IronTiger

KKR destroyed Schwegmann and Bruno's, two Southern supermarkets that I would've loved to see stick around more. Currently, Cerberus owns a company called AB Acquisition LLC, which originally owned Albertsons LLC, formerly Albertsons Inc. before their split. Not too long ago, AB Acquisition bought New Albertsons Inc., which was other Albertsons and other names that Albertsons had, that had gone to SuperValu. Briefly to differentiate between what SuperValu had and what Cerberus had, the Cerberus stores went under "Albertsons Market" until they merged back and that name disappeared after New Albertsons was acquired. Then AB Acquisition has bought Safeway Inc., putting the three under the banner of AB Acquisition. Once the deal closes, AB Acquisition will likely absorb all three and change its name to something like "Safeway Albertsons Inc." or even "Safeway Inc." again. As time goes on, the new company may start to partially buy itself back from Cerberus and start consolidating brand names and stores. Some stores in California where Albertsons and Safeway co-exist may be sold, and it's possible that the Albertsons name will exit DFW with those stores being rebranded as Tom Thumb. Store brands will likely be cut, and new prototypes could be created (the "Lifestyle" format by Safeway is getting rather dated now). Perhaps they could also engineer a "Plus" sized format as well with general merchandise, or market to locals better (though historically, both did neither). What I can't predict is what will happen to the Randalls distribution center, if it will get busier with the influx of Albertsons to the east and to the north, or if it will fold and consolidate with others.

The one across from Central Market, I blame The Fresh Market's incompetence rather than Central Market's dominance. Here's the reasoning: Central Market opened 2001. The grocery store where Rice was later opened in the 1970s or 1980s, changing hands (Safeway->AppleTree->Rice Epicurean). From 2001 to 2013, Rice successfully fended off Central Market, yet Fresh Market folds in a year where Rice Epicurean, a far smaller chain, was able to survive. Of course, it didn't help that TFM's product mix was too similar to Central Market's, too...

Swamplot demo report. 4 buildings being razed.

The Houston Center was originally supposed to cover far more than it does today, going over the area that includes the convention center and Discovery Green. Here's a few renderings (more to be revealed soon) of the Houston Center that wasn't. The cooler part about Houston Center was that even though it took up dozens of blocks and had an extensive system of parking, enclosed concourses, and even a people-mover, the streets weren't closed off to traffic thanks to a "platform city" concept.

Since the line crosses an active line at Wallis, why didn't Metro basically let them run trains on it for a "junker" rent (as in, Metro performs minimal maintenance), saving them dismantling costs and making a small profit on the side?

Awesome, we're down to using falsehoods (the freeway removals you state that have actually happened--and please don't use citizens proposals as "in the planning process", because you're just trying to inflate your purpose--have either demolished pre-Interstate highways, highways that were compromised by earthquakes and were stubs anyway, or the like--even that freeway in SK wasn't a vital artery and didn't carry nearly the amount of traffic wider surface streets did) and insults (this "I'm a visionary, you're a peasant who can't see the past the present" nonsense). Besides, your beloved light rail takes you safely to either end.

A woeful statement, which demonstrates how naïve you are about this still.

Well, merging didn't work out all that well for Sears and Kmart, but that could be mostly attributed to some awful management and not necessarily overlap. If Randalls packs up, then it could mean more in-fill by what's here through renovations or rebuilds (Fiesta, Kroger, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, HEB, the GSC independents). What's interesting is going to be the DFW grocery market since there's Kroger, Tom Thumb, Walmart Neighborhood Market, and Albertsons already. Increased rumblings that H-E-B is coming (they own several sites and approved rezoning for some) will likely lead to a surprise blitz of H-E-B locations in and around Dallas.

According to the Chron, the area under the Pierce Elevated was basically a homeless camp with dozens there on a Friday night back in the 1980s. You could have a great "urban" experience back then!

Pasadena Town Square was built behind the Foley's, with Sears being added in the late 1990s.

It amuses me that you think that arguments for not removing the Pierce Elevated is fear-mongering.

DART is in the process of adding a line to the rail. Do you think that magically their numbers will increase even twofold? Especially using averages, it doesn't take into account where people are and where job centers are. Yeah, I do. For someone who has great plans of a more effective transportation network, removing the Pierce is a horrible idea and yet you still accept that as a realistic idea whether by naïvety or stubbornness.

Again, bad examples...and many of those don't have spread-out job centers like Houston does. L.A. has more miles of rail-based transit than Houston does...when will it be "enough"? That was a bit of an exaggeration on my part, admittedly, but with your ideas like eliminating parking requirements, setbacks, and urban highways like the Pierce Elevated (and I'm pretty sure that when I last mentioned it you were still seriously into the idea--I was hoping you'd save face and admitted that it while would be nice if it were gone, removing it is just not feasible) it sure seemed that way.

Idle talk isn't really a "moving forward" idea, and when you get into it, many people would rather not see tax dollars sunk into light rail, or roads/businesses destroyed for new lines. I could wish for a 7-Eleven within a block of my house, but I wouldn't want the light, ground, or noise pollution associated with it.

The only cities that have come close to the way Houston is set up is maybe Dallas and LA, and neither of those are particularly good examples since in both cases they consist of a bunch of cities jammed against each other (the LA metro, particularly, is composed of a bunch of independent, non-suburb cities conglomerated into the mass), both have been "investing heavily in rail projects" and yet have worse traffic (possibly because of a messy highway layout). Comparisons are mostly null anyway, since you yourself have this unrealistic fantasy that the Inner Loop should resemble Manhattan.

