IronTiger

The Mall Hall of Fame article (which I submitted a photo to, "Jonah Norason" is one of my defunct Internet handles) back-references the HAIF article on MCM. I read somewhere else on HAIF that Weingarten's was where the ice rink is now.

Grand Parkway just got $350 million approved by the state. Next segment to be done will be Segment E from US-290 to Interstate 10. [link]

I was just explaining WHY I was going on the buses. Well, okay, I had my questions answered, at least. Thanks for helping out.

Wait, what? Are dogs offended by others at eating establishments? Man, I had no idea how bigoted dogs were!

It wasn't so much to ride the mass transit of Houston, it was to avoid driving through the bulk of Northwest Freeway, which gets very congested around 610 and I-10. I believe I lack both the experience and aggression to drive on inner Houston highways. Hence, avoiding the issue and catching the nearest mass transit I can, in this case, the Cypress Park & Ride.

You have to go downtown and show class schedules? Man, I thought it was just showing a student ID. That worked in the Houston Museum of Natural Science, at least, and I figured Metro worked the same way. Too bad. This alone makes buses substantially less appealing.

I guess that's another concern about buses: how slow they are. I downloaded the PDF regarding the Cypress Park & Ride and found two things I wasn't entirely happy with. The first thing was that in order to use a student discount, I would have to buy a Metro Q card, which I've heard is by and large and ripoff and probably even more so if you just intended to use a bus for a day. Secondly, the bus stops at the other HOV entrances along the way, which I certainly imagine would take up time. And in the case of safety, it's not that I'm afraid of something actually happening, but waiting 45+ minutes for a transfer in an unfamiliar location somewhere in Houston for a transfer is not a pleasant thought. I wish there was an easier way to travel inter-city. Amtrak quit running to College Station years ago and became exorbitantly expensive anyway, and Greyhound is very pricey as well.

Well, when I went to the website, it redirects me to "CurtMiller.com", a Houston magician who's available for large events. I'm drawing conclusions, alright.

Ah. I take it you have witnessed examples of College Station being a "xenophobic monoculture", or are you just basing things after a few people and what they said, and combining it with rumors and hearsay?

(posted something, but RedScare phrased it better. Sorry)

It wasn't the P&R part of the trip they were worried about, it was mostly, I think, the traffic in Cypress and the highways in general, which, if it's only to the P&R, isn't that bad (in terms of traffic). The idea of the P&R was to avoid the worst of 290 while saving gas. But I wanted to ask about the buses to verify if separate accounts were really true or just hearsay. The in-city buses weren't part of my original plan, but were a backup in case I couldn't get a ride from the NW Transit Center. I think dismissal of public transit is the result of a cultural stigma from the 1980s and early 1990s, with the New York subways and run-down Greyhound buses being examples.

So I was talking to my parents about driving to Cypress by myself to take a park & ride into Houston, where my cousin would pick me up. Doubt began to be cast if I could actually drive to the Cypress P&R in one piece, and the possibility that my cousin wouldn't be able to pick me up in the Northwest Transit Center. So when I suggested riding an inner-city bus they were not particularly impressed with that idea. In a separate incident two days later, during a history lecture about the growth of suburbs (and using Houston as an example!), he asked the class about how one could get around Houston without a car. When I suggested the bus, he said something along the lines of "Ha! Good luck with that! Russian roulette is safer!" As for people living in Houston, at the dinner table on Sunday, only one person there (my cousin) actually was from Houston (but never used a bus). There was also my other cousin and his family (wife & toddler) who had visited relatives (in the Heights!) often enough but I don't think they have ever ridden the buses. The professor in question lived in Houston most of his life but moved out probably about 10 years ago. Do their arguments hold any weight, or is it just rumors and fearmongering?

I think it would pose a possible health risk as well as annoyance. That being said, I also respect rights of restaurant owners. Maybe a license would be a reasonable compromise?

I changed my avatar to protest the rapidly-passing bill to get rid of the night speed limit. I believe all the "reasons" for getting rid of this to be inaccurate: 1) Supporters say that other states don't have a separate night speed limit (but said state's overall speed limit is lower) 2) Supporters say that headlight technology has gotten better (but many cars are not top-of-the-line, and studies have shown there's no good replacement for daylight. Plus, as you drive, your "lit vision" gets narrower) Additionally, no one has taken into account that removing the night speed limit and altering others to 75 is a needless hit to the budget, plus higher speed limits mean more accidents and gas usage. What say you?

I'm aware of Bad Houston Streets, but it's kind of hard to navigate, slow to load, and basically gives everywhere where there's a nasty pothole. You'd have to zoom in very high to see a specific spot. That being said, what do you think are the worst roads of Houston you've driven on? - The area between US-59 and Bissonnet of Kirby hasn't been paved since at least the days before the T&NO railroad crossed it (there is a bumpy patch there). This means the last time the road was touched was at least before 1995. - John F. Kennedy Blvd. south of Beltway 8 is shockingly bad. Patches and potholes abound! - Beltway 8 east of I-45 is much rougher and older than coming from the west. Isn't this the oldest part of the beltway? That's what I've actually ridden on and seen for myself, so there must be more. What do you think?

I'm a bit surprised that Ms. Parker isn't jumping in on the "we got shafted" argument, but she seemed rather apathetic about NASA's big downscaling about a year ago anyway.

Heard on the news it WAS politically motivated, and some want to have a congressional hearing on why Texas was snubbed. A lot of people on news comments, including me, believe that it's Obama's revenge for being George Bush's state. (Psst! Obama! Houston has LOTS of your supporters!)

Hmm...I could easily see College Station-Bryan becoming a viable stop, but the airport already (and ONLY) flies out to Houston and Dallas.

There was a subdivision called "Lamar Weslayan" near current-day Westpark/Edloe that was built in the 1950s and demolished for Southwest Freeway. It can be seen on the 1950s Google Earth image, and talked about in the book Houston Freeways. Most of the remaining subdivision was demolished soon after for office buildings, and only a small portion exists. One street was Norfolk Street, which still mostly exists.

The purple line WASN'T marked in the key, and sometimes, they don't draw lines accurately over aerial photos. Secondly, the post also dealt with when it might get DONE. Stop criticizing one element and read the REST of the post before jumping to conclusions!

OK, I know Grand Parkway has been hopelessly delayed and this won't to fruition for years, but how would they connect 99 to 290? I saw this map (http://www.grandpky.com/images/maps/segE_Map4of4.pdf) but it wasn't entirely clear. Would they move the railroad to add space, or would they do something like how Grand Parkway and Interstate 10 was done prior to the MKT abandonment? Also, around that area, a power center was planned, anchored by an H-E-B. There was a sign there for several years, will that ever get done?

Recently, some high-mast lighting was put up near a new overpass near me (College Station), which was weird because said overpass wasn't even an actual highway (it's about a mile stretch between two regular stoplights). I can see the lights from the second floor of my house.

Cool! They really are working on the light rail! And thanks for the pics: it shows me another part of Houston I haven't seen before...looks like it has Fiesta, Payless Shoes, and...Dairy Land?

Yeah, I seem to recall back in spring 2009 I printed out a map of the planned light rail routes (which were supposed to be well on their way to completion by 2011...) and was surprised that the US-59 paralleled ROW wasn't to be used for light rail.

My theory is that Houston is just kind of averse to theme parks. In addition to Astroworld, it also had a Busch Gardens, which only lasted a few years. You could make the argument that both Astroworld and Busch Gardens were landlocked, but there hasn't any theme parks in the suburbs or even less developed parts (Northeast Houston).