Jump to content

Houston19514

Subscriber
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    8,943

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    31

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Houston19514

  1. Houston19514
    We're currently number 19, not 14. Doing this project is unlikely to cause us to climb the ladder, at least by any significant amount. With our population growth, we would have to add more than 400 lane miles every five years just to maintain our current stat of .689 lane miles per 1,000 population. I don't believe I have attacked his character. Only his competence. If he can't get the foundational facts right, his conclusions are worthless. Garbage In, Garbage Out. Upthread you told us that all the claims he's making are true. I and others have demonstrated multiple claims he made that are false and points he made that are invalid. If you are still waiting for someone to show his points to be invalid, you should re-read the thread.
  2. Houston19514
    No, what's being said is that Jeff Speck's analysis is sloppy, at best. How does someone who can't even bother to get his foundational facts correct get such a reputation as an expert?
  3. Houston19514
    Sorry. I linked to the outdated data Speck used. Here (I hope) is the link to the recent data. (No, it does not show per capita data. But it does show population and freeway lane miles. With that data, one can easily calculate the lane miles/capita.) https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2017/hm72.cfm 1. Kansas City 1.44 miles/1,000 people 2. St. Louis 1.2 3. Cleveland .868 4. Jacksonville .819 5. San Antonio .817 6. DFW .794 ** 10. Austin .776 ** 19. Houston .689
  4. Houston19514
    Doesn't the FAA filing say 53 stories?
  5. Houston19514
    Yeah, major clickbait. After reading the article it sounds like it is nothing serious at all; probably no more than the corrections that are necessary during any major construction project.
  6. Houston19514
    More lies from Mr Speck: He tells us that "Houston has more freeway miles per capita than every large city except Kansas City and St. Louis". I'm sure he's referring to the Federal Highway Administration statistics, which indeed had Houston at No. 3, back in 2007! Using current numbers (would it be too much to ask the self-appointed expert to use current numbers?), among urbanized areas with more than 1 Million population, Houston's freeway lane miles per capita ranks Number 4 . . . IN TEXAS (there are only 4 such urbanized areas in Texas). Houston ranks Number 19 among the 41 US urbanized areas with more than 1 Million population. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2007/hm72.cfm
  7. Houston19514
    That's not exactly true. While they didn't add lanes, they did add capacity, through better design. Also note that we are even now inserting additional capacity into the West Loop by adding the lanes for Metro Rapid BRT.
  8. Houston19514
    But that is true today as well. There are times of the day now when the road is clear. No, he is specifically claiming that adding capacity to the freeway will make it more dangerous because drivers will be going faster on average all the time. (and note that he just bases it on the statistic that, at some point, higher speeds lead to higher death rates; he doesn't even attempt to show that such speeds will be routinely achieved after this project and not before, nor does he show us any information that traffic flowing at higher speeds in a case such as this inherently causes more crashes. He's the "expert" on this matter. Does he not have the crash numbers pre- and post-Katy freeway expansion? My guess is, he does, but they don't prove his point. His adoption of the "Katy Freeway is the largest freeway in the world" lie and the "Katy Freeway Expansion Only Made Things Worse" lie destroys his credibility. Add to that, the fact that he seems to have little knowledge about this project or about Houston in general. As I mentioned earlier, a huge portion of the capacity expansion provided by this project is for mass transit/HOV/congestion pricing. He seems to be completely unaware of this fact. Also, this project will completely remove a stretch of freeway and also place large segments of freeway below grade to dramatically reduce the amount of disconnection. He seems unaware of that as well.(We hear the glories of Rochester New York because they removed a small, little-used spur, but no acknowledgment of the amount of re-connection this project provides.) There's more. He says that Independence Heights was "completely omitted from the Historical Resources Survey". That seems to be an overstatement. .http://www.ih45northandmore.com/docs10/190315A_Draft_HRSR_Update_Watermark.pdf
  9. Houston19514
    So we can put to bed the idea of expanding on to the golf course or elsewhere into Hermann Park
  10. Houston19514
