IronTiger

Well, if we were to extend Red Line even further, an airport connection, while making sense on paper, really isn't all that practical for low speed systems like light rail (as opposed to places like DC's Metro) if you intend on having people catch flights that way. If it were up to me, I'd take the line up from Berry to Airline, which would intersect with Greenspoint area (offices).

I was browsing around Houston Chronicle articles, and I found this tidbit from 1991: This isn't a huge surprise to me (I had read that there was a McDonald's inside a Sears in Michigan in the 1980s), but I'm wondering which two Sears stores in town had the Golden Arches inside. I think it would be something built in the 1980s, so I'm guessing one of the three 'brook malls, but I could be wrong? Anyone remember?

I dunno, from what I've heard about the Half Price Books it's great, and to me, the street corner is already pretty "urban", no need to slap up some stucco monstrosities there.

After reading about the fancy one in Webster (very un-Fiesta like), I'm starting to wonder if it really did start as a Fiesta after all. I'm betting they became more like the Fiesta of today when they absorbed all the relatively small and dumpy AppleTree stores... CONFIRMED!

I found out very recently that I do have some family connection to the Heights. My father lived there for a period of a few years in elementary school (went to Harvard Elem. School) in the 1960s. It was in this era that his dad (my grandfather) took him down to what was the middle of nowhere to see the Astrodome, which was still under construction. The crazy thing to me is that we DID drive through the Heights a few years back, (trying to get to Penzey's Spices) and he didn't even seem to recognize the area, probably because the area had gentrified so much since then (compared to a Baton Rouge neighborhood where he had lived also, which had conversely grown rougher, even by the 1980s--it's probably even worse now). I just never knew that for all the Heights-related discussions we've had, my father was part of it.

I still say that when they rebuild the Macy's building as something else, the tracks should (ever so briefly) descend to the lower level to provide basement/tunnel access to the new building, then rise back up to street level. To me, I want Main Street restored, but it will probably never happen.

On contemporary pictures of the building, I've seen the curved outline of what looks like where it had the Days Inn Hotel sign. Did it have anything else after it ceased being a Days Hotel?

Yeah, they were. They ended up eating at the Hobby Center's café, but that was okay, as one of them had been to Canada recently and thus, the prices seemed quite reasonable...

There appears to be a lot of surface parking lots in downtown Houston (not that's theres anything wrong with that) but I just can't help wondering if there were any notable buildings that met an untimely demise and weren't replaced with newer buildings. Are there any particularly missed?

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Rice Epicurean was supplied by Grocers Supply Co., right? As from what I've seen, I've never been particularly happy with produce offerings at stores where I've seen it (in quality or price), though it could vary from store to store (the produce at the local Walmart is better than a nearby Kroger, for instance).

OK, let's back up. Closing off the Pierce Elevated won't create Hurricane Rita style traffic jams. That much we know. People put up with construction zones even though they don't like it, because the end result is better. In my home in the exurbs to the northwest (I use that term in reference to my city as a joke, even though some people do use it as such), I've seen many construction projects: often narrowing lanes from two to one, or diverting traffic onto side streets that were never intended to handle the load, both from the location and the physical stress (yes, Slick, roads do wear out from traffic). During construction zones, things do become WORSE in terms of traffic, but not for the long run. By proposing a closure of a freeway (and not your outlier examples you use as gospel), you intend to make things worse--permanently. Your ignorance of posts or parts of posts that poke holes in your crackpot theories means you have no realistic approach to actually addressing the problem. Your delusion of removing ALL freeways removes the last shreds of credibility from your argument. Your unabashed lying (which you have never redacted) in previous posts leads me (and others) to believe that you don't live in downtown Houston, or been to Vancouver, or anything like that. Had you a have a full-time job, you should probably be fired for posting all the time on Internet forums. I admit that I have a part-time job this summer, so I can do so freely, but you as a supposedly working adult do not. In either case, you are probably a suburban high schooler enjoying lots of free time, or you are an unemployed (or underemployed, I'm not saying you don't work part time at Taco Bell/Starbucks/Kroger) liberal arts degree graduate, likely still blaming Bush as the reason you can't find a "real" job. See why Montrose, RedScare, and others have left, and it's just you and me? They can't deal with a lunatic who refuses to look at reality, a cultist who would make even the most rabid Bible-thumper seem sane and open-minded. See ya.

Again, that's temporary. It would be like someone breaking their leg (which heals) to losing it completely (a stump). See? There's a big difference.

No need for name calling. Also, in 1986 you were probably under the age of 4, at best. I'm not even going to touch this one. Clearly someone with a frighteningly loose grip on traffic reality cannot be debated with. No response to this one I see. Here's another guess. You not only live in the suburbs, but also go to high school. You aren't stupid and do relatively well in high school but your cluelessness and generally being naïve about freeways suggest otherwise. You are also a fan of SimCity.

