Shepherd Dr. And Durham Dr. Reconstruction

[j.33]

5 hours ago, JClark54 said:

Can you expand on the statement that 10- to 12-foot paths in the Heights and 6-footers in Fifth Ward provide equal outcomes for those areas? 

Yeah. Like I said, the equal outcome is enhanced pedestrian safety and mobility for the citizens. Although it is a broader outcome, we can agree that both projects would enhance safety and mobility for pedestrians. Now flip it, and think of what outcome would occur if we provided 6' sidewalks on Shepherd/Durham and 6' sidewalks on....let's say...the neighborhood street Nichols St in Fifth Ward. Under the equal mindset, this is what is right. All new projects get 6' sidewalks. Fifth Ward neighborhood would definitely have an increase in safe pedestrian infrastructure for their one neighborhood street, but would Shepherd/Durham have the same result? Or, would Shepherd/Durham still feel like really fast mini highway that you wouldn't feel safe on nor want to walk on? Keep in mind, in order to make Shepherd/Durham a safe pedestrian and bike corridor, they had to right size it. In order to right size it, they took a lane of traffic and dedicated that space to pedestrians and bikes. Of course they could have built a 6' sidewalk and used the rest of the space for landscaping or grass, but that is not what the Whitmire administration wanted to see - they wanted it to not eliminate any lanes and they made that very clear. 

I totally understand where you are coming from, and absolutely agree that corridors like Lockwood in the Fifth Ward and Navigation in the East End should deserve to have 10-12' side paths. And I will say that if the University Line gets built, corridors along the line, like Lockwood, would get a 10-12 side path similar to Shepherd/Durham, and intersecting corridors, like Nichols St would get 5' sidewalks (but this administration has already made it clear their views on the project).

But back to the question. As I stated, if the equal goal is to make our roads safer for pedestrians and enhance their mobility, both projects (10-12' sidepath on Shepherd/Durham and sidewalks in Fifth Ward) would do that. If the Shepherd/Durham project would have just redone the sidewalk, and left it a 4-lane high speed arterial roadway, would that really achieve the goal of increasing safety and mobility for pedestrians? No, it would still be an extremely unsafe roadway for people beyond the car. 

 

[JClark54]

28 minutes ago, j.33 said:

Yeah. Like I said, the equal outcome is enhanced pedestrian safety and mobility for the citizens. Although it is a broader outcome, we can agree that both projects would enhance safety and mobility for pedestrians. Now flip it, and think of what outcome would occur if we provided 6' sidewalks on Shepherd/Durham and 6' sidewalks on....let's say...the neighborhood street Nichols St in Fifth Ward. Under the equal mindset, this is what is right. All new projects get 6' sidewalks. Fifth Ward neighborhood would definitely have an increase in safe pedestrian infrastructure for their one neighborhood street, but would Shepherd/Durham have the same result? Or, would Shepherd/Durham still feel like really fast mini highway that you wouldn't feel safe on nor want to walk on? Keep in mind, in order to make Shepherd/Durham a safe pedestrian and bike corridor, they had to right size it. In order to right size it, they took a lane of traffic and dedicated that space to pedestrians and bikes. Of course they could have built a 6' sidewalk and used the rest of the space for landscaping or grass, but that is not what the Whitmire administration wanted to see - they wanted it to not eliminate any lanes and they made that very clear. 

I totally understand where you are coming from, and absolutely agree that corridors like Lockwood in the Fifth Ward and Navigation in the East End should deserve to have 10-12' side paths. And I will say that if the University Line gets built, corridors along the line, like Lockwood, would get a 10-12 side path similar to Shepherd/Durham, and intersecting corridors, like Nichols St would get 5' sidewalks (but this administration has already made it clear their views on the project).

But back to the question. As I stated, if the equal goal is to make our roads safer for pedestrians and enhance their mobility, both projects (10-12' sidepath on Shepherd/Durham and sidewalks in Fifth Ward) would do that. If the Shepherd/Durham project would have just redone the sidewalk, and left it a 4-lane high speed arterial roadway, would that really achieve the goal of increasing safety and mobility for pedestrians? No, it would still be an extremely unsafe roadway for people beyond the car. 

