DESIGNING HOUSTON’S BICYCLE UNDERBELLY 
Peter Muessig’s graduate thesis for the Rice School of Architecture imagines a system of symbiotic bike-only features he’s calling “Veloducts” that would be fused on, under, around, and through the city’s existing car-dominated infrastructure. This rendering shows just such a Veloduct, which appears to be similar to those foot bridges already spanning Buffalo Bayou. But OffCite’s Sara C. Rolater explains how a Veloduct is much more ambitious: “In variations of concrete, joists, and steel, [a Veloduct] can be grafted onto the pillars of freeways, hang suspended by girders, or stand on its own columns. . . . [allowing] cyclists to capitalize on precisely those systems that have previously hindered them. That [the project] enables different modes of transport to coexist without crowding each other seems especially critical for Houston, where a lack of safe-passage laws have made many of Google Maps’ bright-green highlighted ‘bike-friendly’ roads anything but.” [OffCite; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Peter Muessig
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Transportation
COMMENT OF THE DAY: GETTING OTHER FOLKS TO BIKE ” . . . In all honesty, I only ride my bike for fun with the family on the weekends. However, after a couple of very frustrating attempts to park around White Oak to go out to dinner, I recently rode my bike down there with the family for dinner at BBs. While there is a dearth of bike racks, it was so easy to just hop on the bike path, lock up the bikes and go to dinner than weaving in and out of parking lots and side streets trying to find a space for parking. And that is why cycling will eventually become an essential for Houston. We are piling people inside the loop at an unprecedented rate. There is not enough parking in a number of hot spots (Montrose, White Oak, Washington Ave, etc.). People now live close enough to ride their bikes to go out to eat in these areas but don’t because bike amenities are woefully lacking. Or, to put it another way, if you love your car, you should support cycling so there are more parking spaces available for you.” [Old School, commenting on Comment of the Day: Scrambling Through Traffic]
Yesterday, city council approved an agreement that will allow Southwest Airlines to go ahead with plans to expand Hobby Airport for international flights. The short-pants airline will foot the $150 million bill to add up to 280,000 sq. ft. to the terminal, including a new concourse and ticket counter, six security lanes, five gates, and a customs inspection hub. The plan, pictured above, also includes restructured roadways and a new parking garage with 2,500 spaces, mutating one of the wings of an airport designed as though it might be itself ready for takeoff:
The driving force of a project that Uptown Houston District has proposed to the city to transform Post Oak Blvd.? Big beautiful buses. With both residential and commercial developments like Skanska’s 20-story office building popping up along the major transit corridor and METRO’s Uptown/Gold Line nowhere in sight, the District has developed a $177-million project featuring light rail-like BRT to update Post Oak — a street “that has long outlived its original use,” says John Breeding, the District’s president.
Long a fixture on White Oak in the Heights, the Blue Line Bike Lab has opened a second location in the East End. In early November, the repair shop and retailer moved into a suite that had been gutted for a CrossFit gym at 740 Telephone Rd. in the Tlaquepaque Market, a little more than a mile from U of H. The shopping center, bound on the east by Lockwood and on the west by Dumble, might not be the most obvious location for pedal-pushing hipsters looking for a fixie: next door, as the photo above shows, is Space City Hearing Aids. But Bohemeo’s is just a few doors down and Thai restaurant Kanomwan is tucked in there somewhere, as well. And the East End has had two railroad right-of-ways transformed into hike and bike trails. Paul Dale, one of the lab’s resident gearheads, says, “We’re betting on the neighborhood.”
- How to find us [Blue Line Bike Lab]
- Hike and Bike Trails [City of Houston]
Photos: Allyn West
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: BAYPORT FOR TOURISTS “So no rent and docking fees? Which means the port will only be making money off of parking? Maybe something off of the cruise tickets? The Bayport cruise terminal is a nice feature, but the problem is that it’s located in the middle of nowhere. Most cruise ports are located where passengers can get off the cruise and be a tourist. Even though Galveston is the beginning and ending for many cruise passengers, it is also a destination for many also. New Orleans also feeds off this. The Bayport terminal is essentially dropping off passengers at a cargo terminal in the middle of a petro-chemical complex. FUN!” [kjb434, commenting on Port of Houston Paying $6.7 Million in Cruise Bait for Suddenly Popular Bayport Terminal]
PORT OF HOUSTON PAYING $6.7 MILLION IN CRUISE BAIT FOR SUDDENLY POPULAR BAYPORT TERMINAL 
A minor detail missing from last week’s story explaining how the Bayport Cruise Terminal was finally able to lure a couple of cruise lines to its Galveston Bay-side shores, after long 4 years of loneliness and vacancy: the payola. Er, dowry. To entice Princess Cruises and the Norwegian Cruise Line to give up on the overstuffed Galveston Port and stop by for a little on-again, off-again fun with its otherwise antisocial upstream neighbor, the Port of Houston Authority has agreed to dole out a combined $6.685 million to its seafaring suitors. The bulk of cruising-around money will go to the tall Norwegians; Princess will take home $685,000. And both lines will be excused from rent and docking fees. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user Silent Z
After waiting for 4 years for any kind of ship to cruise it, the all-but-virginal Bayport Cruise Terminal will at last get a seaborne visitor — starting next year. And it’ll be . . . a Caribbean Princess!
