21 Comment

• Dave January 29, 2015 at 9:35 am

  I think the fifth headline should say “Midtown” and not “Galleria”
• DNAguy January 29, 2015 at 10:29 am

  So by Culberson’s doing, METRO doesn’t have to ensure that it won’t ever put rail on Post Oak. That’s an interesting development in this. Unintended consequences I guess.
  I wonder how much his ‘constituents’ will enjoy the buses rather than rail. Funny.
  If METRO had a clue, they would do the same thing on the University line. Call Afton’s bluff and just build dedicated bus lanes. Build them so they can be converted to light rail easily of course. Then when Afton opposes that too, their classism / anti-all transportation bias will be exposed. They won’t get to hide behind fiscal matters anymore and their bigotry will be exposed. I wonder if Culberson can then write a law that prevents all public transportation in his district…
• Swamplot January 29, 2015 at 10:52 am

  @Dave: Yup. Fixed now. Thanks!
• Houstonian January 29, 2015 at 12:07 pm

  @DNAguy There doesn’t need to be ulterior motives to not want lots of outsider foot traffic in your neighborhood.
• toasty January 29, 2015 at 12:59 pm

  regarding the photo of 59/610, when was that taken? judging from the shadow it appears to have been taken around noonish, and the length of shadow pointing north suggests fall/winter, but the amount of cars on the freeway is low even for a weekend. fair amount of cars in the best buy parking lot, but not crazy full. weird, just weird.
• clou January 29, 2015 at 2:08 pm

  @Houstonian
  “outsider foot traffic”? Afton Oaks is inside the city of Houston and is served by city of Houston streets. The University Line doesn’t go outside the city. Are you referring to foot traffic from all those “outsider” West University and Bellaire folks who might take the train to Afton Oaks? Who are these “outsiders”?
• dag January 29, 2015 at 2:56 pm

  Toasty, you can click on the photographer’s name to find out, it was taken 2/27 at almost exactly noon. Russell is always out taking pictures it seems, he should get his fill before the FAA bans it completely. And I hope they do!
• anon22 January 29, 2015 at 3:21 pm

  Wow this thing fell a long way from LRT. Not even BRT with stations, and not even BRT with designated fancy stops, not even dedicated commuter bus lanes, just…bus lanes.

  When the purple and green lines open to the public and instantly generate positive value in their communities, this will be seen as a latecomer/missed opportunity. I for one have never understood obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism, unless of course they are holding out for something significantly better.
• Houstonian January 29, 2015 at 4:12 pm

  By “outsider” I meant people who don’t live in the neighborhood. I don’t know all the details of all these bus and rail routes but it seems a bit absurd to be playing the race card because people might not want a lot of foot traffic through their neighborhood. These are strangers, walking around your houses that contain your stuff, family and kids. People don’t love that. It doesn’t make them racist.
• toasty January 29, 2015 at 4:32 pm

  thanks dag, even at lunch, IT restricts access to sites like flickr, I probably should have just waited till I got home to look. Either way, that’s a strange low amount of traffic for noon on any day at that intersection!
• joel January 29, 2015 at 6:05 pm

  toasty, you sound like one of those folks that plays those crazy “view from your window” guessing games. thinking of the Dish here (http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/?s=window+guessing+game) but I’m sure there’s many other going on.
• Shannon January 29, 2015 at 10:37 pm

  What on Earth are you talking about? Light Rail brings foot traffic to Afton Oaks? Why would that be? Who are all these people looking in windows and milling around because of Light Rail? It’s absurd to assert such ridiculous claims based on nothing. Afton Oaks isn’t even that nice, I have no clue how a tiny modestly affluent neighborhood could completely derail and entire line effecting thousands of people. A few bigots in some little spot on the line stopped the most important line right in its tracks (pardon the pun). It’s a damn shame.
• Russell Hancock January 30, 2015 at 6:45 am

  Toasty, I took this shot on Tuesday the 27th at 12:05pm
• Clou January 30, 2015 at 8:11 am

  @Houstonian
  I agree that it’s not necessarily fair to say that it is about race, but I think the idea that you can keep strangers out of your neighborhood in a city is an odd one. I don’t know anyone who lives in Afton Oaks but I’m in Afton Oaks every day, stuck in traffic on Richmond. I’m going to be a stranger in Afton Oaks whether I’m in my car or on a train.
• GoogleMaster January 30, 2015 at 9:21 am

  I rode through Afton Oaks this morning on the #25. Guess what? It stopped in Afton Oaks, and someone got off! Oh noes, call the cops!
• Memebag January 30, 2015 at 9:27 am

  @Houstonian: I think you were the first commenter to bring up race when you said “I don’t know all the details of all these bus and rail routes but it seems a bit absurd to be playing the race card because people might not want a lot of foot traffic through their neighborhood.”
  .
  So if race isn’t an issue, why did you mention it?
• TheAntiMetro January 30, 2015 at 12:27 pm

  ^ Perhaps he’s a closet realist.
• GoogleMaster January 30, 2015 at 3:17 pm

  Just got back from riding the #25 again, and once again, we stopped in Afton Oaks! This time no one got off, but there was a shifty looking person who got on, about four-and-a-half feet tall, wearing a suspicious getup of t-shirt, green zip sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. Should I have called the cops?
• Houstonian January 30, 2015 at 6:18 pm

  DNAguy accused people who opposed the line as being bigots. That was when the race card got played. That was a patently absurd comment. Opposing a rail line = racism was the crux of the argument. You have to call that out when you see it.
• JT January 30, 2015 at 8:41 pm

  What next–the residents of Afton Oaks are secretly behind the Freedmantown brick removal?,

  Is it not plausible that the residents of Afton Oaks merely want to maintain the well kept standards of their neighborhood? The homes on Richmond are already the weakest link as a number of them are rentals and are probably the least desirable because of the street noise. It doesn’t take a genius to see the general deterioration of homes on busy thoroughfares- Beechnut in Meyerland is a perfect example. There are so few safeguards for homeowners in this city of wanton development, lackadaisical code enforcement, and horrendous lack of reinvestment in its infrastructure. To top it off the onus of deed restriction violations lies with an HOA with little help from the city. If these people want to maintain one of the few deed restricted inner loop neighborhoods that has managed to stave off the blight so rampant here, more power to them. The proposed University rail line is a joke anyway–it does nothing existing bus service does not already do . The idea that it is so important to run it down one of the only streets where traffic moves fairly decently only to block multiple cross streets and dump more vehicular traffic through the adjacent neighborhoods is absurd. Their is a perfectly adequate and existing right of way along Westpark for the rail which we voted to use
  in one of Metro’s less than transparent bond elections. Street grade light rail is a colossal waste of tax dollars.
• TheNiche January 31, 2015 at 12:20 am

  @ Houstonian: Bigotry takes many forms and is not limited to racism.