 

But there are Fifth Ward streets that are "fast mini-highways that you wouldn't feel safe on nor want to walk on." Quite literally, it houses many broad, multi-lane streets that see enough ped-auto crashes to be designated on the high-injury network.    

If both have fast mini highways, why are 6-foot sidewalks suitable for Fifth Ward's specific needs, whereas the Heights' specific need is 12-foot? 

 

 

Edited June 8 by JClark54

[JClark54]

Again, I fully support the Shep/Durham project and your position that roads should be right-sized to suit all transit modes.

Just trying to understand your position that needs are addressed on a generalized level by neighborhood -- i.e. Heights specific needs are 10-12' sidewalks whereas Fifth Ward's needs are 6' -  versus on a project by project basis? For example, Shep/Durham are in fact mini highways, so 12 is OK. But Fifth Ward has similarly styled multi-lane high speed roads, which evidence shows have a high ped-auto crash rate, and 6' is OK.

To me, if two roads have similar traits (number of lanes, speeds, etc.), other than zip code, they would be treated similarly if we're in fact trying to achieve the same outcome. 

 

Edited June 8 by JClark54

[j.33]

@JClark54 yes, of course I agree that our entire city is plagued with roads that are unsafe and mini-highways. But that wasn’t the initial argument. The initial argument is that the local neighborhood streets (you know the 24’ wide open ditch streets) in fifth ward have no sidewalks, while Shepherd/Durham gets 10-12’. That’s what I’m comparing it to because that is what the new administration has said. If we were comparing Lockwood to Shepherd/Durham, of course  both deserve wide pedestrian infrastructure - and that’s why the university corridor and so important. 
 

In no sentence did I say that fifth ward does not deserve 10-12’ sidewalks. In no sentence did I say the dangerous roads in other parts of town only should get 6’ sidewalks. What I did say is that a local neighborhood street in fifth ward that currently has no pedestrian infrastructure should get 6’ sidewalks because it accomplishes the goal of enhancing pedestrian safety and mobility on that specific corridor which helps pedestrian safety and mobility for the area - just like the shepherd/Durham project enhances the safety and mobility on that corridor and ultimately the neighborhood. 
 

Again, if the ultimate goal is to enhance pedestrian safety and mobility, then of course corridors like Waco, Hirsch, and Lockwood deserve to be viewed the same way as Shepherd/Durham. I never said they shouldn’t be viewed differently. My whole point is that an equity goal would create solutions that fit that specific corridor and neighborhood. 
 

The mayors comments were comparing the Shepherd/Durham project against local neighborhood streets with no sidewalks in fifth ward and that is what I am talking about. 

[JClark54]

Now you're writing comparable streets should be treated similarly, and on that note I concur. You painted generally before, which is why I sought more information. 

The mayor wasn't comparing Shep/Durham to "local neighborhood streets" in Fifth Ward, however. You are conflating the argument on purpose. If I am wrong, I am happy to admit such. Please send the link to those comments comparing Shep/Durham to local neighborhood streets.

He stated comparable streets in one area were being treated differently than another. Your comments above seem to validate his stance that such beliefs exist, which sucks because I'm not  fan of Whitmire is doing in the slightest.

Edited June 8 by JClark54

[j.33]

15 minutes ago, JClark54 said:

He stated comparable streets in one area were being treated differently than another. Your comments above seem to validate his stance that such beliefs exist, which sucks because I'm not  fan of Whitmire is doing in the slightest.

I’m not either. I guess ultimately all I was trying to say was there is a difference between equity planning and equality planning. There were comments above that were saying it was an equity approach, and all I was doing was saying that what Whitmire says we should only be building 6’ sidewalks and nothing more is more of an equality standpoint and that we really shouldn’t plan our cities based on that. 
 