Livincinco is not against all forms of passenger rail, he doesn't buy the reactionary "lots of rail now for future growth" argument. In fact, if you pay attention, no one here on HAIF is anti-rail. Heck, even Culberson isn't this anti-rail fiend as you depict him to be, he's just essentially the figurehead for a bunch of NIMBYs (which Houston has in abundance). You on the other hand, set yourself up to be a pro-rail strawman, arguing things like throttling highways to force more people into light rail.

I'm not sure how Cerberus will combine all the brands: from the press report, the two Albertsons Inc. "baby companies", Albertsons LLC and New Albertsons Inc., haven't combined into one yet. Albertsons always seemed too expensive for a somewhat sub-par supermarket, but I guess with Tom Thumb/Randalls/et. al. seeming too expensive too, then I guess it would all even out. One wonders how they'll combine in areas with market overlap--since the Albertsons name seems to have been shrinking in Dallas-Fort Worth (at least that's my perception), they'll probably convert everything over to Tom Thumb...in stronger Safeway markets (California, Arizona, etc.) the Albertsons name will also probably vanish.

In the case of Chicago, they should try to do the nation's first reactivation of rails-to-trails by rebuilding track.

Yeah but the line isn't designed that way. Even though a theoretical commuter rail system would spiderweb-out to points farther out, you couldn't and wouldn't take College Station to Beaumont on a line, just like it would be impractical to go from Cypress to Sugar Land via rail. Remember--Houston would still be the "core".

Wow, it went through! So, just like how Safeway got itself back into Houston by buying Randalls, Albertsons is getting back by buying Safeway. Go figure.

Well, considering that LA has already built up miles of rail, by your criteria, they should have less congestion, and your suspicion of the list, while legitimate, is a bit silly considering that you continually paraded Vancouver as having the "highest quality of life", "most desirable city", etc. etc. without question on other lists.

Aren't a lot of the Chicago lines giant grade separated affairs 5-6 tracks wide, though?

For someone who applauds rail-based mass transit in and around Houston, you sure seem critical of the area to connect lines to the greater metropolitan area. Now, although business has picked up in the last few years, the 290 corridor has lost a lot of traffic in the last five years (especially around 2009, but now I hear a train maybe three times in an hour--I take classes near tracks, see) but there are less railroad spurs these days. Furthermore, as long as trains run on time and on schedule, with two tracks, a commuter rail could run on one and freight on the other (it is not a "two way street", nor a "this one's for us, that's for you"). However, the Washington Avenue part of the track needs to be dealt with, since it's already double-tracked and is even a quiet zone: and I remember seeing some plan about sinking the rail and/or adding commuter rail in a plan somewhere, so perhaps sinking it (a 500 m grade lowering area between the "Grape Arbor" over I-10 and T.C. Jester to sink the tracks) would be ideal.

The way I see it, if we're talking about Houston commuter rail, the whole group of Houston-influenced areas should be included, especially as growth grows in those directions. I am also an advocate of using what you have. Existing freight tracks go toward The Woodlands, and toward College Station, and even to an extent Sugar Land. Direct connections do not exist for Westpark, Katy, or Beaumont. In planning for commuter rail, they should minimize transfers as well. In Denton, in an effort to mirror the East Coast cities with their "superior" mass transit, you take a train to the Trinity Mills station, then ride another 20 miles on light rail to downtown. Now we can quibble about how light rail shouldn't run out to the suburbs, etc. but the point is, transfers should not be required. Notice in my "Northwest Line", a transfer to Northwest Transit Center and the Uptown line is needed only if you were going to Uptown. You could then take that line to go east to downtown, but why would you want to? Likewise, there would be a "North Line". There would be an airport stop at Rankin and Hardy with a shuttle to the airport (an elevated median on Rankin just for the shuttles for would be pretty sweet, and there you have your "airport connection" rail). Spring station is Cypresswood and Hardy or closer to Old Town Spring, The Woodlands station is at College Park, and then finally Conroe. This would be relatively fast as it is a straight section of track that goes through several communities. The Gulf line would require a turnaround just south of Nance Street so that it swings around and goes on the track that's in EaDo. Eastwood station at McKinney and Milby, Pearland, Alvin, then Galveston. Between the Gulf Line, the North Line, and the Northwest Line, that would connect a vast area with rail transit...and it's all done with pre-existing ROW except for maybe 4 miles.

Beaumont has 118k as of 2010, College Station-Bryan together has 175k. The point is that a good network of commuter rail should stretch out to the fringes of the greater Houston area. College Station and Beaumont are those fringes and there is rail to support that. While under the system I'm thinking about, it would be impractical to connect those two directly to each other. However, since the rail system to College Station also supports freight is one track most of the way, I would propose doubling the trackage grade and building a bypass around Hempstead to take out that nasty curve (roads would be able to reconnect since they don't need to worry about crossing anymore, plus Hempstead no longer has active spurs). The "Northwest Line" would feature the following stops with a star for infrequent service/whistle stops: College Station*, Prairie View*, Fairfield, Cypress (near FM 1960), Northwest Transit Center (hopefully this connects to other light rail, which would connect you to Uptown), The Heights (near the Walmart--this would compensate for lack of light rail in the area), Downtown. How does that sound?