Houston has some 175 rent-a-bikes available at swipe-a-credit-card kiosks here and there in Midtown, Montrose, and Downtown, with plans to expand to the East End, Med Center, and universities soon. But an editorial yesterday from the Houston Chronicle seems to doubt that all these bikes are making much of a difference so far, pointedly wondering whether they represent “legitimate transportation or merely toys for urban bohemians. . . . After all, there are no B-Cycle stations in the poor neighborhoods surrounding downtown’s B-Cycle core. It is not as if these neighborhoods aren’t bike-friendly. The Fourth Ward is accessible by West Dallas St., a designated bike-share road that connects directly with downtown. And the Columbia Tap bicycle trail stretches from east of downtown through the Third Ward to Brays Bayou — one of the most convenient bicycle paths in the city, utterly wanting for a B-Cycle station.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Market Square Park B-Cycle Station: Flickr user YMKM Agency
Read more about: Bicycles, Economic Conditions, Transportation
It’s not as well-designed or well-funded as the Post Oak Bus Rapid Transit that Uptown’s got in the works, but Houston Wave owner Lauren Barrash thinks her jitney service could work for the Washington Corridor in a similar way: Having located about 900 available parking spots in city lots nearby, Barrash is proposing a kind of park-and-ride deal for Washington Ave visitors and employees to get to and from their destinations — and all for a small, even discounted fee. For one thing, Barrash tells Culturemap, it might be safer than walking late at night. But it also might stir things up again after what appears to be a lull in the action ever since those revenue-generating Parking Benefit District meters went into effect in early March. Says Barrash, “There were no cars on Washington at all that first week.” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Houston Wave via Facebook
Read more about: Nightlife, Parking, Transportation, Washington Ave., Washington Corridor
Some $156 million is being spent by Southwest Airlines to do up the previously domesticated Hobby Airport into this shapely international hub. In February, city council approved a kind of build-to-suit agreement that would allow Southwest to add 5 gates to its terminal on the west side of the airport for international flights — Mayor Parker said at the time that she was even considering adding that adjective to ol’ Hobby’s name — as well as introduce a customs inspection hub, redo the roadways to and from, and add a 2,500-space parking garage.
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Read more about: 77061, Airports, Hobby Airport, Renovations, Transportation
The very first train graced the tracks of the North Line light rail extension earlier today — though this was only a test, says Metro’s Christof Spieler. That explains why you can’t see in this photo taken near the Burnett Transit Center north of Downtown any overhead wires — the train was being towed by a diesel tractor. (Diesel tractor not pictured.) And it explains why you can see that foam bumper: That, says Spieler, was meant to catch anything built too close to the tracks. More test train should be running all by themselves this fall, he adds, and full service is scheduled to go in December.
Photo: Christof Spieler via Swamplot inbox
Read more about: Light-Rail, Metro, Metro Rail, North Line, Public Transportation, Transportation
April 19, 2013 – 10:00 am
A project to improve a 2.9-mile stretch of the Southwest Fwy. feeder road between South Shepherd Dr. and Newcastle St. could get started as early as May 1, a rep from TxDOT says. And the Upper Kirby Management District contributed some funds to the $19 million project, which might give you an idea about what to expect.
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Read more about: 77027, 77098, Feeder Roads, Freeways, Streetscapes, Transportation, Upper Kirby
April 11, 2013 – 12:30 pm
Next month, reports Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon, construction’s supposed to start on 3 more segments of the Grand Parkway: That’s why F1, F2, and G on the map here are colored in that cautionary yellow. And where G ends? Not coincidentally, adds Dixon, at that future intersection with U.S. 59, planned to be completed by 2015, the 1400-acre master-planned Valley Ranch is getting ready to sprawl out.
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Read more about: Freeways and Toll Roads, Grand Parkway, Kingwood, Master-Planned Communities, Montgomery County, Proposed Developments, Sprawl, Transportation, Valley Ranch
Yesterday, reports abc13, the city added to the original 3 B-Cycle kiosks 18 more, bringing the fleet of pay-to-play bikes to 175. Thus far, most of the rental racks are clustered Downtown — including the one shown here at the Tellepsen Family YMCA on Pease St. — but the expansion, funded wth $750,000 from Blue Cross and Blue Shield, also added racks to Hermann Park and the Westheimer restaurant row near Blacksmith and Underbelly. And even more are planned, says abc13, for the East End, the Med Center, and unnamed universities. (You can mess around with an interactive map of B-Cycle locations here and here.) [abc13; Houston Chronicle; B-Cycle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
Read more about: 77002, Bicycles, Downtown, Montrose, Transportation
If the bill that would outlaw texting and driving statewide, vetoed 2 years ago by Governor Perry, doesn’t catch on this time around, Mayor Parker says she will move to ban the act in Houston: A press release today says that the mayor’s “Houston, It Can Wait” campaign, part of a national push to limit texting-induced accidents and fatalities, “will be guided by a task force consisting of representatives of law enforcement, government, education, corporate, medical, professional and faith-based organizations.” And it appears that Mayor Parker intends to use another local resource to help her get the word out: “Several entities . . . have agreed to broadcast a public service announcement featuring Mayor Parker and rapper Bun B.” [City of Houston] Photo of Southwest Fwy.: Flickr user KreinikGirl
Read more about: Mayor Parker, Ordinances, Public Safety, Transportation
March 26, 2013 – 10:30 am
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
Read more about: AIA, Awards, Bicycles, Bridges, Proposed Developments, Transportation
February 14, 2013 – 2:00 pm
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:
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Read more about: 77061, Airports, Hobby Airport, Parking-Garages, Proposed Development, Transportation
January 9, 2013 – 11:30 am
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.”
Photos: Allyn West
Read more about: 77023, Bicycles, East End, Rails to Trails, Retail, Shopping Centers, Transportation
Comment of the Day: One Way Washington Ave Could Go
“What is the plausibility of turning Washington Ave into a one-way, eastbound road with three lanes with one lane dedicated to on street parking? And then having Center St become the outbound counterpart –– three lanes, no parking, so that less additional right of way would be needed? [Vmel, commenting on Planning for the Future of Washington Ave]