IronTiger

I thought it was the Galleria/Uptown line that was supposed to connect up to Greenway Plaza?

Following a tip in the local newspaper, I found a site operated by UNT called "Portal to Texas History" with lots of newspaper archives, including many from small towns. It sadly did not have the Bryan Daily Eagle, but did have late 1800s/early 1900s http://texashistory.unt.edu/search/?q=houston+post&fq=dc_type%3Atext_newspaper&t=fulltext&start=0&fq=str_title_serial%3AThe+Houston+Daily+Post'>copies of Houston Daily Post. What do you think? I think it's pretty cool, though I'd prefer to see something from post-WWII (as that was when Houston took off)

Wasn't the whole "towne center" and the H-E-B originally supposed to be NORTHWEST of the outlet mall? I remember it being that way...

Interesting, especially since The Woodlands isn't even a real city (yet). I'm guessing the decision more involved with money instead of actual population.

I don't think I've seen the sideways lights anywhere else (not in Louisiana or Tennessee), where it's extremely common in Texas (College Station-Bryan, almost all of Houston, Waco, etc.)

Cool video. But what's with the new lights? Don't they realize this is Texas, where lights face sideways?

Called "Northpoint Crossing" now. Wake me up when they start actually building something...

The Amtrak station is at least connected to an active freight line, but anything connecting the old Union Station was abandoned years before. To rebuild a railroad in 1996 would involve cutting through active streets and creating all sorts of dangerous crossings for pedestrians and vehicles.

Yeah, the Med Center has something funky with the trains going on. Driving into the light rail ROW to make a left hand turn? No thanks!

I have to disagree with railroad being part of the original plan for the ballpark. Not that it wasn't planned that way, but it's way too impractical. First, we're talking about "who uses the train". Going up from Galveston won't bring the fans needed to make it worthwhile, neither is routing it up to College Station. Secondly, the idea of a railroad going through a heavily pedestrian area seems unwise at best.

I distinctly remember there being a CiCi's on the property. So it was in-line, or where El Chapparal is?

Unfamiliar as I am with the bus fleet, I've found that buses tend to stop at major and busy roads, slightly depressing themselves to the ground to let people in and out. While buses certainly have a pre-existing network to go on (a major plus), with buses stopping at relatively inconvenient times, I would think that the argument that light rails slowing down traffic (minus the left turn problem) is negated somewhat.

I've been driving past Cypress Towne Center and the adjacent development north of it for the last past several years now, but I can't find a HAIF thread on it. Specifically, I wanted to ask about one thing: apparently there was supposed to be a Mervyn's there? Where would've it had been? It doesn't look they ever opened.

The University Line and the Galleria/Uptown line would've been extremely effective, connecting in essence Rice/Montrose, Greenway Plaza, Galleria, and the Northwest Transit Center all in one fell swoop. I remember seeing somewhere (Christof's blog, maybe elsewhere, that had a planned METROMap (http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/27568-current-planned-metrorail-map/'>link) overlaid on a real street map. Apparently, there were distant future-plans to connect it to Hobby, Katy, or IAH.

Firestone is on Hempstead Road, it was Penney's auto center until '83. I got the idea from http://mallimages.mallfinder.com/Glimcher/dimages/oldpdfs/NorthwestMall.pdf'>here (page 24). It's obviously some years out of date, but "JCPenney T.B.A." is the auto center, the Post Office is gone, the theater is now El Chapparal, and Foley's T.B.A., which IIRC was Cici's Pizza at last count, was possibly...what?

I didn't go to the Flying Saucer to see people. I realized we were outside next to Main Street (I knew because the train went through the middle), and I was just a bit surprised why it seemed so empty. Given that downtown has people living in it (Post Rice Lofts was visible), it was a bit strange, that's all.

Given that Bellaire was three lanes in each direction prior to construction, why not just take out the median (or drastically reduce it) and resurface the roads?

