Houston19514

Texaco no longer exists. So I guess the answer is no.

Here is the description from the ECMD's website: the district consists of 1,500 acres that extend along both sides of Interstate 10 from Tully to east of Park 10 Boulevard and along North Eldridge Parkway from Interstate 10 to south of Briar Forest. But the Energy Corridor appellation is not really restricted to the Energy Corridor Management District property. I think it is often used in a much more general manner, referring to a swath of land of varying widths along the Katy Freeway, west of the the Beltway. (although including the Westchase District does seem to be a bit of a stretch. If you start including such far-afield areas as Westchase, it starts looking less and less like a corridor. ;-)

My guess is citykid misheard the story...

Nobody is saying the service will continue if they are only hauling 98 people per day. Give it some time. As we can see from the discussion on this thread, sometimes it takes Houstonians a long time to adjust to new ideas. ;-)

Ummm, because the DTC is, perhaps two miles away rather than twenty and your friend has to go to work? Nobody said anything about paying 30 bucks for a round trip to IAH exciting anyone. The concept (that other posters have already mentioned) is that you would save more than the $30 in parking fees at the airport. Don't be ridiculous. And nobody said anything about hoping on 2/3 buses. Obviously, if that is your situation, you're probably better off taking a different mode of transit to the airport. I personally think they have priced it a bit too high. Ten Dollars would be a LOT more palatable, IMO. I don't know if it will be successful or not. I hope it will because I think we need to have a good, regular, express transit service from IAH to downtown. And I give credit to Metro for trying it. God forbid they experiment with new services. (and contrary to the lies about Metro posted by some, they are trying it out to see if they can make it successful. If it does not work out, they will cancel it. That is why they are operating it out of a temporary building on leased property.)

Just to summarize: Halliburton will be adding on to a campus they have on Beltway 8, just south of George Bush Airport and moving their HQ up there (from downtown, boooo). They are building a 16-story building plus some other stuff in the Westchase District. They will be consolidating operations into those two sites. Total of something like 5,500 employees at the two locations.

They are beating their projections for their seventh month in service. That does not mean that they only projected 75 riders per day, period; forever. Don't you imagine they would project growth in ridership as the service is established and becomes more widely-known? Show me any support for your claim of any long-term projection of 100 riders per day. You never have done so and I am guessing you still cannot. bus, taxi, metro rail, friends

I thought the same thing upon reading that. I presume it's significantly elevated because of the planned retail portion at the base of the tower. But it still seems excessive. (Not to mention, using that number alone is a bit dishonest. There is already an apartment complex on the site, with cars coming and going each day. So the 2,000 is not a net increase, at least as presented)

any idea how much memberships to the Foundation Room cost?

Thank you for that little shot of reality. My thoughts exactly.

so now your argument that all stimulus money should be spent in the inner cities and only in the inner cities, because anything else will be "paying for sprawl"? You keep saying you understand, but you keep demonstrating that you don't understand... The simple reality is, this project will actually REDUCE sprawl here in the real world. Isn't that a good thing for a supposedly "anti-sprawl" administration?

I am not going to argue against the environmental aspect. It is possible that the road should not be built for environmental reasons ( although I am highly skeptical). But the "encouraging sprawl" argument has been addressed and demolished. The reality is, Houston is experiencing explosive population growth. Those people (approximately 130,000 additional people EVERY YEAR) have to live somewhere. Many of them prefer to live in suburban developments in good school districts. The reality (as much as so-called "anti-sprawl" folk prefer to avoid it) is that development will continue to "sprawl" out along the the transportation infrastructure. If the only infrastructure is the existing spoke freeways, that's where the development will occur... further out along I-10, 290, etc. If we add additional transportation infrastructure to serve the areas between those spoke freeways, we will reduce the extent of the sprawl. The alternative, as mentioned repeatedly is further sprawl out the spoke freeways, leading to even greater dispersal of the job bases (i.e., even further sprawl and disintegration of the metro area).

But you ARE disagreeing with this and failing to comprehend You are pretending that if we don't build this particular highway, we will avoid that much sprawl. That is simply not reality. If we don't build this highway, the houses will not be built along the route of this highway; instead they will be built FURTHER OUT along 290 or I-10. Thus, this project is definitely NOT using this funding to encourage sprawl; rather it is in fact using this funding to reduce sprawl. You seem to be changing your argument mid-stream. Earlier it was, or at least seemed to be, that the spending should be focused on reducing sprawl. Now you have shifted to focusing purely on how many people will benefit from the spending (and of course you offer no support whatsoever and no particular projects that in your imagination will benefit more people.)

You continue to ignore the plain simple reality that people are building houses in suburban areas with our without the Grand Parkway. They will buy houses in developments that have easy access to freeways. That is reality. If there is no Grand Parkway, then the existing freeways will have to suffice and people will move out even further than Grand Parkway. Out further = MORE sprawl. Closer in = less sprawl. Now, please tell me what use of this money would convince people who want a suburban home in a good school district to instead decide to move somewhere inside the loop, or even inside the beltway.

