- Houston New Home Starts Outpace Sales for First Time Since Oil Slump [HBJ ($)]
- Dallas Company Completes Purchase of 6-Building Foreclosed Office Complex Greenspoint Place, Where ExxonMobil Had Offices [Houston Chronicle]
- Clay Development & Construction Breaks Ground on Cutten Distribution Center I in Northwest Houston [Realty News Report]
- ClearWorth Capital Acquires 2 Clear Lake-Area Apartment Complexes [Houston Chronicle]
- Pet Supermarket Signs On to Brazos Town Center in Rosenberg [Houston Chronicle]
- Tila’s Restaurante Doomed By Shepherd Road Work, Says Owner [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot]
- New Irma’s Restaurant Downtown To Start Buildout Inside the Catalyst Apartment Tower at 1423 Texas Ave. [HBJ]
- CityCentre To Say Goodbye to Straits Restaurant, Hello to The Escape Game [HBJ]
- Bus Ridership in Houston Is Decreasing, but Not Plummeting as It Is Elsewhere [The Urban Edge]
- Berryhill Baja Grill Replacement Yucatan Taco Stand in Montrose Has Closed [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot]
- No Uptown Houston Holiday Lighting Shows for Thanksgiving on Post Oak Blvd. for a Couple Years, Until Construction Is Complete [Culturemap]
Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Re: Straits, I would have had no idea that place served pan-Asian cuisine. Call me a product of my milieu, but I was thinking celebrity-endorsed country honkytonk.
Re: Buses
I have attempted to ride the bus on 10 different occasions for 10 different types of trips, and as I recall, about 9 of them resulted in me swearing I would never do it again. Here are some of my experiences:
–Waited an extra 20 minutes for a bus that should have arrived already, according to the time table (several times).
–Driver ignored my stop request so I had to walk an extra 5 blocks back to my destination
–Sitting on an exposed concrete bench in the hot sun because the bus stop did not have a canopy
–Got dropped off 3 blocks away from my intended stop because the bus took a different route than advertised
–Got erroneous information from the Metro text message tool, and thus spent another 20 minutes waiting for a bus that never came
–Waited for a bus driver to start and stop his 10 minute break, while I sat on the idling bus.
These are all issues that have been mitigated by the train system, and I do still occasionally use the train. It’s just more reliable.
Is that 3 Irma’s resturants in downtown?
Praise for Russell Hancock. That’s a great photo!
What happened to bus ridership? Well, one hypothesis could be that so many transit agencies diverted resources away from local bus routes to other projects that are more high-profile in urban politics and allowed their bus services to languish. Would Superdave’s experiences on local buses have been so uniformly bad if they hadn’t been underfunded? I would wager not.
Superdave — If Metro was able to make capital investments in the bus network like it did in rail things could have been so much better for you. Did your travels involve the 82 Westheimer? That line has operating hours and frequency that pretty much guarantees you will never be waiting 20 minutes for the next bus. More of the local network should operate like that line. The Park and Ride system is pretty good, although the directions/hours are limited.
It’s not just bus transit — mass transit ridership shares have been declining in every city, no where more sharply than the cities that have made YUGE investments in light rail — yes, even Portland.
The recent rail line extensions were pushing $140 million per mile for about 10,000 passengers/day. The 290 improvements are about $120 million/mile for more than 100,000 cars.
How much better would the bus experience be in Houston if that money had been spent on bus routes instead of light rail?
Buses: The WJS article lays some blame on “the determination of hip millennials to live in city centers within walking or biking distance of work”. Just as I suspected: those damned hipsters!