IronTiger

I wonder why one rendering says "Coffee Shop" and one says "Starbucks"? Which rendering came first? Having a Starbucks in a Walmart is surprising but hardly unique (others: Target, Meijer, anything owned by Safeway, Albertsons, the late Great Indoors)

Yes. Driving back from the Houston Museum of Natural Science, 290 near Fairfield was a divided four lane highway with open fields, the occasional intersection, and fast forward 10 years later, there's an outlet mall, HEB, full freeway, new restaurants, and the Grand Parkway stack.

My mother said it had a stone facade (she remembers it better than I do), I'll need to ask her more when I see her again.

Commuter rail would be a mess because of the way that the rails are set up and what they're used for. 290's parallel rail would work (in theory) but the others are messed up: for example, a rail from Sugar Land sounds good--and it just might've been had the Columbia Tap Rail Trail not been abandoned, but you'd have to deal with the GSC warehouse, the light rail, and a variety of others, even then, it's a 20 mile journey to downtown...otherwise, you have to deal with the crossings and tight curves near Mykawa, and even that only reaches EaDo and would have to circle around to downtown. Part of the beauty of commuter rail (that is, standard gauge rail) is that for the most part, the ROW and basic infrastructure is right there.

If I recall correctly, the Pearland P&R was canned because Pearland isn't part of METRO. No METRO--definitely no METRORail. But should METRO actually build rail that way, would anyone ride? Same principle applies going to the airport.

The east end arches were visible in the Read Building, used as a rifle range (which I think it was originally). I got some pictures of it before Read was torn down, and they were pretty neat. However I am a bit sad that by the time they're done, none of the original Kyle Field will be left. However, the football stadium is pretty much a driver of the local economy, and the dog boarders, hotels, and restaurants get huge profits from those weekends (the hotels price-gouge, often easily doubling their nightly rates)

While I'd love to see Red Line expand at both ends, I'd be curious to see what the ridership of the Red Line extension actually is. North of downtown you've got a sizable residential base but very little retail (Fiesta and Walmart), practically no restaurants, and few reasons to go up there. Suppose the Red Line got a 1.5 mile sunken (tunneled) connection and was in 288's median (surface) to Pearland. Besides the logistics of METRO going that far south (that is, it won't), would it even get a sufficient amount of riders to justify the amount of money spent for track? Same with north--running a tunnel of a few miles underground to get in the Hardy Toll Road's median for the airport. And if the University Line was nearly as popular as some claim it is, then the money spent on tunneling underneath the road would more than be enough to make it worthwhile.

I'd say just build an overpass for the tracks (light rail) and leave everything else alone. It will give the chance for trains to properly terminate, and if anyone complains about the overpass, just remind them what 225 would've been like.

Yes, what has been referred to as the "Old Testament God" can seem very extreme for the time and is difficult to see through a modern point of view, and reading the Old Testament can be rather confusing at times. (As an aside, at what point is talking about mass transit more of a hot topic filled with rage, half-truths, obtuse examples, and numbers, while religion is far less of an issue? Such is the mysteries of HAIF)

Not entirely, Islam's view of who Allah is is rather different (Allah doesn't love unconditionally unlike the Jewish/Christian God Yahweh, won't necessarily fulfill a covenant, and a few other significant differences), and it diverges at the point of Isaac and Ishmael (who is God's chosen lineage? It depends on if it's Islam or Judaism/Christianity). Christianity diverges from Judaism regarding Jesus, the Messiah. In Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, and also God Himself through a concept called the Trinity, which involves three persons and one God somehow (it's complicated). Jesus died on the Cross to pay for humanity's sin (Good Friday, today) and rose from the Cross three days later (Easter). The Second Coming is when Jesus returns to Earth not to forgive (as the First Coming was) but to judge. In Judaism, Jesus is not the Messiah and simply a man, as Jesus was underwhelming and not who they expected, and Easter, the Trinity, and the entire New Testament isn't the Word.

You actually bring up a very interesting point and one of the problems in churches today. The first is that no church should ever shame someone for their sin (we are not in the Middle Ages, and I wouldn't like a church that does that either). A church should focus on forgiveness, not condemnation. The second thing is that it's always difficult for anyone to be told that what they are doing is wrong, whether it's true or not. The third thing is that many churches choose to gloss over less comfortable topics (this covers a wide range of things) and only focus on the "Jesus loves you" type sermons. This is unfortunate because it causes many to miss the point. Many churches choose to be more "inclusive" simply to avoid controversy. The fourth thing is that in the issue of homosexuality, there are two opposing forces at work: one side that sees it as some kind of "special sin" and one kind that doesn't have an issue with it at all. Sadly, the largest churches tend to be one kind or the other.

