trymahjong Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 Guess, I was being old fashioned and meant green- like plants. 😁. 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trymahjong Posted July 25 Share Posted July 25 Okay-okay i should have used more specific language……PLANTS….I’d like to see more plants at Metro stops🥴😀😄🙃 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbg.50 Posted July 25 Share Posted July 25 27 minutes ago, trymahjong said: Okay-okay i should have used more specific language……PLANTS….I’d like to see more plants at Metro stops🥴😀😄🙃 I love your idea! Seems this was suggested last year too… here’s an article I found. Perhaps you should reach out to Barry Ward? https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/series/hot-stops/2023/09/21/462996/metro-could-plant-a-tree-at-every-bus-stop-in-houston-but-it-may-be-a-bit-complicated/ The first step is to make a map identifying all the bus stops with enough nearby space to support a tree. "That would be pretty easy to do," said Mac Martin, an urban forester with Texas A&M Forest Service. "We’re foresters not rocket scientists," he said. Martin and a team of five people did an inventory of potential tree-planting spaces in Gulfton this March. It took them about half a day. He said his team would train anybody – city workers, community groups, volunteers – who want to do this work. Ultimately it comes down to using a tape measure and writing down how big the public right of way is. A tree needs around 3 to 5 feet of planting space. There also can't be utility lines overhead. Once a map is made of where trees can be planted, the next step is to get funding for the trees. After reading our investigation, Barry Ward with the non-profit Trees for Houston said it's an initiative he would be willing to fund. "I will pay for every one. I will put a tree at no cost to the city or METRO at every bus stop in the city of Houston," he said. "Doesn’t mean it would be easy. Doesn’t mean I could do it overnight." However, the next step, which Ward argues is the most difficult one, is getting public officials all on the same page working towards a shared goal. "It’s gonna take a certain amount of will," he said. "There just has to be the bureaucratic willpower to say, ‘how do we make this work'? Instead of saying, ‘no, that’s too hard.' It really is that simple." This type of initiative would require buy-in and coordination between METRO and the city of Houston. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trymahjong Posted July 26 Share Posted July 26 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
004n063 Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 15 hours ago, trymahjong said: I was just in The Netherlands (Utrecht and Leiden), and while I had already known about the incredible bike infrastructure, I was totally blown away by the flora. Wildflowers are everywhere, the canals are lined with beautiful and diverse trees, and many buildings (and houseboats) had similar mini-gardens on their rooftops. It really did make it more pleasant to exist in the city. Here are a couple of photos I took of random spots in Leiden that exemplifies basically the whole country: 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IWantTransit555 Posted July 28 Share Posted July 28 Maybe when I am in my 80's Houston might look like the above. ): Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross Posted July 28 Share Posted July 28 On 6/23/2024 at 11:29 PM, august948 said: How about he start undoing the last 12 years of water rate hikes? Just ran across an old bill from 2012 in which I had the exact same water usage as my May bill, but the total of the bill was more than 2.5 times what it was 12 years ago. The water rate hikes were necessary to comply with a consent decree the City signed with the EPA to stop dumping raw sewage into streams and waterways. Another chink of the rate increase is to help pay for updates to the water supply infrastructure. The water and sewer systems are an enterprise fund that must be self funded, no taxes are used. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbg.50 Posted July 28 Share Posted July 28 6 minutes ago, IWantTransit555 said: Maybe when I am in my 80's Houston might look like the above. ): There are nice areas of Houston already. If you are referring to the flora that’s easy to make happen. Many neighborhoods adopt esplanades or medians to maintain. Are you involved in that? Not sure how old you are. Don’t stop believing (and working!) 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
004n063 Posted July 28 Share Posted July 28 7 hours ago, hbg.50 said: There are nice areas of Houston already. If you are referring to the flora that’s easy to make happen. Many neighborhoods adopt esplanades or medians to maintain. Are you involved in that? Not sure how old you are. Don’t stop believing (and working!) I'm all for optimism, but if we're talking about the combination of built environment, nationwide (/regional scale for us) transit, ped/bike infrastructure, and overall culture of reverence for public space, I think @IWantTransit555 is actually probably a little optimistic in hoping to see us look like a Dutch city in the next century. That said, with Houston's native ecosystem, abundant public ROW, and flat landscape, I do believe that it is possible for us to become both the most verdant and the most bicycle-friendly city in the US, and I don't think it'd take more than about 15 years of actual work and maybe $500M total to reach that point. But politically and culturally, it's a moonshot to think we could reach that level of prioritization. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trymahjong Posted July 28 Share Posted July 28 Once we’re all on same page for green plantings at bus stops…..then we can work on the buses themselves….. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trymahjong Posted July 28 Share Posted July 28 Lastly— the park and Ride will hopefully be upgraded 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbg.50 Posted July 28 Share Posted July 28 17 minutes ago, trymahjong said: Lastly— the park and Ride will hopefully be upgraded Houston is a practical city. This and the bus picture looks ridiculous. Will never happen here. Let’s be happy if we can get shade trees near the bus stops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hindesky Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 Metro Next needs to change their name to - Metro Next Mayor. Chaad has zero interest in making Metro any better and actually is doing his best to crater it. