- Developers Delivered 1,555 New Apartment Units Downtown in 2016, Finds Central Houston Report [HBJ]
- Inside the Renovation of the 107-Year-Old Star Bottling Works, AKA Warrant Building, in the Warehouse District [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- 8-Acre Public Garden with Restaurant, Event Space To Break Ground Next Month in Cypress [HBJ]
- East Downtown Restaurant Nancy’s Hustle Opening This Fall at 2704 Polk [HBJ]
- Houston’s Noisiest Areas, as Mapped by the Department of Transportation [Houston Chronicle]
- The Latest on the Artist Drawing Heights-Area Houses [The Leader; previously on Swamplot]
- Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar in the Heights Reopens Under New Ownership [The Leader]
Photo of shuttered Macy’s at Northwest Mall: Brent Oldbury via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
My first ‘Headlines’ photo!
Here’s a link to the noise map:
https://maps.bts.dot.gov/arcgis/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a303ff5924c9474790464cc0e9d5c9fb
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There are several glaring omissions from this map. According to this map, East Downtown and Eastwood are some of the least noisy places in the Inner Loop, and that’s just W-R-O-N-G wrong! Railroads and the light rail system are not considered at all. There are also some large factories that, when they turn on at night, are audible at a fair distance. And road noise is figured based on how a road is designated for statutory purposes, not based on physical and use characteristics. Road noise also varies with the weather and is louder when it is cold. Noise in general is also louder in places without many trees.
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This map is useless except to identify the location and alignment of major airport runways (but not all) and also designated federal/state highways and local arterials. It is a waste of time, resources, and bandwidth.
Oh wait, I found one thing that actually is interesting about the map. There is an arc of noise extending from west Houston, over the Heights, into the Fifth Ward. That is attributable to a corridor that is used commonly by general aviation aircraft to fly at a low altitude beneath the controlled airspace surrounding IAH and HOU. I’m impressed that they seem to have gotten that one thing right.
@TheNiche: It’s not a noise map, it’s a transportation noise map. The title is “Road and Aviation Noise in the United States”. And Westbury (the Bestbury!) is very quiet, as indicated on the map.
The Niche has handed down his ruling. We can all breathe easier now.
Noise survey obviously wasn’t done during regular late night motorcycle racing around loop 610. It is pretty damn loud.
Gisgo late nights on the weekends you can here the motorcycles doing 120mph on 610 from 2 to 3 miles away. I live about 1/3 of a mile away from 610 and South Post Oak I hear them all the time.
I’m almost a mile away from 610 on Stella Link and I can hear them too.
DJboutit, . . . followed closely by the ambulance sounds.
@TheNiche – I’ve lived all over the inner loop but now live in Eastwood and I can say that it’s the quietest area I’ve lived in. Is it completely devoid of any noise? No, it’s not. The train horns can be loud as hell. But I remember being surprised by how much highway noise I could hear from our house on 23rd St., how much street traffic noise and flight path noise I could hear in Montrose, how much noise the light rail made when I lived in Midtown, and how much highway noise I heard from my apartment in the Museum District. Come sit on my back porch and you’ll see what I mean! Now, that smell of burnt coffee from the coffee roasting plant? There’s nothing I can do about that. Sorry.