WHERE TO GLIMPSE METRO’S FIRST DRIVERLESS SHUTTLE IN ACTION NEXT YEAR 
“The surge of students biking and walking” along the closed stretch of Wheeler Ave. shown above that forms TSU’s “Tiger Walk” will soon “be joined by a slow-moving, minivan-sized driverless shuttle,” reports the Dug Begley in the Chronicle‘s last Sunday edition. “Though it will run a small, circuitous route at first,” he writes, METRO’s long-term goal is to nudge the shuttle out onto Scott St., where it would stop at the Purple Line light rail station between the TSU campus and UH’s TDECU Stadium. “Transit and university officials are working on an opening day,” according to Begley, “likely in mid-to late January.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Campuspride.org
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: TSU
HOUSING, RETAIL, RAMP TO 59 PLANNED FOR I-45 AT CULLEN BLVD. 
New housing geared toward University of Houston and Texas Southern University students is planned near the U of H Main Campus’s main entrance on Cullen Blvd., according to PRNewswire. Plans for the Gateway at Cullen development include 531 beds (in single, double, quadruple, and quintuple groupings), mostly in townhome-esque 2-story configurations, which will contrast with most of Fountain Residential’s previous campus-geared housing projects in the area. PRNewswire also reports that plans are in the works to replace the nearby Bestway Motor Inn with a new on-ramp to 59, and that the former Fingers Furniture warehouse will be turning into a retail center anchored by a grocery store. [PRNewswire, previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Fountain Residential
Here’s a plan that looks to plug in to Metro’s still-under-construction Southeast Line and redo about 8 blocks along Scott St. in the Third Ward between UH and TSU. Though the plan, drawn up by LAI Design Group and dubbed “University Place Redevelopment,” is provisional, it appears to have in mind something like what the rendering above shows: A reshaped streetscape on Scott St. that would combine apartments, restaurants, shops, offices, and community buildings.
The first phase appears to call for a strip center facing Scott between Holman and Reeves, with 289 1- and 2-bedroom apartments and a parking garage in the rear:
Texas Southern University President John Rudley is now saying he gave the order to paint over 2 murals in Hannah Hall created 40 years ago by longtime TSU art professor Harvey Johnson. An earlier official statement issued by the university — and an abc13 story last week — had claimed the whitewashing had been a “mistake.” But Rudley fesses up to the Chronicle:
Rudley said the murals, which covered two walls in the Hannah Hall administration building, had become eyesores.
“When I bring dignitaries to campus, I can’t have them seeing that kind of thing,” Rudley said. “All art isn’t good art.”
The advance rail intelligence unit known as Christof Spieler puts together another map showing Metro’s latest plans for the new 2012 lines. What’s changed since last time?
Texas Southern University now has no stop alongside campus. There is a station called “TSU,†but it’s three blocks from campus, on the opposite side of a public housing project. Rice, UH, St. Thomas, and UH Downtown all get excellent connections to the 2012 system, but TSU is getting left out because METRO couldn’t figure out how to work with a neighborhood to get a Wheeler/Ennis route figured out. That’s an unfortunate situation for a university that’s trying to raise its profile.
TSU LOSES A LIGHT RAIL STATION Under pressure from Third Ward residents and elected officials who didn’t want rail on Wheeler, Metro has officially rerouted an eastern section of the University Line further north. From Main, the line had been planned to travel east on Wheeler, north on Ennis, then east on Alabama to Scott at U of H. The new route snakes north sooner: north on Hutchins from Wheeler, east on Cleburne, north on Dowling, then east on Alabama to Scott. [Houston Chronicle]