. . . or your memory is playing tricks on you again. ;-) Disagreement does not equal hatred.

I suspect people returning to New Orleans from Katrina actually could have still been a factor. We are talking about the 2007-2008 time period, a period when people were clearly still returning to New Orleans in fairly sizable numbers. I believe Houston experienced larger job growth than did DFW during that period of time, so . . . Not true, Niche. (We've been over this before). A few counties were added to Philly's combined area, which is not what we're talking about here. You are correct, however, that we have almost certainly either surpassed them already or will very very soon.

LOL Amazing that you keep saying it yourself, but still don't comprehend. As you said, "it may put sprawl closer in..." i.e., it will in fact reduce sprawl. (and fwiw, many many thousands, no doubt hundreds of thousands of people will benefit from this over the coming years.

Apparently, you still don't understand. As Torn and I have said and given examples, this project actually acts to reduce the level of sprawl that would occur without it. Therefore, if one insists on categorizing it as "sprawl encouraging" or "sprawl discouraging", it would clearly be the latter. This does in fact act to bring more people inward (relatively speaking). It just does not act to bring people in to your or Robin Holzer's preferred location(s).

You seem to have overlooked Post #11. I'll just repeat part of its sentiment here. You seem to be missing the actual argument being made by me and Tory: Yes, the developments along the Grand Parkway will be sprawl to the same extent that one could call everything outside the loop "sprawl". If the areas along the new Grand Parkway are not opened up for development by building roads to them, that development will most likely occur even further out along the spoke freeways. Thus the development along the Grand Parkway indeed reduces the amount of sprawl that would otherwise be occurring. We have seen examples of this occurring before in the Houston area. As the northeastern leg of the Beltway and then Lake Houston Parkway have been developed, residential developments have popped up in the area; areas that were previously passed by as development went further north along Hwy 59. Thousands of families now live in Summerwood and other developments in that area. It is highly unlikely that those families would have otherwise settled inside the Loop or closer in inside the Beltway. They most likely otherwise would have gone in to developments that further north along Hwy 59.

Wow, speaking of making huge, unsupported assumptions. ;-) What would possibly lead one to believe that a person who has chosen to live along this stretch of the GP would otherwise "equally likely" move closer in? That strikes me as an extremely illogical assumption. People moving to a location such as Bridgelands are moving there because of the greater space, the newer developments, the schools... It is hard to imagine the person for whom the next-best alternative would be something inside Beltway 8. Regarding whether densification of areas "way the hell out there" is reducing sprawl, well, I am trying to view the world as it is and view this area of development in comparison with the most-likely alternative. Yes, in both cases it is sprawl, I suppose, but I suppose it would be just as fair to call anything outside the loop "sprawl". You even admit it is just "sprawl with slightly less mileage from the city" (i.e., less sprawl; i.e., a reduction of sprawl compared to what otherwise would be.)

I think the main point is that it is "shovel ready" whereas the Hempstead Toll road is not. And using the "stimulus" money to build it now, and then collecting tolls on it, will, in effect, allow us to transfer the stimulus money over time to the Hempstead Toll road, serving the areas "where people live" in Robin Holzer's somewhat misleading words. And Tory is absolutely right (and I've said it on this forum before too): Highways like the Grand Parkway do not contribute to sprawl, but actually reduce the amount of sprawl that would other occur along the spoke freeways. All that being said, the "Stimulus" package and the rules that come with the money, are a big mess, especially if anyone's goal was truly to promote mass transit and in-fill projects. Exhibit A: Metro asked for $400 Million to build shovel-ready mass transit lines. They only got, what, $190 Million, and then were told they can't use it on their mass transit lines because the FTA has not yet approved the use of federal money on two lines (and I guess since Metro is not seeking FTA money for the other lines, no stimulus funds are allowed on those lines either.)

That is what the numbers show, but that is (at least largely) an anomaly produced by Katrina. 2005-2006 Houston posted a HUGE increase because of Katrina refugees relocating to Houston. Then in 2006-2007 Houston showed relatively slower growth (compared to both the prior year and to this year and to what the sans-Katrina trend line would have been) because of the number of Katrina refugees who returned to Louisiana. Now, the 2007-2008 numbers are back on the "normal" trend line (which, for Houston, means phenomenal growth).

How so? What purpose did they serve pre-Plaza that they no longer serve?

Why don't they use the fountain jets? Is it just because it's not worth the money to operate them if nobody is there to see it? Or did it occur to them that having fountain jets in the middle of a plaza in which you are trying to encourage the gathering of people was not the best idea ever? ;-)

Get out! We all know this place is doomed to failure and nobody will every frequent any of its establishments. You're starting to sound like some of the lunatic posters who keep insisting that people are actually using and enjoying Discovery Green. (and, btw, I happened by Discovery Green yesterday afternoon just before 2:00 and it was swarming with people, seemingly enjoying themselves.)