I really wasn’t trying to create an argument. I was just trying to point out the flaw with the rationale about only building 6’ sidewalks and nothing more. 
 

This is the quote I was referring to: “We've offered a new plan that does not include road diets, does not include 10-foot sidewalks," he said. "I've got Denver Harbor that wants their first sidewalk. They'd love to have a three-foot sidewalk; we're going by the manual, the six-foot sidewalk."

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/houston-matters/2024/05/02/485398/houston-mayor-john-whitmire-says-paused-mobility-projects-need-more-review-before-moving-forward/?amp=1

 

Sounds to me that he was comparing the shepherd/durham project with a local street in Denver Harbor (Fifth Ward) that has no sidewalks. 

[004n063]

I have a few thoughts I'd like to throw into the mix, @JClark54 and @j.33.

I have three prefaces: 

1) I ride on the busted three-foot "sidewalks" on Dunvale every day (used to ride in one of the four car lanes, but the harrassers won), and I have many students and a few colleagues who walk or ride on the same, so I am totally sympathetic to an approach that centers equity and applies a six-foot standard everywhere.

2) I don't think that Shepherd/Durham was the best first choice in the Heights for such a major pedestrian improvement corridor, though I support the project overall (I felt the same way about Bagby downtown). In my opinion, Yale would have been the best starting point, as significantly reducing automotive throughput and speed would have made more sense there, followed by 19th and White Oak, then potentially Washington, and then potentially Shepherd Durham.

3) There are many streets in Northside, Fifth Ward, Second Ward, the East End, and Third Ward where I would support investment-level pedestrian realm projects similar to the Shepherd/Durham project, including North Main, Fulton, Irvington, Hogan/Lorraine, Burnett, Lyons, Cavalcade, Lockwood, Canal, Harrisburg Milby, Telephone, Lawndale, 75th, 76th, Broadway, MLK, Scott. Blodgett, Emancipation, St. Emmanuel, Elgin, and Almeda. Among those, Irvington, Lyons, Canal, 76th, and Emancipation would, to my mind, be the best places to start.

Now to the central argument.

When you consider the list in preface #3 in conjunction with the costs of the S/D project, it becomes clear that the city - however urbanist-motivated its administration were - would need both an internal prioritization schema and a plan to work with TIRZs so as not to fall into a multibillion-dollar hole.

So how should they prioritize?

One axis could be need, which you've done a good job of articulating. Whatever my priors, I won't pretend that the people of the Heights have as much need for ten-foot sidewalks as the people of Fifth Ward do for adequately safe sidewalks.

But another important axis is demand. The reality is that the area surrounding the SD project (particularly phase 1) is considerably denser, both in terms of residents and in businesses big and small, than that around any of the other streets mentioned, and that it is unlikely that, at any time in the nearish (one generation of street infrastructure, say) future, any of the other streets mentioned feel overcrowded with a six-foot sidewalk. I'm not sure Shepherd/Durham would have reached that level (the car traffic would remain a deterrent), but I can definitely see it with Yale and 19th already, so at least the neighborhood has demand for it.

So to me, the key is this: the two axes mentioned above (need and demand) should not be in direct competition with one another. A street improvement project in the Fifth Ward featuring six-foot sidewalks should not compete for funds from the same bucket as those which fund a ten-foot sidewalk in the Heights or anywhere else. 

How can this noncompetition be achieved? To me, the answer lies in TIRZs and an expanded city sidewalk program. We need to take responsibility, as a city, for providing and maintaining minimum-standard sidewalks, which in my opinion includes six-foot pavements and shade trees. Such improvements should not require TIRZ funding (and I actually don't think that developers should be responsible for the sidewalks by default either), though obviously the city should work to obtain state and federal funds whenever possible. The city would still need to set up a prioritizing schematic, but it could do so solely on the basis of assessed need, rather than considering present and potential economic demand.

The TIRZs, on the other hand, could (and would be wise to) treat their streetscapes and pedestrian realms as investment-worthy platforms for building community wealth, and proceed accordingly with capital improvements including wider sidewalks, pedestrian streets, sidewalk patio space, etc.

