IronTiger

Well, rail and 610 widening would mean primarily business condemnation (I don't think any homes front 610 like they do 290...or 10). Either way, focusing in on a few off-hand unfounded views is a pretty lame way to paint rail opponents (specifically, Afton Oaks) in a bad light. Invalid arguments exist on both sides, and using the whole "Afton Oaks is racist" line is a strawman argument and ends up undermining your own position. That kinda brings me back to my point of why if Richmond rail is such a good idea (not saying it is or isn't), why are strawman arguments being used to defend it?

Las Alamedas closed in 2008, didn't it?

I'm sure some people said that. But it wasn't the top argument in preventing rail down Richmond, was it?

I'm also pretty sure that Afton Oaks was also part of the Uptown coalition that prevented any widening of 610 over the years (different thing, yeah I know) but NIMBYs are NIMBYs, with both valid (oak tree deaths) and invalid (stray currents) arguments.

I don't know, because Whole Foods has a pretty tight rein on what it sells, I know I'd be disappointed if I can't find a supermarket that sells a 2-liter Coke and a big bag of Lay's potato chips. (For those that say, "that's what convenience stores are for", that's what we're largely trying to avoid) That's why I think that a Target might be a pretty good fit for the downtown area, to be honest.

I noticed in the Sunday Streets for Washington, people were drawing with chalk on the roads when they were closed. I wonder if that was rinsed off, or if that actually stayed until Monday...?

Well, of course, Afton Oaks hated the idea, but I don't think it was "we don't want poor people riding through our neighborhood", which I can't find anything on, and besides, the nicer parts of Kirby/Allen Pkwy. have buses on them. There are of course other reasons why Afton Oaks hated the rail, and while I don't know the exact number one, here are some of the reasons opponents picked out: - for the main Richmond line, a water main that could fail if METRO's currents contacted it somehow. That was one thing posted by the anti-rail crowd, which METRO successfully countered. - Afton Oaks and others used yellow ribbons to show how much METRO would condemn, and that would lose businesses. In the end, the study showed that 40 businesses would lose a bit of curb space and only 5 would be condemned entirely. For what it's worth, the light rail does use up a lot of ROW (more than one would expect). In places like North Main, the light rail takes up two northbound and two southbound lanes. Doesn't that sound like a bit much? - Supposedly the 2003 ballot involved Westpark, not Richmond as the line in which the light rail would travel on. This was specifically referred to as the "Westpark line" in the ballot. Whether deception was actually meant in the ballot or not is unknown, but certainly cause for concern. - Part of the problem was the trees on Richmond. It's a well-known tree fact that if you disturb the areas around trees, they can take up to 2-3 years to die (see the sidewalk thread). The Richmond line work would've disturbed them. - Not specifically I could find where the rail really limits access on where you could turn, which is definitely a minus to light rail. - Going over the railroad at Richmond would've required an overpass, as an underpass wouldn't work due to the buried culvert running parallel to the railroad. Even if Afton Oaks was generally in favor of the rail, there would've been a stink raised over that for sure. - It wasn't until 2008 that the City Council actually approved five light rail lines (13-2). If they had said no, would people be up in arms that COH "overruled the vote of the people" or something? In fact, up until 2007, they were still thinking about BRT for some lines. Nowhere could I find the "Afton Oaks residents are racists" rhetoric oft-repeated. Until I can find real proof of that, I'm just going to regard it as nonsense, perpetuated by pro-rail extremists.

Ah, looks like it was a sitting area before.

A while back, I thought of the idea of converting not only the old Holiday Inn into condos but turning a good part of the lower levels into a large, multi-level Target. It's not only groceries but also common household goods that downtowners would need, and a Target would fill in those gaps nicely. The fact that it's on the rail line, would be close enough to service Midtown as well, and far enough away from the Heights Target that it wouldn't cannibalize sales would be pluses as well.

Casa Elena - had a Kingwood location Casa Tomas - had a Woodlands location, gone by '93 Either of those sound familiar?

Whoa now. That's a bit taking a LOT of things out of context. First, there seems to be confusion on what people want in downtown. "A full-line store, oh, but it can't be TOO large and even the parking lot for the Midtown Randalls is too large". Phoenicia is there, and what's wrong with it, really? Now, I've never been to Phoenicia, but if it's too small, there's not really a "huge" example for a downtown store anyway. If it's too expensive, Whole Foods (which could work, maybe GreenStreet) wouldn't answer that, and it lacks a pet department, a pet supply store located in the tunnels or adjacent (like the Shops at Houston Center) could solve that. I even tossed around the idea of a supermarket in the tunnels before that was shot down as being too poorly-accessible. One more idea: Aldi could work just about anywhere.

