BeerNut Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 (edited) METRORapid University Corridor Project Join us at the public meetings listed below to learn more about the METRORapid University Project, ask the project team questions, and provide input. We look forward to meeting you! Tuesday, July 12 Meeting #1 Meeting will be held at the Chinese Community Center. 6-8 p.m. 9800 Town Park Drive Houston, Texas, 77036 Meeting #2 Meeting will be held at the Emancipation Park Conservancy Cultural Center. 6-8 p.m. 3018 Emancipation Avenue Houston, Texas, 77004 Wednesday, July 13 Meeting #3 Meeting will be held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Houston in the Greenway Ballroom. 6-8 p.m. 6 E Greenway Plaza Houston, Texas, 77046 Meeting #4 Meeting will be held at the BakerRipley Ripley House (Gymnasium). 6-8 p.m. 4410 Navigation Blvd. Houston, Texas, 77011 Thursday, July 14 Meeting #5 Meeting will be held at the Wisdom High School (Auditorium). 4:30-6:30 p.m. 6529 Beverly Hill Street Houston, Texas, 77057 Meeting #6 Meeting will be held at Houston Community College, Felix Fraga Academic Campus. (Facilitated in Spanish / facilitado en español.) 6-8 p.m. 301 N Drennan Street Houston, Texas, 77003 Saturday, July 16 Meeting #7 Meeting will be held at the Julia C. Hester House. 9:30-11:30 a.m. 2020 Solo St Houston, Texas, 77020 Monday, July 18 Meeting #8 Meeting will be held at the Third Ward Multi-Service Center. 6-8 p.m. 3611 Ennis Street Houston, Texas, 77004 Wednesday, July 20 Meeting #9 Meeting will be held at Houston Community College – Central Campus in the WW Harmon Building – Room WWH 100 (green building located on the corner of Holman and Caroline). 6-8 p.m. 1300 Holman Street Houston, Texas, 77004 Thursday, July 21 Meeting #10 Meeting will be held at the Northeast Multi-Service Center. 6-8 p.m. 9720 Spaulding Street Houston, Texas, 77016 Monday, July 25 Virtual Meeting #11 Meeting is virtual, and will be recorded and posted online afterward. The meeting link will be provided a few days before the meeting. 6-7 p.m. Edited June 29, 2022 by BeerNut 3 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BEES?! Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 Maybe University Corridor ought to get its own thread soon? 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 11 hours ago, BEES?! said: Maybe University Corridor ought to get its own thread soon? Done. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post tigereye Posted July 14, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted July 14, 2022 Conceptual video of the University BRT line. 9 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfastx Posted July 14, 2022 Share Posted July 14, 2022 Looks cool. It is a massive disappointment that Metro is having to settle for BRT instead of at least LRT for this corridor. BRT will generate less ridership, require a higher operating subsidy per person (although with less initial capital costs) and generate less economic development/benefits for the city. Thank you Culberson. I still hope that this will be more successful than the Silver line which hasn't done well at all. Maybe after it's connected to this it'll do better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samagon Posted July 14, 2022 Share Posted July 14, 2022 1 hour ago, mfastx said: Looks cool. It is a massive disappointment that Metro is having to settle for BRT instead of at least LRT for this corridor. BRT will generate less ridership, require a higher operating subsidy per person (although with less initial capital costs) and generate less economic development/benefits for the city. Thank you Culberson. I still hope that this will be more successful than the Silver line which hasn't done well at all. Maybe after it's connected to this it'll do better. another plus is it should be faster to implement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablog Posted July 14, 2022 Share Posted July 14, 2022 I also wish it was light rail, but BRT is a great way to get the system built out. I can see a long distant future where these are transformed into light rail also, the silver line currently goes nowhere, which is why ridership is low. I can see it getting a huge boost with this line 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbs315 Posted July 14, 2022 Share Posted July 14, 2022 I see James Coney Island survives in this vision of the future 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heights88 Posted July 14, 2022 Share Posted July 14, 2022 Struggling with the regret for light rail to be built here. Do we consider the green, purple, and red line LRT extensions a success? Ridership on these new lines has been pretty abysmal (even controlling for effects of the pandemic). University Line BRT construction is already estimated at $84MM per mile. Building light rail here would likely require at least triple the investment per mile for little to no incremental return. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cspwal Posted July 14, 2022 Share Posted July 14, 2022 The original midtown to galleria route down Richmond through montrose would probably have rivaled the redline in ridership. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texasota Posted July 14, 2022 Share Posted July 14, 2022 I think it still will. The uptown line makes very little sense in isolation; this is a whole different story. This connects the east end to UH/TSU to Midtown/Museum District to Montrose to Kirby to Greenway Plaza to Uptown to Little India. That's *a ton* of destinations and a tens of thousands of homes and apartments. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerNut Posted July 14, 2022 Author Share Posted July 14, 2022 Houston business owners concerned about METRO's proposed bus rapid transit Quote The proposed route would run along Richmond Avenue, where Abraham Aguilar runs a boot shop. "Hopefully our quality withstands it, but I know we're going to lose business," Aguilar said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerNut Posted July 14, 2022 Author Share Posted July 14, 2022 Here are pics of some of the slides that took at the Emancipation meeting on Tuesday. