Monday, March 01, 2010

Houston featured nationally, gondola transit, rankings, and more

Before I get to some smaller misc items, I wanted to mention Joel Kotkin's new book, "The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050". Houston features prominently in it, and he actually launched the book at an event here. NPR has a review here (scroll down), with an audio interview here (also scroll down; hat tip to Peter). Have a read and let me know what you think.

Moving on to the smaller misc items:
In case you missed it, I was recently interviewed by local NPR affiliate KUHF for a story titled "Despite Slowdown, Downtown Houston Still Building." My clip is at the 2:09 mark in the audio. Of course, we recorded several minutes of interview to get this one ~20 second clip in. But it's still kinda cool.

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

7 Comments:

At 10:06 AM, March 02, 2010, Anonymous Neal Meyer said...

Tory,

Regarding the "how to make Houston better" thread, there is some political competition out there as to what to do. The engineers, along with the Flood and Drainage constituency have some big plans for putting big money into flood control and not sidewalks. I'd be on the lookout for a bond referendum in an upcoming election on the issue.

Neal

 
At 4:29 PM, March 02, 2010, Anonymous Anonymous said...

How to make Houston better.

Make our train more useful.

I just found out that Metro is not extending service hours for the Rodeo. I am going with a friend who lives right off a station, but will not be able to use the train because we are planning on staying for the last show at the hideout that ends at midnight. The last train leaves Fannin P&R at 11. I mean giving the train longer hours to make parking in downtown or midtown or at hermann park feasible would get rid of alot of the parking issues associated with the rodeo.

This has also been a problem for me when I want to go out to midtown or downtown on the weekends. Why would you make the last train leave Fannin at 1:40(UH downtown at 2:20), run at least one more train so people don't have to rush to the station right at last call.

 
At 9:38 PM, March 02, 2010, Blogger Rail Claimore said...

I'm Dallas for an interview this week. The explorer side of me might be heading down to Houston for one day to check it out and get a feel for the city.

 
At 9:11 AM, March 05, 2010, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe the gondola could be used over 59 in the below-grade portion near downtown. I wonder if the cost of suspending it there would be much less than constructing a rail line over the freeway. I suspect that it would.

Another place I would like to see it is along Post Oak. They could spruce it up and even make it an attraction that brings people DIRECTLY into the middle of the Galleria. A train could never do that! I wonder if the shopowners and owners of the mall and surrounding businesses would support something like this ...


They might be able to even have a Gondola on Post Oak instead of the Uptown LRT. The Galleria area already suffers from congestion because everything is at-grade and there are few good arterial streets. LRT will compound those problems. Gondolas might decrease these problems.

 
At 2:22 PM, March 05, 2010, Anonymous Appetitus Rationi Pareat said...

I avoid the Galleria like the plague right now because there is really no other way to get there without having to deal with traffic. I maybe go twice a year. Once the light rail is running, I'll be taking it every time and will go more often.

BTW, took Metro to the rodeo last night. Packed and very efficient. Best part was that I could have a couple of beers and not have worry about driving home!

 
At 11:59 AM, March 07, 2010, Blogger Rail Claimore said...

Tory, I must say that I found Houston incredibly interesting. You definitely have the makings of America's Fourth City down there. Who knows what the future holds, but I'm very optimistic. I much prefer it to Dallas.

In fact, I don't even know why Dallasites love trashing the city, it's nothing like they say it is. The only thing Houstonians have said about Dallas is that it's boring, and that's true compared to Houston.

 
At 2:03 PM, March 07, 2010, Blogger Tory Gattis said...

Not that I can take any credit for the city, but thanks for the kind words, RC. I'm optimistic too.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home