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Some one Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 57 minutes ago, hindesky said: Metro Next needs to change their name to - Metro Next Mayor. Chaad has zero interest in making Metro any better and actually is doing his best to crater it. Whitmire's main priority with METRO seems to be to gut its funding and credibility and use it as a slush fund for non-transit projects. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trymahjong Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 13 hours ago, hbg.50 said: Houston is a practical city. This and the bus picture looks ridiculous. Will never happen here. Let’s be happy if we can get shade trees near the bus stops. Oh my….. I suppose a little humor in a “ serious” discussion might not be unwanted. Still, what is there to be done……sigh and sniffle? If anyone has heard Metro presentations in a consistent manner over the years…..one would notice the complete CHANGE in what was planned to be done AND what will probably happen(or not) instead. It seems a sad state of affairs, that baffles the Metro spokespeople, even as the words leave their mouths…… 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samagon Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 On 7/27/2024 at 7:47 AM, 004n063 said: I was just in The Netherlands (Utrecht and Leiden), and while I had already known about the incredible bike infrastructure, I was totally blown away by the flora. Wildflowers are everywhere, the canals are lined with beautiful and diverse trees, and many buildings (and houseboats) had similar mini-gardens on their rooftops. It really did make it more pleasant to exist in the city. Here are a couple of photos I took of random spots in Leiden that exemplifies basically the whole country: you picked a good time of year to go. I was just there myself at the end of June, I didn't grab many photos of the infrastructure, but every time I go I am disappointed that our city didn't do this on the rail where they could. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trymahjong Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 My pie-in-the-sky might be showing……… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IWantTransit555 Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 The Netherlands? We don't talk about that utopia here! /s 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mkultra25 Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 On 7/28/2024 at 8:03 PM, Some one said: Whitmire's main priority with METRO seems to be to gut its funding and credibility and use it as a slush fund for non-transit projects. Hey, it worked for Bob Lanier. What could possibly go wrong? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 On 7/28/2024 at 5:46 PM, hbg.50 said: Houston is a practical city. This and the bus picture looks ridiculous. Will never happen here. Let’s be happy if we can get shade trees near the bus stops. Only if by "practical" you mean "do-nothing." Because Houston has gone from a leading city to a following city. There was nothing practical about Allen's Landing. There was nothing practical about the Astrodome. There was nothing practical about going to the Moon. Though, I agree that green roofs on buses won't happen here. That bus is one of ten that were done in Singapore as an experiment in 2019, and they didn't work out. While I like a good green roof, they take more maintenance than people think. I don't mean the membrane or substructure, anything like that, but just basic watering. I can't count the number of buildings I've seen in other cities that have gotten tax credits or other government incentives for installing "green roofs" and then once the building opened, nobody tended to the roof garden and it died and blew away. For parking lots, I think that solar panels on awnings are the way to go. They're becoming more and more common in western states. They provide shade to keep cars cool, and both power and income for the parking lot owner. Here's an Apple Maps view of a very small installation at a church I used to go to: Other parking lots, like at supermarkets, sometimes have rows and rows of them. They're especially popular in areas where the electric grid is required to buy back surplus solar energy. As in the church example above, it provides income from otherwise wasted space. I don't know much about how solar power works in Texas, but based on what I've seen so far, I suspect that it's more complicated than in the example above, where the local electric company was happy to have microgrids and distributed solar installations because (according to the electric company's advertising) they make the electric system more reliable, and reduce its cost of maintaining the grid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbg.50 Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 1 hour ago, editor said: Only if by "practical" you mean "do-nothing." Because Houston has gone from a leading city to a following city. There was nothing practical about Allen's Landing. There was nothing practical about the Astrodome. There was nothing practical about going to the Moon. I don’t believe Houston is a “following” city. Are you referring to something specifically? When it comes to innovation Houston is hard to top…Port Houston, Astrodome, Life Flight, now leading the energy transition to hydrogen, etc., etc. By “practical” I mean “not frivolous.” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
004n063 Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 Others can debate the "following" bit, but...I don't buy the "Houston is a practical city" part, personally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 23 hours ago, hbg.50 said: I don’t believe Houston is a “following” city. Are you referring to something specifically? When it comes to innovation Houston is hard to top…Port Houston, Astrodome, Life Flight, now leading the energy transition to hydrogen, etc., etc. By “practical” I mean “not frivolous.” Port Houston? Not even in the top 50 ports in the world, according to the World Shipping Council. Astrodome? That giant abandoned eyesore from three generations ago that everyone wants to tear down? You can't be serious. Life Flight? America's second helicopter air ambulance service, according to Wikipedia? The one that started almost a half century ago? Leading the transition to hydrogen? "Leading" requires qualification. It means nothing. I'm the leading person currently occupying my underpants. And when it comes to hydrogen energy, what little I've read about it leads me to believe that Japan is the leader in this area. But even if you want to keep it within America, according to the Department of Energy, number of hydrogen fueling stations in California: 48 . Number in Texas: zero. Yes, Houston is no longer a leading city. Citing examples from the last century only demonstrates this. As for Houston not being frivolous, I guess you've never seen the Art Car Parade; or the giant presidential