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amlaham Posted July 14, 2022 Share Posted July 14, 2022 2 hours ago, Heights88 said: Struggling with the regret for light rail to be built here. Do we consider the green, purple, and red line LRT extensions a success? Ridership on these new lines has been pretty abysmal (even controlling for effects of the pandemic). University Line BRT construction is already estimated at $84MM per mile. Building light rail here would likely require at least triple the investment per mile for little to no incremental return. The rail extensions have DEFINITELY been a success. Look at the surrounding areas around the purple line and specifically along Scott st... almost every block has either already been developed or is currently under construction, the area around the green line is getting is also getting a lot of attention from developers lately. However, it takes time for ridership to increase in these areas. Don't forget, these LRT extensions were in areas/ streets with almost nothing/ empty/ abandoned lots. So, now that these extensions get built, developers have to step in to redevelop these empty lots/ low density areas (which they have). This entire process takes time, decades even. Houston is thinking of the future with these LRT extensions. We're going to wish we had a lot more of them in the future when it takes an hour to get from uptown to downtown. Our highways/ streets cannot and will not keep up with our increasing population. I'm sure you've noticed how horrible traffic is becoming, imagine in 10 years when we add another million people and their cars. Or imagine 2050 when we're projected to add another 7 million people.....and their cars :) Also, I'm not surprised that the silver line isn't successful yet. It literally goes up and down 1 street and connects to 2 park and rides that's literally .5-2 miles away. Not only that, the street itself has an abundant amount of parking. It doesn't make any sense to me to drive all the way from Sugar Land/ West University/ Pearland/ etc and park at the West Park P&R (which isn't immediately off the freeway), then take the BRT to ride .5 miles to the Galleria. If anything it feels like that would waste more time. Now, imagine if they can take the park and ride from their suburb and get on a BRT that goes down the highway and straight to the silver line. Or, imagine a BRT down Shepherd/ Durham that connects to the silver line. That would make a lot more sense (and cost more I know), until then or until it connects to other lines, I don't see ridership changing much. In summary, we're wayyy too car dependent, and the longer we wait and oppose BRT/ LRT, the more we're going to be screwed in the next 20-30 years. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
X.R. Posted July 14, 2022 Share Posted July 14, 2022 3 hours ago, cspwal said: The original midtown to galleria route down Richmond through montrose would probably have rivaled the redline in ridership. Isn't the only difference that it goes down to Westchase at greenway? That isn't terrible. If I can get to the Galleria on this thing in 25-30 mins from the Wheeler Transit Center, I feel like thats a big win. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Some one Posted July 15, 2022 Share Posted July 15, 2022 5 hours ago, Heights88 said: Struggling with the regret for light rail to be built here. Do we consider the green, purple, and red line LRT extensions a success? Ridership on these new lines has been pretty abysmal (even controlling for effects of the pandemic). University Line BRT construction is already estimated at $84MM per mile. Building light rail here would likely require at least triple the investment per mile for little to no incremental return. To to fair, the purple line and green line were built with the intention of the university line feeding into them. It's like if you build Spur 527 before you build US 59. Also, from what I've seen in the Metro presentation, they expect the University BRT to generate more ridership than the 3-4 planned light rail expansions combined. I think that warrants rail for an "incremental return." 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samagon Posted July 15, 2022 Share Posted July 15, 2022 20 hours ago, corbs315 said: I see James Coney Island survives in this vision of the future the guiltiest of my pleasures, I hope they survive! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfastx Posted July 15, 2022 Share Posted July 15, 2022 19 hours ago, Heights88 said: Struggling with the regret for light rail to be built here. Do we consider the green, purple, and red line LRT extensions a success? Ridership on these new lines has been pretty abysmal (even controlling for effects of the pandemic). University Line BRT construction is already estimated at $84MM per mile. Building light rail here would likely require at least triple the investment per mile for little to no incremental return. Part of my regret comes from the fact that I believe they did it backwards. This and the uptown corridor definitely warranted rail, while the east side lines were more suited to BRT, in my opinion. I disagree that there would be no incremental return. Substantially higher ridership and lower subsidy per passenger on an operational basis definitely qualifies in my opinion. Higher capacity is a plus too - the system can be in place for decades longer without needing capacity upgrades. And then the economic benefits with LRT outweigh BRT, although I'll grant that it's not THAT much more benefits (substantially higher benefits come from HRT which unfortunately will probably never be built in Houston). