IronTiger

What would be ideal, I think, is to have BRT that could be cheaply converted to LRT at a later date. Maybe have the tracks already embedded and then run buses over it. Maybe?

Fascinating that most of the buildings survived the hurricane.

I agree that commuter rail certainly sounds great: although the Westpark and Katy lines have been dismantled, there are existing rail corridors that stretch out to Cypress (and beyond, Hempstead and College Station), Sugar Land (and beyond, Rosenberg and Sealy), and other destinations. There's a few problems with that, though: the lines are owned by UP, which means that they'll have priority in freight traffic, even in double-tracked areas, so the areas that aren't double tracked will have to be, resulting in major investment. That cuts into the "pre-existing network". Secondly, they start in the suburbs, where do they go? Even if UH-D became a transit center where you could switch commuter rail to light rail, the main destination isn't downtown in most cases. Where else would you have the 290 commuter trains stop? The Northwest Transit Center? Those transfers will build up average commuting time (and frankly, I think ~30 minutes average is great) and probably won't noticeable impact in gridlock.

Houston Chronicle's archives was going pretty crazy on me, but I gathered that this plant shuttered in 1986 before the merger (they owned a smaller piece of land nearby on Post Oak, it's residential), and that they also owned a large plant on 290. Regardless, if it closed in 1986 it certainly explained why it was "downsized" by 1989.

On Interstate 10, the area that is now Marq*E Entertainment Center, a Walmart, and some other stuff, there used to be a huge-looking industrial plant of some sort in the late 1970s! It was downsized (partially demolished) in other shots (1989 and 1995) and completely gone by 2002 (with Marq*E to the south, the clearing of the lot and further development happened later). Cooper Cameron relating to the Former Cameron Iron Works Facility located at 1000 Silber Road in Houston, Harris County, Texas. For comparison, this is what it looks like now. Obviously this used to be something huge, but what was it?

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I was writing on a mobile device. The scenario is light rail is to be placed down a highway, replacing two lanes. The train is supposed to eliminate 700 cars from the road, and in a rare case, it actually works that way. Problem: the lanes service 1500 cars a day, each way. While about half can move into light rails (the cars that can actually utilize the light rail and not from a different exit--I am simplifying a lot of stuff here). Those 800 cars that can no longer utilize the lane have to overcrowd the other lanes.

Yeah, the cars were also damaged.

We have discussed the benefits and drawbacks of light rail, and light rail is not the "magic key" to sustainable growth. It is also ridiculous to talk about feasibility when someone wants a massive rail system laid down in an impossibly short timeline, or flippantly discusses removing an important elevated freeway while refusing to acknowledge the drawbacks. Hey, if you need me, I'll be in the Historic Houston section, or maybe trying to revive the Bryan-College Station subforum. See ya!

Sounds familiar, huh? No one here is against light rail inherently, and light rail does take some cars off the road. However, is a train that can take cars off the road but ends up using less "car equivalents" still be considered efficient?

The electric interurban was a private company, therefore, it's not public transit.

It would really depend on the market. In Houston, I could imagine Kroger closing and rebranding some, ending the name here, but say, for Austin, them to continue operating under the name and give HEB a run for its money. In Dallas, it may end up providing an entrance of HEB into the area.

Apparently the rumor now is that Kroger will buy up Randalls. It would certainly give them strength in some markets (San Francisco, Washington DC) that they had little to no presence before but would muck around with others (like Ralphs in LA, or Randalls in Houston—although the market gain from the stores probably wouldn't be very much)

Incredible! I took a hunch and ran with it, and my efforts were handsomely rewarded. I knew that Galveston's H-E-B Pantry (shuttered 2008 under that name) used to be a Safeway, and I was right! Neat, huh?

Isn't one of the Randalls in the vicinity closing, like the one at Westheimer and Shepherd, I believe? They could go there!

Hey, just like Fox News!

If the store or chain is doing badly, it will probably close for good, sadly. It is in a high-value part of town. While unlikely, I wonder how plausible is it if they knocked down the old Foley's at Northwest Mall to build a smaller Micro Center store, using the reduced footprint as much-needed extra parking?

No, it should be based on a Midtown guy who thinks that the Pierce Elevated should be torn down because it looks ugly. All the traffic it carries can find alternate routes. Screw functionality. Also, anyone who opposes light rail is unambigously evil.

Apparently they had been deteriorating for years prior track and cars until Ike completely ruined the tracks, and funds were secured last summer. It looks like from previous articles that they do intend on getting them back up and running, just no timetable yet.

People remember them anyway. Here's a hint: in the psyche of most Americans, Nixon's work on U.S.-China relations isn't what comes to mind first. And besides, the idea of building highways through city centers pre-dated Eisenhower: Boston and San Francisco were building then-modern urban highways years before the Interstate system. The Interstate system modified them and introduced much-needed new standards such as shoulders and wider lanes. Therefore, the "Interstates through city centers" isn't a bastardization of the idea.

Something must have spooked them. Maybe the Dallas ones are underperforming.

Congress introduced it (he definitely had like-minded friends in Congress, if that's your asking) and they voted on it, but Presidents are usually remembered for things that happened during their legacy--otherwise Bush wouldn't have been vilified the way he did. And I'm loving that hilariously insensitive comparison of freeway construction to war.

Why does "Bellaire" have an accent mark? Have I been pronouncing it wrong this whole time (I thought it was pronounced same way as "Fresh Prince of XXXXXX"), or did someone just screw up in editing?

Now I know The Woodlands isn't Houston (unless they eventually annex it, which I guess this will count retroactively), but I've been doing research on 130 Sawdust Road. There's an H-E-B facing Interstate 45. In 2003, this was rebuilt from a Pantry, and was opened in April 1992 according to the Chronicle (article is from October 1992): The original store ("Woodlands 1" according to H-E-B's site) opened facing Sawdust Road. However, the store was around in 1989 (Google Earth) but it wasn't open yet. It looks like H-E-B may have taken the store's carcass from another retailer. Was there a Safeway there that closed prior to the chain becoming AppleTree?

I'm not saying that there are no racist feelings in Afton Oaks, I'm saying that your "Afton Oaks residents say X" is offbase. Of course, when you also say... ...some exaggeration is to be expected. Carry on, I suppose.

No, but I can see how many lanes they have through Google Earth, and many counts do include frontage roads. Maybe I can do a full breakdown later. I'm "denying" it but its "definitely" there? Lol, give me a break. At best, you heard some things and extrapolated some things, and now you're using that as a lousy reason why there needs to be rail on Richmond. I didn't say that I liked politicians either.