at Fidelity and Market in Jacinto City. There's parking here, and it parallels a freight train. It moves east to Sheffield and finally stops at Haden, an area with parking and access to Sam's and Walmart. It could even extend out toward San Jacinto Mall, but I think it's long enough as-is.

Probably areas underserved by grocery...maybe even Holleman and 2818, areas in north Bryan, or in-fill in blight (Waco's took an old car dealership, partially)

The distribution center just broke ground. It will prolly expand to B-CS BEFORE that.

I'm inclined to keep the current plan because it means the Westpark ROW can be partially used. I'd like to see a surface-level track running there again. Maybe I'm just weird like that. Even if it ran submerged from Dunlavy (at Richmond) to west of Shepherd, it cuts out Greenway Plaza. I did make a complete University Line, though, it's a long one east too (one word: Haden)

I think I had access after my card came in: it was in this list here, the one with that had the archives since 1985 - http://www.houstonlibrary.org/newspapers

I think on the actual building, I see a tiny Whataburger logo on the last thing in that strip mall (the one to the right with the green awning)--or are my eyes tricking me?

Based on what I've read on HAIF, some enterprising homeowners seem to have bypassed the abandonment process entirely and just absorbed the ROW instead.

Eh, sort of. The buildings have to have been already razed, and it would replace them, but not necessarily remove from existence the buildings. If I wanted to save Maryland Manor (probably multiple buildings, but common ownership), then the Ashby high-rise wouldn't exist...but would be built elsewhere (Midtown?) The building's facade would be presumably maintained but not necessarily the businesses inside. This would complicate things due to the first rule: if you save a building in an Interstate's ROW that wouldn't mean the Interstate would be cancelled or downscaled, it would mean something else would have to go in its place. All of these "rules" keep it constrained in a derived version of reality--there may be demolitions that we wish wouldn't have happened but is it a net gain? What would happen if the building was never razed? Take the Wilshire Village apartments example above: so under that, the H-E-B there wouldn't exist. But assuming market forces still exist, what if it took over Richmont Square instead, or maybe just gave up on the area?

But that's just a "request for abandonment", the city wouldn't actually do it, would they? If I, as a sleazy developer (or maybe a practical joker with too much time on my hands) filled out a request to abandon a major road, that would still count and it would be filed, right?

They had a FIREWORKS FACTORY in the middle of town, surrounded by houses? Gosh. That sounds like a terrible idea. Despite that, it seems that it was substantially smaller than the West fertilizer plant explosion six decades later, which happened in a far less dense area but caused far more damage.

It looks like it was the end-store of the shopping center (I think I can make out a Whataburger logo on the storefront). The Gulf Freeway looks like it was built to Interstate standards by this time but not yet to its current state. When did this happen?

Hey, I like it--there's some sort of "Hilton Mattress Liquidator" at Almeda Square (that old logo is gone now), it looks like it might be a Mervyn's, but I don't think so. Steak & Ale is now a Wings N More (should be BreWingz now since WnM Houston lost the franchise) Where was the Venture/Woolco?

Probably a bit of an arcane question, but I couldn't help but notice when I was browsing around on Google Maps I found this: Near the Astrodome, the Fiesta store appears to have a different logo than it does currently. Not so much the actual text but the little parrot they use as a logo--seems he's been streamlined and made more cartoonish in recent years. Anyone know when this change was made, or is this the first time you've noticed?

An "In Brief" indicates that Kroger once occupied the space. This was accessed through the Houston Chronicle website via Houston Library (if you don't have a library card I highly recommend it--I got mine free through a mail-order registration). Tons of great stuff on old addresses, and has helped me immensely in 290 corridor business history--like how Gold Cup was a fancy steakhouse once, and the 24 Hour Fitness nearby was a Handy Dan hardware. HCAD may also help in former ownership, too.

Going off of Google Earth, the bridge looks to be still in service, but the roads leading up to it have been blocked (can't believe it shared road and rail traffic--that sounds incredibly dangerous)

Here's the plan for Uptown Line and a bit of Cy-Rail, which I hope to explain further. The Uptown Line would go on the University Line and others, but I haven't done all that yet. I found that METRO's plan for Uptown Line has far too many stops, which I deleted. Oh, and for the most part, this Uptown Line tends to run mostly underground. Additionally, it was extended to Brookhollow Business Park, which I think needs to be connected with the rest of the city. Notice that Cy-Rail stops at Northwest Mall and not Northwest Transit Center...I felt like since the rail was removed near there it would be problematic for the train to back in (even if you restored Old Katy to its original configuration).

That is really cool. Anyway, a little something I found--it's a partial facade of what the H-E-B Pantry sign in The Woodlands used to look like, added to the Safeway facade when they opened (the Galveston one got no such fancy facade). The College Station one used to look almost identical to this, except it wasn't green.

I think you're right. Beige stucco is the worse, methinks.

I'm looking at the Post Office site and some of the project renderings...if Franklin (a road AT THE WATERFRONT) was closed and traffic was rerouted to Washington (which would be reopened) and Franklin was turned into a pedestrian walkway, that could be linked in with Sesquicentennial Park, and, well, at least an expanded aquarium could go there. Fake boat idea was just tossing around an idea...clearly some of you missed the "Nah..." added at the end...

I think the post office site would be a great site for an expanded aquarium, or some sort of mixed-use commercial site. A collection of restaurants and stores, all along the bayou? Sounds great. Another idea would be to expand the bayou and build a permanently-moored (like, a boat-shaped building that is surrounded by water but resembles a boat) boat of some sort, preferably one of a past design (1800s river steamer?) with a restaurant or something on it. Nah...