The hip-hop spokeskids for Houston’s transportation agency are out with their second CD — though, as Houston Press music editor Chris Gray notes, it appears that in at least one video by the Transit Boyz, the rapping progeny of Metro employees have been replaced by puppets. Puppets modeled after the Beastie Boys. A few other references are thrown in too: “We like big buses and we cannot lie.” Yes, they really did just say that.
Harris County Housing Authority interim CEO Tom McCasland takes a visitor from Portland along the path of the bike trail he hopes will soon connect Downtown Houston seamlessly to the city’s northwestern suburbs. From Georgia’s Market downtown they head out the MKT Trail into the Heights, which dead ends near the Shepherd-Durham overpasses. “The lot turned into a truck path, which ended at a decrepit railroad bridge. We took a sharp right down a singletrack path along the edge of the bayou far below us,” writes Elly Blue, who’s been touring U.S. cities to assess their bikeability. McCasland, an advocate for expanding Houston bikeways, tells the Houston Press‘s John Nova Lomax that “part of the city’s latest grand biking plan is to dynamite [that burned-out bridge] and rebuild it as a bike/pedestrian thoroughfare. The trail will then continue along White Oak Bayou’s banks and connect with the existing trail that begins at West 11th and TC Jester and heads north through Timbergrove, Garden Oaks, Oak Forest and all the way up to Acres Homes.”
Look out for a self-driving car from Google navigating strip-center parking lots and ordering tacos from a drive-thru near you. Will they self-valet too?
Video: Google
BIKE RACKS FOR INNER LOOP EATERIES 
Buried in Anvil owner Bobby Heugel’s long complaint about Houston Press coverage of possible neighborhood opposition to an application for an on-street valet parking zone for the Hay Merchant and Underbelly in the former Chances Bar space on Westheimer at Waugh: News of a new initiative sponsored by OKRA, the restaurant advocacy group he helped found. “We’re going to start providing complimentary bike racks to small restaurants and bars inside the loop, at our cost, to encourage alternative transportation in Houston. This is for OTHER restaurants and bars, not our own, which already have bike parking.” [Eating Our Words] Photo of Underbelly, 1100 Westheimer: Vinson
In honor of “nearly” reaching what it describes as the halfway point in constructing the new East End light-rail line, Metro is releasing this rendering showing what it’ll look like when riders reach the track’s end. It’s a view of the station at the Magnolia Park Transit Center on Harrisburg at 70th St., the line’s easternmost reach. For the most part, the basic structure of each station will be identical steel constructions with glass canopies — much as they are on the existing Main St. line.
A reader wants to know what happened to the section of the new Heritage West Bikeway along White Oak Bayou as it passes under I-45 just north of Downtown (shown above, facing west).
I take this bike trail to UHD out of the Heights. It has been about three weeks since I last used it. This section was brand new, I think less than 6 months old and it has been torn up. In the distance you can see another orange fence, where the new trail starts again and then abruptly ends at a construction site where they are building a bike bridge.
I am curious to know if anyone has info about why a new section is torn up already. I’m looking forward to a completed trail that will connect the Heights directly to Downtown and Minute Maid park.
If nothing else, it’s a pretty sweet pic about how Houston infrastructure is always “improving”, no matter how new it is.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: KEEP THOSE TRAINS MOVING BY MY HOUSE, PLEASE “This is a great photo of the cars that Union Pacific parks behind our neighborhood on a constant basis. I’ve been fighting them for 1 1/2 years now about leaving running refrigerated cars there overnight. Those suckers are LOUD. Yeah, I understand the track was there way before my house but we didn’t have this problem until UP started using it as a delivery point for a local distributor 2 years ago. Miserable sleep for 10 households just so UP can save a few bucks. When the cars aren’t running, I actually enjoy the constant change of scenery. We’ve seen some pretty interesting stuff back there.” [JenBen00, commenting on Headlines: Affordable Housing Demos; Young Houston]
Note: Story corrected below.