heads along the freeway; or weren't here for the Art Cows; or noticed that the convention center looks like a cruise ship; or that City Hall is art deco, not a shipping container, or a million other things around town that are part of the city, and even supported by city money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rechlin Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 On 7/31/2024 at 8:12 AM, editor said: For parking lots, I think that solar panels on awnings are the way to go. They're becoming more and more common in western states. They provide shade to keep cars cool, and both power and income for the parking lot owner. Here's an Apple Maps view of a very small installation at a church I used to go to: Other parking lots, like at supermarkets, sometimes have rows and rows of them. They're especially popular in areas where the electric grid is required to buy back surplus solar energy. As in the church example above, it provides income from otherwise wasted space. I don't know much about how solar power works in Texas, but based on what I've seen so far, I suspect that it's more complicated than in the example above, where the local electric company was happy to have microgrids and distributed solar installations because (according to the electric company's advertising) they make the electric system more reliable, and reduce its cost of maintaining the grid. As a good example in Houston, the VA hospital already does this over their parking lots (in addition to panels on the roof of the building, too): 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 12 hours ago, editor said: Port Houston? Not even in the top 50 ports in the world, according to the World Shipping Council. Surely you noticed that is a ranking of only container traffic. And surely even you, as much as you endeavor to remain ignorant about Houston, know that there is a LOT more to ports than container traffic. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cspwal Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 4 hours ago, rechlin said: As a good example in Houston, the VA hospital already does this over their parking lots (in addition to panels on the roof of the building, too): An added benefit is covered parking, which makes a huge difference when parked 8 - 12 hours at work 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trymahjong Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 On 7/31/2024 at 8:12 AM, editor said: Only if by "practical" you mean "do-nothing." Because Houston has gone from a leading city to a following city. There was nothing practical about Allen's Landing. There was nothing practical about the Astrodome. There was nothing practical about going to the Moon. Though, I agree that green roofs on buses won't happen here. That bus is one of ten that were done in Singapore as an experiment in 2019, and they didn't work out. While I like a good green roof, they take more maintenance than people think. I don't mean the membrane or substructure, anything like that, but just basic watering. I can't count the number of buildings I've seen in other cities that have gotten tax credits or other government incentives for installing "green roofs" and then once the building opened, nobody tended to the roof garden and it died and blew away. For parking lots, I think that solar panels on awnings are the way to go. They're becoming more and more common in western states. They provide shade to keep cars cool, and both power and income for the parking lot owner. Here's an Apple Maps view of a very small installation at a church I used to go to: I don't know much about how solar power works in Texas, but based on what I've seen so far, I suspect that it's more complicated than in the example above, where the local electric company was happy to have microgrids and distributed solar installations because (according to the electric company's advertising) they make the electric system more reliable, and reduce its cost of maintaining the grid. When I lived in Midland- years and years ago- there was a Sheriff who used jail prisoners, as his work force. They were paid $0.44 an hour- all volunteer. So minor construction improvements to The jail, proceeded. Another, Sheriff when faced with over crowding, suggested prisoners- sleep in shifts as the Navy personal do on submarines. hmmmmmmmm any of that type of “ out of the box” workforce to water plantings ideas at bus stops……take place presently? Could it be a viable idea? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
004n063 Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 On 8/2/2024 at 7:30 AM, trymahjong said: When I lived in Midland- years and years ago- there was a Sheriff who used jail prisoners, as his work force. They were paid $0.44 an hour- all volunteer. So minor construction improvements to The jail, proceeded. Another, Sheriff when faced with over crowding, suggested prisoners- sleep in shifts as the Navy personal do on submarines. hmmmmmmmm any of that type of “ out of the box” workforce to water plantings ideas at bus stops……take place presently? Could it be a viable idea? What if we just diverted whatever moneys are currently being used to inexplicably mow the bayous to planting and watering a citywide floral/arborial system that prioritizes bus corridors and active transportation routes (including the bayous)? (For real, though - can anybody explain to me why the city mows the bayou meadows?) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trymahjong Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 45 minutes ago, 004n063 said: What if we just diverted whatever moneys are currently being used to inexplicably mow the bayous to planting and watering a citywide floral/arborial system that prioritizes bus corridors and active transportation routes (including the bayous)? (For real, though - can anybody explain to me why the city mows the bayou meadows?) Wow Great ideas….. not sure who could answer questions but seems likely appearing for COH might be good idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 3 hours ago, 004n063 said: What if we just diverted whatever moneys are currently being used to inexplicably mow the bayous to planting and watering a citywide floral/arborial system that prioritizes bus corridors and active transportation routes (including the bayous)? (For real, though - can anybody explain to me why the city mows the bayou meadows?) The City doesn't mow the bayous. The Flood Control District does that. Here's an explanation https://www.hcfcd.org/Resources/Interactive-Mapping-Tools/Mowing-Schedule-Explained The mowing is done to make sure that unwanted woody shrubs don't grow taller, among other reasons. 2 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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