COMMENT OF THE DAY: SEND THE TRENDIES OUTSIDE THE LOOP, PLEASE 
“Ridiculous that all trendy restaurants must be packed in the same area. Move out of the Loop and dominate. Spring Branch north of I-10 for example has Heights-y demographics but the restaurant dollars go elsewhere for the most part. Take a risk like some are already doing and venture out. The old Hollister Grill location is getting a trendy new restaurant and one of the bartenders from Anvil (I think it is) is opening up shop on Long Point Rd. Karbach’s already has a new restaurant on Karbach Street in Spring Branch. Sheesh people. Move outward!” [Spring Branch, commenting on Hunky Dory and Bernadine’s Are Not Dead Yet] Illustration: Lulu
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE NO-BIKE-LANE BIKE PLAN 
“There’s even a more simple plan: Make the right lane 12 ft. (or more) and the left lane 10 ft. Don’t stripe new bike lanes or overly alter existing regulations. Don’t plan. Don’t get approvals. Don’t p/o motorists with the silly bike lanes that bikers fear and never use. We just need a little extra space for cars to pass us by. And: Motorists will like having buses and other heavy vehicles in the larger right-lane, too . . . you don’t even need signage.” [Chris M(2)., commenting on Comment of the Day: Houston’s New Bike Plan Is Just a Plan] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT IT TAKES TO LIVE NEXT TO THE FAST LANES 
“The housing stock of the city has MANY luxury apartments located too close to comfort to a freeway. On I-10, the Sawyer Lofts’ north side [sits] right up on the freeway with some units being feet away from an exit ramp. Go further west and I-10 is lined with luxury apartments that look out at the freeway from a very uncomfortably close distance (basically two lanes away, plus a small setback). This is becoming a permanent fixture of the city. I’m not sure why anyone would voluntarily rent one of these, but the developers are banking on housing being in so short supply that someone will basically lose out when the music stops playing and there’s not a chair to sit in and they will be forced to rent one of these. I think that must be the game plan. Maybe they think if it’s common enough people will just subconsciously modify their lifestyle expectations in a big city to thinking its okay to live between 7 and 50 feet from one of the widest freeways in the world.” [Commenter7, commenting on The Downtown Apartments Caught Between a Freeway and a Curved Place] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON’S NEW BIKE PLAN IS JUST A PLAN 
“The plan is really just a recommendation of where to put lanes. The decision of actually putting in the bike lanes in a given spot will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, mainly as roads are rebuilt. Most of the money can come from TxDOT, TIGER, TIRZs, etc. It’s much easier to get that funding if you have a plan already in place. An example: Maybe your local CIP project involves tearing up a road and replacing it. Instead of repainting the road with the old 12-ft. wide lanes, maybe make them a reasonable 10-ft. wide and spray in a line for a bike lane. That’s a cheap addition to a project that doesn’t involve a lot of overhead that would normally come from a separate project to put in a new bike lane somewhere.” [Biker, commenting on Houston Bike Plan Up for a Vote Again This Morning Amid More California-ization Fears] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTONIANS WOULDN’T KNOW DENSITY IF IT PARKED RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM 
“This is exactly what happens in every dense city. If you go to Brooklyn, you will see cars street-parked in front of the brownstones. Few of those cars belong to the resident of the brownstone immediately adjacent. They recognize that they don’t own the street parking in front of their residence. It’s an incredible waste of resources to require that those perfectly good parking spaces remain vacant, in favor of large separate parking structures.” [Heightsresident, commenting on Comment of the Day: How To Tilt The Zero-Sum Houston Transit Game] Illustration: Lulu
Leasing signage was tacked up not too long ago at the Dolce Midtown apartment development straddling Bailey St. along the north side of W. Gray, notes a reader relaying years of curiosity about the project’s slow-but-maybe-not-always-so-steady progress. The development’s website doesn’t offer any clues as to when move-in might be possible, but the company has opened a leasing office down the street (in one of the not-getting-knocked-down-any-time-soon segments of the River Oaks Shopping Center).