Houston’s transit agency is scheduled to close next month on the twice-delayed $550,000 purchase of a 3,589-sq.-ft. strip of land across Post Oak Blvd. from the Waterwall Park — even though the Uptown Line, the light-rail line the land would be used for, isn’t part of its current construction contract, and isn’t even expected to be complete before 2020, according to Metro documents. Negotiated under the real-estate happy regime of Metro’s previous administration, under Metro’s current administration, under an authorization approved by its earlier real-estate-happy board, the contract Metro signed for the property at 3009 Post Oak prohibits the agency from backing out of the purchase — even if its plans or route alignment have changed. But a Metro spokesperson tells Memorial Examiner reporter Michael Reed that the purchase still makes sense, and turns out to be a less expensive option for it than using eminent domain to acquire the parcel later. Going up next door to the site: a 20-story office tower for its owner, the U.S. subsidiary of Swedish development firm Skanska.
Photo: Memorial Examiner
The reddish steel structure shown here is UH architecture grad Neil Denari‘s design for the new light-rail transfer station on Main St. between Capitol and Rusk downtown, where the new East End and Southeast Lines currently under construction will intersect with the existing rail line. Besides Denari, whose firm is based in LA, 3 New York and 1 local architecture firm were invited to dream up schemes for the long open-air, 11-ft.-wide rail platform. A jury selected by Metro will pick the winning design, but Metro is still asking for rider comments on each of them.
CRICKET TRAILER TAKES IT OFFLINE 
How’d the Cricket Trailer do in its national teevee debut last night on Extreme RV, the Travel Channel’s new show? Former furnituremaker-to-the-astronauts Garrett Finney didn’t get top billing in the episode for the second version of his unique 2-wheeler pop-top vehicle, painstakingly crafted in his Woodland Heights workshop — that prize went to Simon Cowell’s behemoth 45-footer motor home. Still, the Cricket website attracted enough attention from the RV early adopter crowd to knock it off its server. From the Cricket’s Facebook page, Finney promises it’ll be back online soon. Update, 1/31: It’s back in business. [Previously on Swamplot]
SAN ANTONIO AND DALLAS MOVING CLOSER 
For those of you who obey speed limits on interstate highways — or even just adjust your cruising speed accordingly — the drives to San Antonio and Dallas just got a little shorter. The Texas Transportation Commission today approved a 5mph bump-up in the speed limit along stretches of I-10 and I-45 North well outside city limits. The new 75mph speed limit will also go into effect on more than 1,500 miles of highway throughout the state — but only after the signs are changed. [Texas Politics] Photo: TxDOT
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE MACHINE THAT REPLACED THE GANDY DANCERS “It did put 25 men out of work . . . not to mention the loss of a musical tradition.” [michael, commenting on So That’s Where Railroad Ties Come From]
On a stretch of track near his company’s offices on Long Dr. in Golfcrest, along Holmes Rd. at Scott St., Snapstream founder and CEO Rakesh Agrawal catches this rail-riding machine in action, yanking and replacing railroad ties underneath itself.
It looks like large portions of the 2.8-mile-long Heritage West Bikeway connecting Stude Park to UH-Downtown are close to completion, but the path along portions of the former UP railway won’t open until summer, according to the city. One important still-missing link: a pedestrian bridge over Little White Oak Bayou. Past the University, the 10-ft. wide trail will connect to the Heritage East Bikeway, which continues along White Oak Bayou to Lockwood.
The new western portion will hook up with the MKT hike-and-bike trail both at Stude Park and at Spring St., providing an alternate along-the-bayou path for bicyclists headed downtown from the Heights. One highlight of the journey: a close-up view of the 17.3 acres of swampland Hakeem Olajuwon flipped to Metro back in 2005 for a cool $15 million:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FREEDOM, HOUSTON STYLE “Cars rule!!! And so does Houston. I’ve traveled the world and have friends and family in major metropolises from coast to coast. Those cities are nice to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Nearly every move outside your front door involves some sort of calculus including: time of day; parking availability; parking cost; potential grid lock; cab fare; cab availability; buses schedules; bus fare; bus routes; train routes, train schedules; train fare; the weather; public safety; shoe comfort vs shoe style; umbrellas; rain coats; etc. Call me crazy, but I place a high value on knowing that I can jump in my car 24/7 and drive wherever I want to go with full confidence that there will be ample and usually free parking in very close proximity to my destination. In Houston I go where I want, when I want. Usually with ease. It’s called freedom. . . .” [Bernard, commenting on Comment of the Day: Parking Lot City]
