- Houston On Track To Add 2.7M SF of Retail Space This Year, Down from 3.4M Last Year [Houston Chronicle]
- Inside BHP’s New High-Tech Houston HQ at 1500 Post Oak Blvd. [Houston Chronicle]
- Galleria VI Wing Now Open for Shopping with 35 High-End Retailers [Houston Chronicle]
- Humble ISD Purchases Office Complex for Welcome Center [Houston Chronicle]
- How Much You Need To Make To Rent an Apartment in Houston, According to SmartAsset [HBJ ($)]
- Fast-Casual Pizza Place MidiCi Opening Second Houston-Area Restaurant in Upper Kirby Next Month [Culturemap]
- MOD Pizza Signs Leases for 6 More Restaurant Spaces in Houston, Bringing Its Total to 23 [Realty News Report]
- The Long Rise and Fast Fall of Houston’s Ambitious One-Bin Recycling Program [Houston Press]
- Montgomery County, Conroe Looking at Ways To Improve Flood Warning Systems [Houston Public Media]
- All the Problems with Hunting Hogs from Hot Air Balloons [Houston Press]
- Flippers, Investors, Developers, and Builders Bought Nearly 40% of Dallas Homes Last Year [Dallas News; previously on Swamplot]
- Baltimore the Latest City Facing ‘Bikelash’ as Residents Pushed To Demolish Existing Bike Path [CityLab]
- Eastbound I-10 Closed This Weekend for Repairs to Overpass at Gellhorn [Houston Chronicle]
Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Re: Hunting Hogs from Hot Air Balloons
Never liked this idea. Maybe starting in September people can throw spears at wild hogs instead.
Re: Inside BHP’s New High-Tech Houston HQ
That’s hot. Always loved this bldg. My favorite bldg in the immediate area.
It’s not too surprising that even in cities who are considered “liberal” are having a few bike paths removed. Urbanista idealism, and idealism in general feels good while sipping chai on some hipster patio but once reality hits people directly, like losing a parking space, that good feeling can easily to disillusionment and nimbyism. I spend a lot of time on Lamar St. downtown where the dedicated bike path is and I hardly ever see anyone using it on a bike. Light rail stealing car lanes and parking, on the other hand, seems like it is worth it as people are actually using these things in fairly large and regular numbers.
Re: Galleria IV wing
35 new high-end retailers? Perhaps SPACE for 35 retailers as my walk-thru last weekend shows 7 which have doors and windows while there is a whole lot of drywall in the rest of the wing. Do the authors of these articles ever do ANY research or do they just look at the builder’s sell brochures?
@Dana-X I’m an avid cyclist and pro-bike lanes but I’m sympathetic toward residents in this case. It sounds like a shared bike-car road with sharrows would have been a better idea in this case. In Houston, most of our bike lines don’t work for a number of reasons. There usually too narrow and pushed to the shoulder filled with puddles and debris (like the ones on Polk S, Cullen St., Weslayan St). But I don’t think it’s fair to judge a bike lane that just opened by the initial number of riders. Houston is still a long ways away from a decent network of bicycle infrastructure. Once the different bike lanes and paths connect to each, the individual components make more sense. They just extended the Lamar path to connect to Buffalo Bayou Park so traffic should increase.
Really enjoy the fast casual pizza concept that has mod puzza has pioneered.
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As to the failure of the one bin system, there’s got to be corruption at play there. It looks like it. It should be investigated. Maybe the dead eco bin deal will show up alive in a prison in spain? One can only hope – it looked like a great financial deal for the city and I hate separating my glass.
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(The Spain comment is a reference to the life insurance scandal that sunk – pun intended – sly’s mayoral dream in the 80’s.)
The delightfully ironic implication of these bike lane disputes is that higher density can actually work against the implementation of a cycling network. Replacing curbside parking with bike lanes isn’t as controversial where homes and businesses have their own parking.
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Without knowing the specifics of where these controversial bike lanes are located, I’d say that bike lanes should be completely separated from the road grid (ie the separated bike paths that follow Buffalo Bayou Park and Brays Bayou near TMC), or should follow major roads but with grade separation, ideally in areas where homes and businesses have ample offsite parking.
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Let the quiet neighborhood streets keep their curbside parking. For most of these streets, traffic is low and slow enough that bikes can share the road with cars anyways.
I’ll admit i haven’t seen much on exactly how it works, but i don’t buy that the One Bin technology actually produces usable byproducts. It sounds like a big fat scam. (This does not excuse any possible shadiness on the bidding part)
RE: EcoHub, seems to me this innovative program steps on the toes of SO MANY entrenched industries (and their political, financial and criminal associations.) Too big. If he could start in small communities, gain popular support and a groundswell of political goodwill it would be better for success. But I suppose small-scale would not be at all economically viable.
I’m with tinyvoices. I don’t see how mixing my paper, cardboard, and clean plastic recyclables in with the used cat litter that forms the bulk of my garbage would ever be a good idea.