Don't get Westboro confused with real Christianity. If you take a look at where it is on Google Earth, you'll find a large house (frat house sized) with a pool, basketball court, and no parking. (this far suggests "cult" or at least "someone claiming to be a church to avoid taxes") On the contrary, many real Christian churches preach that God loves everybody, even though you're a sinner (as we are all).

First off, while clearance is an important issue, 22-23 feet seems extreme. I can stand up and a train can come roaring past me at easily twice my height, but I imagine a clearance of at least 21 feet would be needed for the "piggyback" cars that I imagine the Ship Channel area cars would have. Secondly, remember that the train is already running in the street, dealing with stoplights. While crossing a freight train is obviously counterintuitive to a light rail's reliability and speed, it only runs into the issue of scheduling and stopping times. Thirdly, East End/Harrisburg residents tend to be NIMBY types and have always been, and I don't think that there should be all this fighting over overpasses and underpasses. What if there was an even more radical plan: just abandon the line. There's half a mile of track in there and just two stations (three if you count individual platforms). That's not very much for just a short bit of track. You wouldn't need to strip out tracks, just dismantle the platforms, remove the Botts dots for the track, and reopen necessary left turn lanes and all. The main line will still function as always. The actual track will be mothballed for future use should they come to a compromise and will be reactivated at that date.

See, I feel like that if the light rail was submerged for very short distances--1 to 3 miles, then that would keep costs down while ensuring accessibility of the light rail's speed and the road.

If the STATIONS were not underground and spaced out enough, "underground crime" and all the problems associated with that would tend to be minimized. I think that in terms of airport connections, an extension of the Red Line could involve jogging from Fulton Street to the inner median of Hardy Toll Road and that would be underground. Then it wouldn't be very far from the airport.

If I recall correctly, you pointed out Los Angeles, which is currently adding a $40,000,000,000 new subway line extension. "Regret" would be a pretty light word if it didn't reach its lofty goals/drove the city into bankruptcy/etc.

There was a store in College Station area, too This link has a few ads, such as showing brands stocked. The store went out of business in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Typically "heavy rail" implies a multiple-car, spaced out (by like, at least a mile) system with an electrified third rail. By building a LRT-compatible subway, there should be lower costs. The other reason it should be minimized (overall, at least less stations below ground) is ADA compliance. Everyone always talks about how great the NYC subway is but remember, there are 500 stations between the subway and Staten Island Railroad, and only a fifth of them are ADA (wheelchair) compliant (source) as of summer 2013. Any new station in America will have to be such, and that will drive up costs and makes underground less appealing.

What if the light rail crossed the railroad at grade? Yes, it would be a bit awkward, but has anyone considered it?

I agree, when emerging from the tunnels to that building, I didn't realize it was a condominium (I thought it was an office tower or perhaps a swanky hotel--not residential!)

Howard, did you even read the last page and a half? Nobody said trains weren't useful at all. I tend to like light rail myself. I will tell my basic thoughts for rail-based transit summarized below: 1) I like rail-based mass transit. I think that all major cities (800k+ typically) should have one of some sort. 2) "Street running" rails aren't preferable. Heavy rail (Union Pacific, et. al.) have been trying to do away with similar things over the last past decades, and here people are arguing for it. It does not benefit the road, often cutting out lanes on major arterials and eliminating turns. It does not benefit many businesses when access has been limited. And it doesn't help the train, which has to stop at the intersections. 3) Just because someone opposes rail does not make them "evil" or "stupid". There's better reasons to hate politicians... 4) Freeways DO benefit more people but that doesn't mean rail doesn't benefit others. 5) There is a way that freeways and mass transit can co-exist. If you want to try to make roads miserable to encourage mass transit, that's wrong. If roads are miserable to begin with, that's okay. 6) We should not build rail (or highways, for that matter) "at any cost" 7) Transfers are bad and should be minimized. That's why I think there should be only light rail and commuter rail (compatible with freight) at most.

Well, Vancouver doesn't have any freeways in the center city itself, but it does have it in the outer areas, and it does sprawl outward. If a city is successful and people want to move/work there, it will have sprawl. Period. There are some people who have this fantasy delusion that if there were no freeways, there would be no sprawl, and everyone would live comfortable and happy in the inner city with high density towers. It was this that I had a problem with: I think the better question is "what is the highest density achieved for a city without a rail-based mass transit system"?

The trolley lines certainly didn't add density (and were very unreliable). Sprawl tends to occur naturally in ALL cities whether they have highways or not.

Light rail doesn't "create" density (nor do highways "create" sprawl). If the demand is there, density will happen. After all, downtown started to sprout skyscrapers long before the light rail came down Main.

It is indeed not the best example, because the students to non-students ratios are totally different. Still, that doesn't change the fact that there are many who commute from farther distances (far beyond the light rail's terminus) and the few that live on campus (there are scads of decent apartments and rental homes within walking distance of TAMU, but UH and TSU are in a sketchy neighborhood where that is not the case--thus strengthening the case for light rail in Houston though)