Swamplot Archives by Tag: Freeways

Friday, July 17, 2009

Comment of the Day: Freeway Traffic Backups Bring the Customers

   

“I visited the store the first weekend it was open, and overheard the general manager talking about how much more foot traffic the store is getting. He stated the obvious, which I’m surprised no one has commented on yet–think of the hundreds of thousands of people who are stuck in traffic every day on the elevated portion of 59 across from the store. The store’s sign is eye-level to those commuters (whereas it’s actually harder to see the stores on ground level), and you gotta think at least some of them are going to be interested in the store’s wares. Compare that to a low-profile location on Portwest that probably gets 1/10000th the traffic of 59. This is a rare case where being on the second floor of a strip center actually helps a company in Houston.” [Triprotic, commenting on The Finest Strip-Center Recital Hall in Houston]

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Sub-Suburban SUV Adventure: Braving That Big Trip “Downtown”

Spurred on by family members waiting patiently at the Carrabba’s on Kirby — and the promotional whizzes at GM and CBS Radio, who’ve furnished her with a brand-new vehicle to drive for 8 weeks — mommy blogger and new Chevy Traverse spokesmom Stephanie Click ventures out from her “own little world” in Katy to . . . the scary and purportedly trafficky Inner Loop!

Will she make it? How will her blogger-swag loaner car stand up to the rigors of multi-lane Houston driving?

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Friday, October 10, 2008

Packing Them in at the 99 Ranch

Former Fiesta Mart at I-10 and Blalock, HoustonFiesta Mart closed its I-10 and Blalock location when the Katy Freeway was expanded because too much of its parking got eaten up by the wider freeway. So how is the new 99 Ranch Market going into that space going to deal with the parking problem?

Suzanne Anderson, a regional leasing director with Weingarten, says the parking lot will be restriped to maximize the number of available parking spaces.

“We’re going to have to re-lay out the parking,” she says. “It’s still going to be under what the typical grocery store might have.”

99 Ranch Market is owned by Tawa Supermarket and is the largest Asian American supermarket chain, with 25 stores in California. The 84,000-sq.-ft. store opening on Blalock next summer will be the company’s first store in Texas.

Photo of former Fiesta Mart at 1005 Blalock: Weingarten Realty

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Why We Need the Grand Parkway Between 290 and I-10

   

“If the commissioners approve it, it’s because they want new subdivisions built in the open space of the Katy Prairie. We’re building a highway for people who don’t live here yet in hopes that developers will build houses for them and that they will want to live on a toll road 30 miles from Downtown in a world of $4 gas.” [Intermodality]

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Monday, November 19, 2007

Metro Chief Very Excited About Sprawl

Aerial View of Wolff Companies Projects Along I-10

Sure, Metro talks a lot about transportation in this city’s central districts. But a Houston Business Journal profile shows us Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority Chairman David Wolff is also enthusiastic about Houston’s westward spread:

Many developers are building various types of commercial properties west of Houston and beyond.

The city of Katy, with an estimated population of 205,000, sits square in the path of Houston’s westward growth pattern.

“The whole city is going that way,” Wolff says. “I think Katy is going to be the next Sugar Land.”

He recalls the creation of Park 10, and how much the area has grown over the last three decades.

Says Wolff: “It was just rice fields. That was really the edge of the world then.”

After the jump, the METRO Board Chairman’s exciting projects way out west, plus how to get folks in the “next Sugar Land” to build freeway on- and off-ramps for your developments!

Continue Reading This Story >

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Thursday, August 9, 2007

Google’s Houston Street View: All Your Favorite Parking Lots and Freeways

Downtown Houston from I-45 North, As Seen from Google Maps Street View

Google has just added its Street View feature to Houston Google Maps. This means that you too can experience what it’s like to drive around parts of this city with a 360-degree camera mounted to the top of your Chevy Cobalt—all from the privacy of your own computer.

Google first rolled out Street View in May for the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami. Several websites have sprung up to document interesting streetlife recorded by Google’s cameras.

For Houston, of course, Street View is much more exciting: at last, online photos of all your favorite strip centers, parking lots, and freeways. Occasionally a pedestrian gets in the way to mar a view, but most of the shots are much cleaner.

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Monday, April 30, 2007

Toll Roads Headed Inside the Loop

Westpark Tollway

A teensy item appears in the middle of a long list of projects on the revised agenda of an obscure public agency. The list is voted on, and presto! Nine months years later The Westpark Tollway gets extended all the way to Kirby Drive!

Christof Spieler spots this exciting news—sure to make a lot of West U-area residents take notice—and complains:

Once a project is on a list that gets approved by the TPC, it’s a lot closer to happening. Months or years from now, a neighborhood might object. And they’ll be shown the list and told, “it’s in the plan. It got approved. There’s nothing you can do.” Pieces of paper can have a lot of power.

And this piece of paper came out of nowhere. There was no public announcement, let alone hearings. It was a last minute addition to the agenda. David Crossley of the Gulf Coast institute spotted it only because he was looking through the TPC web site. [emphasis added]

Photo: Flickr user Danburg Murmur

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