You've demonstrated a few times that you are a liar, so I find some of your claims hard to believe, especially your claim of going to Vancouver nearly a dozen times. If you really did go to college, you obviously have never taken on classes on urban traffic, nor have even read books on traffic and urban planning in the library there. The "total lack of progress in Houston in its transit infrastructure" is a laughable and patently untrue claim. The rebuilding of Interstate 10, US-59, improvements to 288, and others I've undoubtedly missed will be dismissed by you as not relating to light rail. The first light rail line wasn't built until 2004, and still fell short of ridership predicted. Naturally, there were some delays in getting other lines operational. Before you start blaming politicians, a lot of opposition to light rail came from your fellow Houston citizens.

The more I think about it, the more I believe Slick is not actually a resident of Houston per se, he's a bored teenager/early twenty-something living in the suburbs. I expect Slick to deny most of these, but I'll let the rest of you see if any of these are true or not. You, Slick, live in the suburbs with your parents. The car-centric lifestyle, the fact that all the major stores and restaurants are on freeways, and the general boredom of being a chain and McMansion wasteland (in cynical eyes) has led you to be discontent with highways, fueled by anti-freeway literature run by people who take unusual examples (SF, Portland, Seoul, Milwaukee, Boston, etc.) as the wave of the future. You are also not rich (parents, maybe) and don't come from a third-world country or a world traveler like you've purported in the past. In fact, you've never been to Vancouver or Seoul in your life. Probably not San Francisco, and possibly (though a good possibility) of visiting Manhattan. You overstate your boxing skills here. While I'm not debating you do it for fun and sport in real life, I'm also guessing you wear protective headgear. You do not commute to downtown Houston, but have been there (not on peak hours, though).

You just signed up to HAIF an hour ago and made this post. You must forgive me if I think you're a puppet of another member here.

Wow, you're back to the same topics again, even though we've talked about how those specific instances were nothing like Houston. And you're being realistic? Burying a highway is not a "compromise". Well, you do have an imagination. No questioning that. Slick. I don't even live in Houston (I'm starting to wonder if you don't, either--it's okay, you can admit you live in the suburbs, I won't laugh), and it is a diverse, interesting city with wildly different neighborhoods. Pick any major Houston road that runs east/west or north/south. Drive on it starting from the terminus. You will be amazed at what you'll find.

Why are the downtown areas different? Wouldn't you rather have Katy Freeway replaced with an eight lane boulevard with a light rail running up and down? Sure sounds like it...

The first link was about bridge closures--many of them temporary. If you close a few lanes of a simple bridge, people will find alternative routes. A total and permanent closure of a major freeway that carries not only local but cross country traffic is not going to be anywhere close. For the last four pages, you've pointed at Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Portland (not to forget Seoul, too) and blubbered about how they're no different than highways that go through downtown Houston, which is completely false. And unsurprisingly, you ignored my last post because you couldn't come up with a way to retort it with links that you pulled from Google.

OK, find me where any of them were in favor of downtown highway removal, not specific cases. No? I thought so. Those aren't freeway removal projects, though. It's often a case of taking a narrow city street, four lanes in each direction, no turn lane, and turning it into two lanes, bike lanes, and a left hand turn lane. Do you have a link to the abstract? Were they in cities with shrinking or growing population? Was there a recent alternative built to render the old road obsolete? I'm not asking you to find were they advocated removing freeways in cities, because they probably didn't. Wouldn't want to burden you. Oh, and here's one more thing. This is Interstate 78 in New Jersey heading into Holland Tunnel to exit at New York City. It's one of the few places where there is a gap in the Interstate Highway System. (picture from Wikipedia) And that's just a stub heading into New York, not cross traffic. All that car exhaust, all that noise, and probably a total pain just to cross a street...yessir, that's going to make our neighborhoods great and walkable.

There was a Hamburgers by Gourmet in College Station, too, but I forgot where. It was in the 1980s, I think.

Sounds like a great idea until they put in a crash test dummy in and it comes out in three pieces. The real fun begins when a fat person gets stuck in there.

One of the reasons why freeways were put in their original place is because that's where land value was the cheapest. Not EVERYTHING is a racist plot. It doesn't work in reverse. Oh, and in case you try to stand by the San Francisco example, take this quote, from Wikipedia. The Central Freeway was never really utilized to its capacity (it essentially went nowhere). Quality of life is kind of irrelevant if your surface streets are constantly pounding with traffic. No, you didn't. The "Freakonomics" people and the other random people/bloggers aren't experts. Are you kidding me? You've ignored my posts and most of the others in this forum. You didn't answer those because you couldn't win, and I've lost count (livincinco, Montrose1100, among others). I asked you about highway removals and tunnels and you couldn't give me a straight answer after I asked about two or three times. Well, I guess I'm done here. You can go back to playing SimCity 4 (where demolishing and rebuilding freeways is quite easy and carries no repercussions, as you've stated), or Wii Sports (where you're an amateur boxing champion), all while staying out of the heat you despise. Have fun!