IronTiger

That's been discussed on HAIF many times before, and part of the reason why the University Line, I think, is overrated. If that were true, wouldn't BRT be just as successful and a hell of a lot cheaper to build and ride?

290, 45S, and 45N all make the most sense for commuter rails, but they are hamstrung by several factors, namely placement of things: if 290 was a viable corridor, stations would have to be built up and down the railroad, either replacing existing industrial sites or going over with bridges. If we were to connect it with the Northwest Transit Center, the rail would have to parallel Old Katy Road and go basically dead slow on that road and UNDER 610. 45N's railroads don't interface with downtown at all, it will have to go down to EaDo and curl up to Commerce Street, defeating the purpose of a unified station. 45S's railroads have the same problem: they'll only reach EaDo. Oh, and one more thing: Acres Homes was never incorporated, and after incorporation, CoH was slow to provide services to it. That's one reason why Cypress and The Woodlands (also unincorporated, defined by zip codes) weren't annexed because after Kingwood was annexed, new rules for annexation in Texas made it less desirable to annex developed areas.

San Francisco has a good "reputation", but a large part of it is a facade, the crime and homeless population is still very high, and it's expensive to live. In the meantime, Houston is becoming better. The bayous are no longer polluted drainage ditches (or at least on the way to going away from that). All we can do is just hope that it remains together--Detroit went from a model city to a hellhole in two decades, for instance...

No, it really wouldn't. I can't think of a city where commuter rail dumps people onto a slow light rail that stops every half mile, or a city where all the most major roads are narrow roads where you can't turn left due to a train.

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One of the things that I think a lot of you are forgetting is that the place where commuter rail is most successful (regular gauge, not DC METRO/MARTA subways) is the Northeast (not California), where there are several cities clustered together. In 200 miles in the Northeast, you'll find Washington DC and its suburbs, Philadelphia and its suburbs, and New York City and its suburbs. That's millions and millions of people. Surprise surprise, that's one of the densest parts of the United States. Even LA, who some are hailing as some sort of leader, their sprawl is more conducive to commuter rail. From LA's downtown to Covina is solid sprawl, about 50 miles worth east. About 40 miles southeast to Irvine, 12 miles southwest to the Pacific, 30 miles to Santa Clarita, and nothing to the northeast--that's all mountains and very little development. In Houston, the "suburbs", like Texas City, The Woodlands, Katy, and Baytown--are 30 miles out from Houston but spread in every direction, meaning more lines total, and less ridership for each line. The way that the city sprawls is completely different, which is why the "but LA has similar density! we need to do it JUST LIKE THEM" argument is totally bunk.

Another stupid article that wishes Houston was more like San Francisco in terms of art/culture/architecture/laws/whatever. Admittedly, when you look at Houston, it isn't particularly iconic if you were to set something in Houston. San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge, those trolleys, and lots of hills. New York has the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, as well as skyscrapers everywhere (at least in Manhattan). A popular reason why LA (and by extension, California) is so popular is because that's where everything is (media companies). Trying to compete with that is a fool's game. However, I read a better article that explains how Houston is becoming the indie film choice, partly because it's so diverse (here). And it is: you could find both pine trees, oak trees, and palm trees all in the area. It wouldn't be difficult to, depending on the neighborhood, to convince an audience that the characters are in Mexico, Southern California, or New Orleans.

I agree that commuter rail won't work. For one thing, many of the commuter rail systems were built on top of existing rail corridors, and the rail corridors that do remain are not particularly conducive to commuter rail traffic. For example, the railroad paralleling Northwest Freeway has the greatest potential, but it doesn't even directly connect to the main rail line (a spur would have to be built at the very minimum), and the number of stops would require additional transit centers up and down the Hempstead Road/Hempstead Highway corridor. If you were going to downtown, you would still have to let the train back into the Northwest Transit Center. For Westpark, METRO actually did own the ROW and could do with it what it pleased (commuter rail?) but it ended up selling the line to HCTRA and still has the other half of the ROW to work with. If the light rail was to go out to the Hillcroft Transit Center, this would be the best place to have "commuter style" light rail running all the way out to Katy area. The Katy ROW, just a few miles up was never owned by METRO and METRO had very little say in the Interstate 10 project (as it didn't contribute much in the way of money) but they demanded that there be a potential for rail down HCTRA's tollways, and METRO contributed some more money to that--they weren't snookered into donating it. The railroad that parallels Hardy Toll Road would be a good alternative--there is enough ROW to, in theory, add stations up and down it to Conroe, but some logistical problems, like getting the Montgomery Co. residents to sign onto METRO and getting UP to borrow the line at certain times would be difficult. You also run into the problem of those rails not actually interfacing with downtown. The railroad that goes near Sugar Land is also saddled with other problems like some out-of-the-way routes, some sharp curves (hello Griggs and Mykawa!) and it doesn't interface with downtown either.

Yeah, Mercado del Sol is now lofts. It was saddled with many problems, closing in 1987 after being in foreclosure since 1986. The problems were many: they tried to make it a touristy destination, but the location was hard to find, it wasn't in a good part of town, the center had lost about half of its tenants since it opened (and that probably wasn't even 100%) and by 1986 they were already finding alternative uses like an inhalant abuse center. It joined the ranks of many, many festival marketplaces opened in downtown areas in the 1980s that have since failed and closed (remember Catfish Town in Baton Rouge? No?)

I can't imagine why they would add tunnels all the way out there. Weren't the renderings showing boat rentals or a restaurant?

Big Kmart I think came in-line 1996 and 1997 and were facelifts of the existing Kmart stores (they got nearly all of the stores), so I don't think the Woodlands Kmart was ever branded as such. It must have been a regular Kmart. However, Little Caesar's was introduced into Kmart in the early 1990s.