Of course (and this is the real pie-in-the-sky bit), the ultimate efficacy of such an idea would require that TIRZs have the power to reduce automotive traffic flow on certain streets that presently serve as thoroughfares, and to allow commercial development (without presently requisite offstreet parking or lane widths) on certain streets that are presently classified as minor collectors and neighborhood streets. This could mean, for instance, narrowing the car space on Lyons, Canal, or 76th to one ten-foot lane in each direction (with bus lanes and pedestrian realm occupying the remaining space), or it could mean incentivizng pedestrian-centered commercial development on streets like (to use a currently relevant and visible example) Roberts, Sherman, and Garrow.

Or it could mean both - in the same sense that an optimized bayou park system would have small "fingers" (feeder bayous, esplanades, neighborhood greenways) at regular intervals, an optimized main street system could have semi-pedestrianized mixed-use "fingers" jutting off the Shepherdesque commercial thoroughfares at regular intervals. (An obvious starting point here would be Winbern at Main, but I could see it working at 19th St)

But all of this would require COH and TXDoT to consider the possibility of streets having "place" value that exceeds the value of the speed at which a large number of cars can pass through them, so I'm not holding my breath.

[JClark54]

Yes, I agree. 

With the TIRZ elements included, the Heights is certainly better positioned for a Shep/Durham revamp than Fifth Ward, or Second Ward for that matter. 

Why do you feel Yale is better than Shep/Durham for such a project? l drive Shep/Durham with relative frequency, and it's a major jump from what was. 

[004n063]

8 hours ago, JClark54 said:

Why do you feel Yale is better than Shep/Durham for such a project? l drive Shep/Durham with relative frequency, and it's a major jump from what was. 

It's not that it isn't a major improvement for Shepherd/Durham, it's just that I think it's always going to be a high-speed route, and that I think if a major space-shakeup were in order there, a higher-order transit project would have been more valuable.

Yale, on the other hand, is not as critical of a high-speed car route and is more consistently (and less autocentrically) mixed-use, so prioritizing pedestrians (to the point of rebuilding to a design speed of 25mph, say) seems more feasible.

That said, maybe a better argument would be to run a hypothetical purple line extension up the center of Yale, rather than Shepherd. And that would, in the short term, probably limit the sidewalk widths. 

[samagon]

Yale feels dangerous even in my car, I could only imagine how pedestrians feel.

the problem with lane reduction on Yale is that it is too busy for fewer lanes.

maybe if they added more lanes to Heights Blvd, then people would naturally filter onto Heights Blvd, and the number of travelers on Yale would decrease enough to where it only needed 1 lane in each direction.

[hbg.50]

8 minutes ago, samagon said:

Yale feels dangerous even in my car, I could only imagine how pedestrians feel.

the problem with lane reduction on Yale is that it is too busy for fewer lanes.

maybe if they added more lanes to Heights Blvd, then people would naturally filter onto Heights Blvd, and the number of travelers on Yale would decrease enough to where it only needed 1 lane in each direction.

Heights was 2 lanes in each direction before the bike lanes were added.  Anyway, with the jogging trail there is much more pedestrian activity on Heights than on Yale.  I would just leave it alone now.

The changes on Shepherd/Durham are night and day.  Those streets were littered with shot-gun houses, tenement apartments, junk yards, used auto dealerships.  Talk about gentrification….that’s what this project accelerated and why it was the correct area for this street transformation.

[j_cuevas713]

2 hours ago, samagon said:

Yale feels dangerous even in my car, I could only imagine how pedestrians feel.

the problem with lane reduction on Yale is that it is too busy for fewer lanes.

maybe if they added more lanes to Heights Blvd, then people would naturally filter onto Heights Blvd, and the number of travelers on Yale would decrease enough to where it only needed 1 lane in each direction.