    Speck's "analysis" is sloppy, at best. For example, the 55% increase in congestion that he cites as having occurred on the Katy Freeway was not from before widening to after widening. That claim is flatly false. The cited increase was between 2011 and 2014 (on a particular segment at a particular time of day). That hardly proves or even suggests that the widening was a boondoggle. It only shows what happens when a metro area adds more than 100,000 people every year. (The most amazing thing is, he provided the link to the data and either did not understand it or intentionally misrepresented it.) Another example, Houston has been doing some congestion pricing for years (I think before Dallas ever thought of doing it), first on the Katy Freeway, then on all of the HOV lanes, and a good portion of this project is for the purpose of providing lanes for mass transit/car pools/congestion pricing. Also, he tells us the freeway will promptly be as congested as before (or more), but in the next breath tells us it will be more dangerous, in spite of design improvements, because cars will be going so much faster. Which is it, Jeff? It can't be both.
  11. Houston19514
    Boston Common and Grant Park come to mind. I think they already have security patrols in the existing surface parking lots. Per your earlier post, the Zoo alone attracts 2.5 million visitors per year, plus the rest of the park including Miller Outdoor Theatre attract millions of visitors every year... sounds like a pretty high-traffic area. FWIW, the Hermann Park Master Plan includes the transformation of the large surface parking lots in the Park Center into "a new play landscape built over and concealing a single-story at-grade parking garage. The project also creates new arrival landscapes for the Park, the zoo, and Miller Outdoor Theatre."
  12. Houston19514
    If so, one would think they would let that be known to the people in charge of Hermann Park master planning. There is no hint of any desire to expand the Zoo in the Hermann Park Master Plan, and there doesn't seem to be anything about expansion in the Zoo's own 20-year master plan.
  13. Houston19514
    Before we start grading the golf course land, perhaps someone should ask: Does the zoo WANT more land?
  14. Houston19514
    Floors 25 and 26 56,000 square feet.
  15. Houston19514
    Of course, it's entirely possible that (alleged) policy could change if they actually built the parking garage and possibly had more spaces than they needed on a daily basis... Recall, there was some arrangement between the Incarnate Word Academy and Houston First Corporation regarding this proposed garage. I had always presumed the arrangement included parking availability for the then-proposed Houston visitors center/museum across the street.
  16. Houston19514
    Late and incomplete.
  17. Houston19514
    Rice University awarded grant for 'mass timber' building on campus "Rice's proposal is for a five-story, 50,000-square-foot student housing building on its campus."
  18. Houston19514
    RE: W Hotel. From the June 20, 2019 Houston First Board of Directors Meeting minutes: ". . . update on the W Hotel Development. . . . the project team has made a lot of progress thus far, but they are still negotiating several key terms, including the room block agreement and insurance requirements." "Al Kashani also addressed the Board regarding the W Hotel Development. Mr. Kashani stated he is excited about the W Hotel and very close to finalizing a deal with HFC, but he has some concerns with several items not originally included in the term sheet. He also discussed strenuous insurance requirements under the agreement. Mr. Kashani stated Houston is his home and he is committed to investing in the city, but he wants to ensure that he is treated fairly. Mr. Kashani requests the Board's support in finalizing the agreement."
  19. Houston19514
    I don't know for sure. The implication was that they want to supportive of the neighborhood .
  20. Houston19514
    I think you can rest assured it will be on a weekend, or at worst during overnight hours.
  21. Houston19514
    Having heard that Rice "begged" Fiesta to stay, I would imagine that Rice is indeed exploring including a grocery in their long-term plans.
  22. Houston19514
    Great idea! Let's see them put their words into action. There are a bunch of nice covered walkways and other sheltered areas on Rice's campus. Invite the homeless over there. Problem solved.
  23. Houston19514
    Except that all the information I can find indicates naming rights were sold for $100 Million, not $178 Million. And, more important, I'm pretty sure that MinuteMaid/Coca Cola did not write a check for the full amount; I think it's paid out over the term of the deal. You are correct that the buildings were not part of this sale. However, the entity making this purchase (1800 Texas, LLC) already owns the buildings on the block.
  24. Houston19514
    I think this section of Sawyer is listed on the city's Major Streets and Thoroughfare Plan as remaining 2 lanes.
  25. Houston19514
    Spaces in the map? LOL DART covers a pretty small portion of the metroplex. I think it's safe to say that DART covers a good deal smaller portion of the DFW metroplex than Metro covers of the Houston metro area. DART's service area is about 700 square miles of a metro area that covers more than 9,000 square miles. In a metropolitan area that includes over 100 cities and towns, DART covers 13, covering maybe 1/3 of the metroplex's population.
×
×
  • Create New...