I actually thought of that, but if you looked at the railroad, you'll find that there are multiple junctions on either side of Harrisburg, which means all of those would have to be trenched. Besides, it's impossible anyway because the whole reason why the underpass was canned was because of the dissolved gasoline plume. Imagine the new things they'd find when trenching the entire railroad! The EPA might as well condemn the entire neighborhood in the process.

Yes, it was originally a 1970s-era Safeway that closed in 1987. H-E-B Pantry came in a few years later. The whole thing was wrecked around 2002 to build the new store (about the same time CS upgraded its Pantry store to full-line, though in that case, it moved) The Kroger in question closed February 2009 after its lease ended (a 15 year lease, though it looks far older)

NIMBYs are everywhere, and they don't necessarily always fail. After all, the East End held off 225 (and are holding UP the light rail expansion). As for liquor sales near schools, I didn't say it didn't work, I think it's a dumb rule because density makes these things harder to overcome, and College Station, a far less dense city and more conservative city, has a living example of a large church an alleyway's distance from a bar. Is there any example in Houston like this?

Oh. OHHHHHHHHH. I'm an idiot, for some reason I thought the store to the east of the original Wal-Mart was the old Kmart...that appears to be an old Kroger. So when did the Kmart close? The only things I can pull up is that Kmart did open a 107,000 square foot project (store + surroundings) around 1993 and about 50k square feet were leased to Hobby Lobby in 1996, but that doesn't confirm or deny that it closed in that time. In the meantime, it definitely closed before 2002 because it wasn't on the list of store closings in 2002 or 2003.

That doesn't necessarily rule out it. I'm looking at the old Fiesta lot at the Heights as a model, and it looks like it would take up an entire block. There isn't a useable block in the Fifth Ward area that wouldn't require demolitions. I sort of did, though in a disjointed manner--part of my original post was left off, which I clarified later--it is stupid because Houston is a dense area where conflicts could happen just about anywhere. The comparison was College Station, which has bars next to churches, and it's smaller and more conservative than Houston is. Therefore, Houston should get with the program.

Hobby Lobby was too small and opened way too early to be a Super Kmart, and it was gone long before Kmart pulled out. In terms of pre-development stuff, I was able to get something from that Houston Today book I've been showing off (Houston Center, mostly--see the Houston Potential thread), that does have that, but I'm not interested in that right now.

Yeah, it was Federal and Interstate 10 now that I look at it! The hotel and Denny's are still there (the La Quinta seems to be rebranded recently), the "intersecting road" was actually a river (though the bayou at Telephone Road was one of my earlier guesses), the Garden Ridge DID close and become a Burlington Coat Factory, those office buildings are still there, and the apartments are still there (albeit renovated), though most of them were razed (floodplain)

This is an image from Chron's Tropical Storm Allison picture collection, taken 2001, but I can't figure out where it was taken, even when browsing over older Google Earth images! There's clues that would seem to point where it is: - It's obviously on a major freeway intersecting another road. - There's a La Quinta Inn and a Denny's. - You could also see a Garden Ridge sign, but it may have closed when it went bankrupt around this time and closed several stores, so there's a good chance it's not there anymore - Those office buildings look similar to the Town & Country or Greenspoint area office buildings. Anyone know where this is? Because I can't figure it out.

Aldi, as I may have mentioned before, seems to be able to survive in areas where most other retail cannot sustain itself, therefore an Aldi seems like the best choice. The second advantage is has is because it's small. If Fiesta (which admittedly opened that tiny 22k square foot in Conroe recently), H-E-B, or Kroger wanted to open a full-sized store, they would have to condemn nearly an entire block to build (if not close off a street), which will attract NIMBYs in the neighborhood like nothing else, either to protest the additional light, noise, and traffic, or in fear that the neighborhood will gentrify and they'll be priced out. I'd also be interesting to know WHERE people in these "food deserts" actually get food. You could say "it's X miles away from a real supermarket" but there are lots of people in rural areas in Texas that are in that same "X miles away" situation and they certainly don't get most of their food from the nearest convenience store.

Actually, looking back at the original post, I remembered that I wanted to make a point of saying that over here in College Station, there is a large Methodist church (I believe it has a day school for children) just literally an alleyway across a bar (only open at night). It is in the densest part of College Station, but if CS can get away with it, why can't Houston?

So I was browsing on Google Earth (updated imagery from just two months ago!) and found that the former Great Indoors seems to have built a parking garage behind it. I didn't remember if there was a parking garage beforehand, and there wasn't. However, The Great Indoors is still empty (empty parking lot). What on earth would they build a parking garage for? Has a redevelopment plan been announced yet? Thanks

I don't know when Britt's closed or what replaced it. According to Wikipedia, Britt's as a department store name disappeared in the early 1980s, but a Chronicle article mentions that Britt's survived as a five and ten at Northline into 1991. The mall, meanwhile, had been a loser mall for a number of years, Joske's hadn't made a profit since 1979! (City's oldest malls try to shed ragged image, 4/21/1991)

Very good point. If there was extreme Allison-level flooding for whatever reason (hundred year flood type) the light rail would probably be shut down anyway. I think a better topic would be: Subways: Are They Worth It?

There are a few reasons I outlined: - Minimized ROW demolitions: if the University Line was built as planned, the strip center near Westpark and Weslayan would be demolished (at least partially) - Faster speeds and better turns for the light rail - Would not end up destroying roads (during construction or reducing their functionality) Would it really be the double/triple the costs of a "normal" undertaking? Remember, the tracks would still be the normal, wire-fed system, it would just be in a tunnel.