Yale could benefit from adding 2 maybe even 3 more lights and that would help big time

[s3mh]

2 hours ago, samagon said:

Yale feels dangerous even in my car, I could only imagine how pedestrians feel.

the problem with lane reduction on Yale is that it is too busy for fewer lanes.

maybe if they added more lanes to Heights Blvd, then people would naturally filter onto Heights Blvd, and the number of travelers on Yale would decrease enough to where it only needed 1 lane in each direction.

Yale doesn't just feel dangerous.  It is dangerous.  If I was the traffic king of Houston, I would make all the cross streets into right turn only except for the streets with traffic signals.   Making a left hand turn or trying to cross Yale on a numbered street is a very good way to end up t-boned.  A three lane Yale St. with a center lane for turns might also help.  

Yale really does not have capacity issues except for at the I-10 and 610 feeders.  The I-10 feeder is mostly due to a poorly timed light that is set up to give the feeder traffic too much time.  

Heights Blvd. is not a good alternative because it stops at 20th and has a lot of pedestrian traffic/kids along one of the few boulevards in Houston that you would actually drive your out of town guests along to show off.  

 

[JClark54]

Speaking of this topic, the Chronicle ran a piece today in which developers with interests in this project and others in the Heights were interviewed. I thought the study showing suburban home-buyers are putting greater emphasis on trails, walkability, etc., was very interesting. 

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-mayor-road-project-19496941.php

 

 

Edited June 10 by JClark54

[j_cuevas713]

A lot of community leaders are going to speak at city council tomorrow. They are not happy. I encourage everyone to send an email to districtc@houstontx.gov and let CM Kamin know that we will not support the appointees the mayor has set up for the Montrose TIRZ. One of those individuals hates cycling infrastructure and the others are very car-centric. Emailing CM Kamin creates a receipt she can use to defend her constituents. The more receipts the better.

[CREguy13]

I'm **cautiously optimistic the Montrose TIRZ project will prevail.  The completed sections of the sidewalk along Shep/Durham already have noticeably more pedestrian use, even with it being brutally hot out.  By the time Fall weather rolls around and several more blocks of sidewalks are open, it will be clear as day this is a game changer for Houston and a blueprint to transitioning our urban neighborhoods to walkability. The pedestrian friendly commercial development that will follow along this corridor is going to be amazing.

Montrose residents will want their version of this along core thoroughfares like Montrose Blvd.  While they may try, best of luck to the mayor and the loud minority if they think they can stop Houston from evolving!

 

Edited June 11 by CREguy13

[j_cuevas713]

30 minutes ago, CREguy13 said:

I'm **cautiously optimistic the Montrose TIRZ project will prevail.  The completed sections of the sidewalk along Shep/Durham already have noticeably more pedestrian use, even with it being brutally hot out.  By the time Fall weather rolls around and several more blocks of sidewalks are open, it will be clear as day this is a game changer for Houston and a blueprint to transitioning our urban neighborhoods to walkability. The pedestrian friendly commercial development that will follow along this corridor is going to be amazing.

Montrose residents will want their version of this along core thoroughfares like Montrose Blvd.  While they may try, best of luck to the mayor and the loud minority if they think they can stop Houston from evolving!

 

Same. I expect a ton of pedestrian activity that will set the tone for the rest of Houston. And the mayor won't be able to stop it tbh unless he wants to be tagged as one of the worst mayors Houston has ever had.

Edited June 11 by j_cuevas713

[mattyt36]

21 hours ago, JClark54 said:

Speaking of this topic, the Chronicle ran a piece today in which developers with interests in this project and others in the Heights were interviewed. I thought the study showing suburban home-buyers are putting greater emphasis on trails, walkability, etc., was very interesting. 

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-mayor-road-project-19496941.php

 

 

Glad the developers are speaking up.

Love that the "loud voices" the article referred to the Mayor listening to cited only one name . . . Alex Mealer.  It sure does seem to be the case.  What strange bedfellows, the former chairman of State GOP's 2024 Victory Fund and the "Democratic" Houston mayor.

[hindesky]

https://www.shepherddurham.com