Right. I think it was going on that weekend. I didn't go to the South Loop at all, though—but that explains a lot of things. I am kind of curious if kylejack DID walk past the Flying Saucer when I was outside. It was sometime between 4 and 5.

OK, I recently went to Northwest Mall and was amazed how even though it was long past glory days, it was still relatively well occupied. It was the first time I had ever gone there in person. What I want to know more about is that little building in front of Foley's / Macy's. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8243916/mysterybuilding.png I seem to remember that it was a CiCi's Pizza until a few years ago, but what it did it start out as? The answer came when I was looking for a PDF of the mall, it had a site plan with Foley's, JCPenney, an outparcel movie theater (later SRO, now El Chapparal?), a tiny post office (even closer to the freeway, gone by '95), "JCPenney T.B.A." (the old JCPenney auto center, later Firestone), and "Foley's T.B.A." (this building). Was it a Foley's Auto Center? I mean, there was one downtown, so it's not out of the question entirely, is it?

When did H-E-B open in Houston proper? The Fountainview H-E-B opened in 2001 according to Yelp and was the first one according to them, but on the bayou (Braes Bayou?) there's a tiny store that was almost certainly an H-E-B Pantry (facade similar), and it IS in Houston.

Well, it's not the fact that I'm stating a generalization for Houston--I was just there on one weekend (the first time in Houston for a while) and while the traffic problem wasn't a surprise, it was a relatively pleasant surprise to be in a park and not be surrounded by throngs of people. You could actually "get away", even though you were surrounded by highways and roads. Downtown also seemed to have relatively no surface pedestrian traffic. I understand when the weather's nasty (it was a bit on the chilly side, admittedly) or too hot, or when the tunnels are open, but it was a Saturday afternoon at Main and Capitol. This is the downtown of one of the largest cities in America (and the world, technically), downtown seems mostly occupied, and there's not very many people on the streets?

Hermann Park is somewhat more touristy (understatement) than Memorial Park. I dare say that the area is the biggest draw for tourists from outside the city (given it has the museums, the zoo, etc.) and inside as well. Downtown and Memorial Park aren't exactly tourist centers, and they weren't very busy.

As by a slew of a few recent posts indicate, I visited Houston last weekend, but was appalled at the construction of Bellaire and Beltway 8. Not that there was construction, just in the terrible way they handled it. So they were working on the http://goo.gl/maps/LH9L1'>eastbound stretch. They closed off the eastbound lanes entirely, made the left hand turn lanes from the westbound into a new eastbound, and also added another eastbound lane next to that, creating four lanes with no turn lanes at all. The problem is that since they destroyed the trees in the median and cannibalized enough of it anyway (and they would, presumably, destroy the rest of it when they work on the westbound portion), why couldn't they completely remove the median for a turn lane (you know, running down the center of the road) while working on the eastbound? That way, when they work on the westbound, the new temporary lanes in the median become the new westbound lanes, and when that's complete they re-do the median? That makes sense to me, because without a turn lane the traffic was far worse than it should've been. - If there is already an existing topic on this, please merge -

So, I went to Houston last weekend. Fun, yes, but I was surprised at how relatively empty some parts were. While there wasn't a shortage of people on the highways or Chinatown, Memorial Park had refreshingly few people there from what I can tell. Yeah, there were people in the fields and in the parking lot, but it wasn't any more crowded than any local city park I've been to (and a heck of a lot less crowded than other urban parks I've seen--or national parks for that matter). The weather was nice and a Saturday afternoon--so where was everybody? Even having a beer at the Flying Saucer downtown, a Saturday afternoon had nearly no one on the streets. The train rumbled by with people in it, and the bar was crowded, but the actual outside area had very few people actually out and about. Is this normal for Houston, or just that day? (March 2nd, 2013)

I was at Houston, intersection of Capitol and Main, and saw there were rails embedded in the ground crossing the existing tracks. The problem was, it didn't seem to be connected to anything! While there was construction zones nearby, I don't believe the road at Capitol was disturbed at all.