A few of the hawk-eyed cranewatchers over at HAIF claim to have spotted some backward clock-ticks on the work in the form of partial de- and re-construction of the 2 midrises’ upper stories during late 2015, possibly related to all the torrential rain that year on the building’s siding and wooden framing. But the buildings apparently re-reached their full heights not long after; as of last Friday, there’re even some relatively complete-looking facade sections on the eastern midrise (as shown above). The western building of the 2 still looks to have only been issued its Hardi-plank balcony flaps, however:
Ups and Downs in Fourth Ward
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO EITHER ELIMINATE OR WILDLY EXACERBATE THE HOUSTON TRAFFIC JAMS OF THE FUTURE 
“Once people figure out that it’s cheaper to keep the autonomous cars on the road rather than storing them in parking garages, and that having them circle the block at a very low rate of speed in perpetuity keeps them in a ready state – ready to zoom off to pick up passengers and bring in income while the owner is at work – then, and only then, will Houston residents know the true meaning of ‘gridlock’ and immediately wish that legitimate mass transportation alternatives had been built long ago.” [justaswell, commenting on Comment of the Day: Holding Out for that Younger, Sexier Mass Transit Option We Haven’t Met Yet] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOLDING OUT FOR THAT YOUNGER, SEXIER MASS TRANSIT OPTION WE HAVEN’T MET YET 
“Great. As I spend the next few years in grinding traffic, I can take comfort in knowing that no new mass commuting options will be initiated in our region, because we are waiting on futuristic autonomous cars to solve all of our problems. People will give up the comfort of their own private transportation for the luxury of riding in a glorified Uber (but without a driver to keep it clean or compensate for navigation errors). From an urban planning perspective, that’s like meeting a beautiful woman with a great personality but never asking her out because you are just certain that if you ever meet Kate Upton, she will find you infinitely attractive and satisfy you forever.” [Shmoo, commenting on Comment of the Day: Wait, So ‘Keep Adding Freeways’ Was the Long-Term Fix?] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WAY LESS DAMAGE IN A LIBRARY PILEUP 
“Freeways: the only type of infrastructure project that is considered unsuccessful when used by lots and lots of people.” [Angostura, commenting on Comment of the Day: Wait, So ‘Keep Adding Freeways’ Was the Long-Term Fix?] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WAIT, SO ‘KEEP ADDING FREEWAYS’ WAS THE LONG-TERM FIX? 
“The Chronicle article made a fairly big deal out of the following H-GAC quote: ‘Future growth and the resulting travel is expected to surpass our ability to meet regional mobility needs by relying solely on increased roadway capacity.’Â I question the significance of this excerpt. Is that not the case at the present time? Has that ever not been the case?” [TheNiche, commenting on Houston #1 in Sublease Office Space; Downtown Getting a WeWork] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: CROSSING A LINE ON FLOOD CONTROL 
“You either pay for the fixes, or let residents continue to be subjected to higher insurance premiums, maintenance, and rebuild costs — slowly depriving the city of tax revenue. At some point, property values will appreciate to the point where making the fixes may have been the smart thing to do. Not saying it’s financially practical of course. What was the property damage total for the past 2 years of flooding, though?” [joel, commenting on Just How Much Flooding Is Too Much Flooding for Houston?] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY ISN’T LONG AND SKINNY ALWAYS OUT OF STYLE? 
“Maybe it is just me, but I feel like the folks that are for the high speed rail are the same people that are against the Dakota pipeline. The HSR will undoubtedly have large environmental concerns for the state.” [Bocepheus, commenting on High Speed Rail Case Heads to Trial] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: REALTY CHECKS ON THE HOUSTON HOUSING MARKET 
“‘The fundamentals of the economy are sound’? OK — so it’s obvious that a housing market is ‘strong’ in the eyes of a Realtor if total sales volume is up while average prices hold steady or gradually increase. It means Realtors have more business and make more commissions. From a homeowner’s point of view, there are some worrying trends: average days on market is increasing, inventory is increasing, condo and townhome prices are falling, rents are falling. Higher home sales numbers just means people are moving. It doesn’t mean the economy is doing great.” [Realtor®, commenting on Sugar Land Arena’s Musical Debut; I-10’s Car Vending Machine Open for Business] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN HOUSTON CHILLED OUT AND GREW UP 
“I have 3 words that explain why Chicago developed as a ‘modern city’ well before Houston: ‘winter’ and ‘air conditioning.’ Think about it . . . Heating a big tall building to make it comfortable is easy. In contrast, cooling that same building is not so easy — especially in the post Civil War and 1890-1920 time frame. Now, the development of commercially viable air conditioners in the 1920-30’s was an expensive luxury. Then the WW2 years and rationing, and voilá — [only] modest growth of ‘big city’ until the late 1940’s and 1950’s. So when did Houston really start to grow? Yup, you guessed it: post WW2 and the 1950’s, when most middle class people could afford air conditioning in their homes and businesses. So if you want cool ‘old’ pre-war buildings, go north and east towards cooler weather. But if you want a modern or post-modern or even contemporary building, just look at Houston, or Atlanta, or Los Angeles, or Las Vegas. (And thank Mr. Carrier for his invention of air conditioning as we know it.)” [In the Doghouse, commenting on A Brief History of Houston’s Future Historic Preservation Culture] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY ITS EASIER TO KICK THEM OUT BEFORE THE LEASE IS EVER SIGNED 
“Ironically, the stricter the rules are for evicting people (to ‘protect’ tenants), the stricter we have to be on rent qualification and deposit size, which makes it harder for many tenants to rent. It would be easier to take a risk on a marginal tenant (low credit score, less than a full month deposit), if the property code didn’t allow them to bunker down in the apartment for 2 months if they don’t pay rent. A good example of a well-meaning law backfiring.” [Cody, commenting on Palace Lanes Building on Bellaire Locked Up by Landlord] Illustration: Lulu