In terms of location, that's about equivalent to the Randalls at Midtown anyway. Now, while I admit my "sacrifice 5/6 of the Randalls for a slightly closer store" was a bit cynical, how's this? The Safeway in the Financial District used to be a specialty grocer. What if Phoenicia closed and became a Kroger? Well, it would be a big shame, but there would be an affordable grocer in the area that would be full-line...

Well, like highways, they would have to largely avoid a bunch of populated areas. Let's say that TxDOT wanted to build a tollway from Austin to College Station. While they could widen a bunch of areas, they would have to build bypasses around cities like Caldwell and many other cities I'm not listing. Same with HSR.

The Safeway in S.F. seems like a poor example to use. It's very small, and despite being updated, is also very old (check the logo, though it isn't all that old, it was a gourmet market called "Bon Appetit" back in the 1980s, according to Yelp). Most chains have a few stores that they keep like this, in Ohio, there's an amazingly small and dated Kroger tucked in the downtown area of the city, and H-E-B has a location in Brownsville that is very small as well (less than a city block). But they don't build like this anymore, and if you actually looked at the reviews of that Safeway, it gets reviews mostly for its deli, but its actual attributes as a grocery store, including price (well, not if you compare it to WF), freshness (the produce selection isn't good), or selection. To imagine a good analogy, it would be as if Randalls at Midtown was a sixth of the size, because that's more or less what the Financial District Safeway is like. Whole Foods might work in theory, but it's just not population density, it's median income as well, and that would require a lot of rich downtown folks.

Casa Olé? That's an unremarkable chain for you.

Well, Chicago is still one of the dense, East Coast type cities (it doesn't have to be on the water to be EC), and SF is older than most Southern cities, and even it has a specialty gourmet grocer at best.

I don't think Manhattan is a good example for downtown stores: it's substantially larger, and way, way, denser. I can't think of a major American city outside of the East Coast that has anything close to what some of you are suggesting. Any ideas?

Uber and Lyft are at least interesting and new ideas, if nothing else. How would saddling them with an incompetent transit agency further their goals?

I think you're right, this will go nowhere, especially extremist arguments as Slick's reply shows. With a mindset like that, it's easy to see why there's gridlock in the Uptown debate to begin with. And I feel like a fool again for walking into a thread that was never meant for debate to begin with and only bitching about anyone remotely against rail.

I think it's worth a debate. After all, some of the ROW cleared for the 610/290 interchange was for a potential HSR to go through, so you could make the argument that it's not local but rail friendly. On the other hand, spurs like 527 really only serve local traffic, so why does TxDOT maintain it?

A better question is, why is TxDOT involved at all? Like I said, even I'm a bit perplexed why they're even offering to build bus lanes (that only METRO uses) at all.

Maybe it's just my perception, but I find on Swamplot, at least, griping whenever an inner loop strip center is being built (a few in the Heights, mostly), as if "suburbia" was creeping into their Inner Loop world. If a block-size Kroger or H-E-B were built into downtown, even if they were reasonably well aesthetically blended into the streetscape, you'd hear griping that it's "too suburban" or something, and would become a homeless gathering spot before too long. What I think it really boils down to is where you live has benefits and drawbacks. You can't live in a decently large suburban house with a yard and expect there to be shopping, dining, mass transit, and entertainment within a few blocks, nor could you live in an apartment at least 10 stories above the ground and want your large, cheap supermarket like suburbanites have.

I remember reading about this not long after the end of the Houston Main Building. Where is the expansion?

I like to reply to posts, and I had just seen the Swamplot link for that, and knowing Slick's propensity for misinformation/alarmist posts, wanted to explain what's going on as I best understood it. If that somehow constitutes trolling, then I don't know what doesn't.

Yes, but you didn't read my post. My post stated that to make the elevated lanes compatible for rail, they would have to spend more money to "over-engineer" for rail. That's the same principle of why METRO gave extra money during the Interstate 10 widening to give the HOT lanes "strength" to handle rail, so to speak. Only here, of course, rail was actually voted on and approved for this corridor.