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BEES?! Posted July 15, 2022 Share Posted July 15, 2022 Is the section before Chimney Rock going to come in a different phase? Or are they still hammering out the details of it and decided not to release a rendering of it right now? I’d thought that the University Line was gonna start before BW8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amlaham Posted July 18, 2022 Share Posted July 18, 2022 On 7/14/2022 at 11:51 AM, corbs315 said: I see James Coney Island survives in this vision of the future On 7/15/2022 at 8:36 AM, samagon said: the guiltiest of my pleasures, I hope they survive! https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/07-11-22-james-coney-island-jci-grill-shepherd-location-closed-shuttered/ They actually shut down quietly last week Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilcal Posted July 18, 2022 Share Posted July 18, 2022 On 7/15/2022 at 2:40 PM, BEES?! said: Is the section before Chimney Rock going to come in a different phase? Or are they still hammering out the details of it and decided not to release a rendering of it right now? I’d thought that the University Line was gonna start before BW8 Yes, I believe that they are going to do Westpark/Lower Uptown TC to Eastwood TC first. They didn't have the full renderings for the other sections. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mkultra25 Posted July 19, 2022 Share Posted July 19, 2022 21 hours ago, Amlaham said: https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/07-11-22-james-coney-island-jci-grill-shepherd-location-closed-shuttered/ They actually shut down quietly last week That was just one location that closed (although a couple of others are currently up for lease). Other locations are still in business, there just aren't any inner-loop ones left. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samagon Posted July 19, 2022 Share Posted July 19, 2022 (edited) 21 hours ago, Amlaham said: https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/07-11-22-james-coney-island-jci-grill-shepherd-location-closed-shuttered/ They actually shut down quietly last week the one on i45 near Woodridge closed before the pandemic, there's not a single location in downtown Houston area. thinking about it, I don't even know if there's another location inside the loop after this one closed. that's why I made my comment about I hope they make it, they've been slowly closing locations for years, the easiest one for me to get to now is in Meyerland. on a more topical note, I guess they are still working on the design, but I was really hoping to see how they handle the Elgin/Spur5/Railroad/i45 intersection. I do hope they include a bicycle lane (and better pedestrian access) in that mess of an intersection. the most difficult part I see is (unless the RR will make their bridge wider) they have a very limited width within which they will have to work, specifically under the RR. Edited July 19, 2022 by samagon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerNut Posted July 21, 2022 Author Share Posted July 21, 2022 On 7/14/2022 at 3:57 PM, BeerNut said: Old route Any thoughts on why they changed this segment routing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texasota Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 Elgin certainly has more ROW and this routing allows one fewer turn, so it makes sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iah77 Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 4 hours ago, Texasota said: Elgin certainly has more ROW and this routing allows one fewer turn, so it makes sense. I wonder why it turns onto Blodgett if they aren't going to put a station on it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 I think it might be at least partly for the purpose of getting that station adjacent to TSU. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerNut Posted July 23, 2022 Author Share Posted July 23, 2022 14 hours ago, Texasota said: Elgin certainly has more ROW and this routing allows one fewer turn, so it makes sense. Wouldn't it make sense to stay on Wheeler to Ennis? Even fewer turns. Maybe I'm just being salty cause the closest stop is now twice as far from my place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texasota Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 It might be because it will be easier to make the turn onto Ennis from Blodgett than Wheeler: Blodgett is already widened at that point and the lot at the NW corner is vacant. They can acquire vacant land to build the curve rather than encroaching onto (and probably acquiring outright) someone's house. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbcu Posted July 24, 2022 Share Posted July 24, 2022 Then as soon as this comes out jolanda Jones wants to cry foul miss Jones - where were you when Wheeler Ave BC bought 2-3 streets off Scott for a church expansion and a parking lot? where were you when the state bought out the back of the community off MLK and OST and bulldozed homes years ago for the spur 5 extension and nothing has happened? where were you when all those homes on Alabama disappeared or how every small lot inside the loop is now being bought and 10 town homes made of crap quality are being thrown out which prices out another family in the area? why no fuss about the private developers buying land on Scott and displacing residents for high rise student housing? cause metro is considering running by TSU and some homes will have to be displaced you want to rile up the masses (most don't even live out there) but use that same energy for the other developments across Scott and Elgin - this end needs a development like that Stay in your lane 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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