What was it that finally sparked the hookup — the daily grooming and maintenance? The word put out on the street that the $108.4 million taxpayer-funded facility would be willing to do whatever it takes to lure a few sailors to its waiting docks? More likely, the Galveston County Daily News‘s Laura Elder reports, it was just that the popular-with-the-cruising-set Port of Galveston was full-up, and Princess Cruises wasn’t interested in just squeezing in with all the other ships.
Texas’s Department of Transportation has just announced the kickoff of a 2-year, $14 million study of options for new passenger rail service between the state’s “major metropolitan areas” and Oklahoma City. Funded by a grant from the Federal Railroad Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the state of Oklahoma, the North Central Texas Council of Governments, and TxDOT itself, the study will compare options for enhancing existing Amtrak routes and building a new high-speed rail backbone through the state, as well as the possibility of public-private partnerships, the agency says. The proposed north-south route would connect San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas to its northern neighbor. (That follows the FRA’s longstanding designation of high-speed rail corridors; the federal agency’s proposed map of the South Central region is shown above.)
But what about, um, that other major metropolitan area nearby?
NEW METRO TRAINS GETTING BIKE RACKS 
Metro is showing off the first of 19 new California-made Siemens H2 S70 trains it’ll be adding to its light-rail fleet. The first new cars in 9 years are updated versions of the line’s original 18-member fleet, with one notable difference: Metro will be outfitting them with 2 bicycle racks each, at the front and rear doorways. Photo: Metro
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE NORTH SHEPHERD EXPRESS “RE: DOT I-45 IMPROVEMENTS: I wonder why North Shepherd isn’t included as a ‘parallel route’ for development ‘to add capacity & alleviate congestion.’ It’s already a wide, straight corridor with a direct N-S orientation but (currently) too slow to be a viable alternative to I-45 (except under extreme crash/flooding conditions.) Many I-45 North drivers are headed to areas in The Heights, Galleria and points in-between, and, neither the Sam Houston/Beltway 8 Loop nor the Hardy Tollway are their paths of choice. Center lanes of Shepherd could be elevated as an express route. Below it, neighborhood traffic would be unaffected and the area could rejuvenate (or whatever developers call it these days) to a residential/light commercial area. There is currently a multi-unit project planned for the area, on Rittenhouse . . .” [movocelot, commenting on Headlines: The Push for Waterfront Homes; Unintended Light Show at the Rice Skyspace]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE HERITAGE WEST BIKEWAY IS BACK ON TRAIL “If you had not heard, the construction contractor for this project had gone bankrupt, leaving the project dormant for quite a while. Good news is that the new contractor started working yesterday (8/13/12) and has 120 days to complete the bikeway project. Yes, this should mean that the project will be done by 12/31/12.” [Dan Raine, commenting on Did the Heritage West Bikeway Lose Its Way?]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: GETTING AROUND IN THE MIDRANGE SUBURBS “. . . To me, the goal is not to make Houston’s car culture better. I want to provide people with alternatives to driving. But we have fallen into a trap, where we concentrate our efforts on a few prewar neighborhoods near downtown — because they look the part — and assume that postwar neighborhoods are beyond hope. This happens all over the country, but in Houston it’s really tragic because most of our City was developed after World War II. I brought up Gulfton because not only is it Houston’s densest neighborhood, it is also one of the most neglected. But Sharpstown is in the same predicament. And Oak Forest. And most of Memorial at the other end of the economic spectrum. Most of Houston, really. These areas are too spread out for walkability and rail. But with a few small improvements (a new bus route here; a bicycle path there, a foot bridge), they could be made far less dependent on the automobile. If only we could get out of the trap we’re in.” [ZAW, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Drive Toward a Denser Houston]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DRIVE TOWARD A DENSER HOUSTON “Density is fine as long as it’s Not In My Back Yard. Hey, that’s catchy, someone should come up with an acronym for that. in all seriousness, though, there is a transit issue with density that’s related to the character of Houston’s approach to the car. Density in other cities works well because transit in other city cores works well. Houston is . . . working on it. The fear a lot of people have with large vertical density is that assumption that transit follows the plow, so to speak. In Houston, that can be a riskier gamble than elsewhere.” [J, commenting on Regent Square-ish Apartment Tower Possibly Breaking Ground in 2 Weeks]
Poke along Polk St. in the Woodleigh area of “Greater Eastwood” to find this vintage brick bungalow. Since it’s next to an auto repair service, the home acts as a bookend shoring up one end of a mostly residential block. A convenience store caps the other end; a shopping center is in the next block.
The listing’s location close to Cullen Blvd. means both current and future public transportation options. Metro buses, for example, stop nearby and Polk St. itself has a bike lane. Meanwhile, Metro Rail has 3 stations pending in the area, though each might turn out to be a bit of a hike from the home. It’s about three quarters of a mile to the future Green Line’s York and Lockwood/Eastwood stations. The Purple Line’s Leeland/Third Ward stop is going up just over a half-mile away.
The house boasts classic features of 1929 domicile design: porches, wooden trim, interior archways. Listed earlier this month at $124,900, the property is offered “as is.” Here’s what — at least as the photos show it — that means:
