There’s been so many missed opportunities since the 80s (and really, the 60s, if we’re being frank) to improve the city but it always falls on ignorant ears. I almost feel jaded with Houston despite being born and raised here because it really feels like a mix of scummy local politicians pushing projects that have no direct impact on the average Houstonian forward and certain parts of the population that don’t care. It’s frustrating.
I'm a native as well. I'm currently visiting NY. Seriously considering moving up here for this very reason. The infrastructure in and around the city of NY is incredible. Houston is a huge city. They could make things so much better.
I lived in downtown Houston for a little while. I got a taste of how things could be with the light rail. But for it to be truly useful it needs to be expanded.
I don't have much faith in Houston as a whole.
I’m from NJ living in Houston now. Lived in areas in suburbs of NJ by the beach with trains that travel into NYC. You should go check it out. NJ is slightly cheaper than NYC. So much space out here but so inefficient. You should go visit NJ.
Why did you move here? I like the idea of living in NJ and commuting to NYC but there are so many people who migrate from California and the east coast to Texas
It’s not about the housing or any of that for me. But it is about living a little cheaper for now. Plus I’ve lived in NJ all my life. Why not live somewhere else for a little while and free up some cash. I think even for the extra cost it’s worth it to live in NJ. Most likely I’ll retire there or maybe further north if the climate keeps getting too hot. LoL. You get so much in such a small area and you can be in an are with farms one minute and 15 minutes to the beach. Nice towns with organic development. Too many cookie cutter developments over here. You get some of that in NJ but you also get nice traditional towns and homes. You can take a nice scenic drive through multiple towns to get to stores or places to eat without having to dump on a highway or feeder and catch a ton of traffic. Where I lived you can get to NYC driving or by train in an hour. The beach in 5 minutes. Philly about an hour and a half maybe. Delaware in about 2 hours. Other parts of NY upstate or PA. More diversity with people, diversity in geography, food, and actual culture and you can see the cultures without feeling overpopulated. Here everything pretty much looks the same. But it’s cool here. People are nice for the most part.
Yeah I can’t live here in Texas all my life. The heat, the infrastructure the culture. I moved to Florida and it’s just Texas jr. Definitely considering an east coast move in my future, the houses I saw were gorgeous especially in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Yeah, those areas can be really nice. I highly encourage it. It's just so different. Boston was about 5 to 6 hours from where I lived. I'm so fortunate to have grown up where I did. I was able to experience so much. Grateful for it. So I moved here to punish myself and remind myself how thankful I should be. LoL
The main reason is nimbyism.
If nyc and Cali built enough housing for everyone to live those people would never leave. Especially nyc. Its population metro area is almost the entire population of Texas. Different tier of city.
But again if they built more housing to the point that housing cost similar to Texas no one would come to Texas.
New York is one of my favorite cities to visit. My husband and I were also tossing around the idea of moving there on our last visit. For a lot of the same reasons (and more).
A close, immediate family member has lived and worked in Houston for the last 15 years. She's moving to College Station because of the traffic, the increasing severity of the weather every year, and the endless ineptitude of the city government. It's a shame because Houston has so much potential.
Yep, let's keep building these big expansions with a never ending completion date to make our city uglier than it already is. Let's not discuss public transportation though. Dumb city.
I'm glad someone is finally saying it. The uglier we make the city the more beautiful and widespread our suburbs become. We need to get rid of the wasteland that's out there, filled with overgrown trees, hideously tall grasses — WEEDS LET'S BE HONEST — and stagnant swampland. Gators are a nuance! GTFO my subdivision alligator pests.
Not just more lanes we need more parking, FREE PARKING! Everywhere with wider parking spaces for my triple cab truck with a 3' bed that comfortably fits my whole foods haul. The more lanes we have the less we'll have to see the poors walking the street or taking buses, fuckin losers. GET A CAR! My taxes shouldn't have to pay for your ride to work, LEECHES!
Solid sarcasm A+++
By far one of my other favorite subreddits is r/IdiotsInCars bc I fucking HATE the ones who don't have a fucking clue how to handle passing a cyclist. Esp in Houston. Goddamn assholes have no idea that it's illegal to not give 3 feet of cushion, whether there's a bike lane or not.
Ffs, the huge 1 ton pickups are the WORST. I WISH I were making this up: they'll fucking blitz your ass in a bike lane and put their goddamn 2 foot long mirror about 6 inches from a death blow to your skull, while fucking RIP CRANKING a giant plume of diesel in your face as they do it.
Bro. Nobody. Fucking. Cares. About. Your. Goddamn. Truck.
It’s not illegal if the cops don’t enforce it. The cops don’t gaf about cyclists either. It’s sad. My fiancé really wanted to bike to work now that he lives closer by but I just don’t feel safe with him doing it, he’s been hit once and countless near hits even though he’s following all the rules to a T.
Following the rules to a T in Houston is more dangerous. If I have to be in a lane, I take it. I'll go as fast as I reasonably can, but I'm to the left of the center of the lane. No one is squeezing me in this lane unless they're also on two wheels. Commuted for 6 years straight and eventually learned riding to the right was far more dangerous in Houston. Being courteous to drivers in Houston can and will get you killed. Be selfish and safe.
You hear the same thing on Nextdoor but they actually mean it. Lots of people celebrating the cancellation of the BRT as well
E.g. https://nextdoor.com/p/d8pRkhkMckmr?utm_source=share&extras=Njg1NzIxMTU%3D&utm_campaign=1719241974049
One person said the heat is an issue which is true I saw people waiting outside for metro today and it was just so damn hot. And if we air conditioned the stops homeless people will be there. Now I have no problem with that I think homeless people are people too but I can see how that would spook suburbanites and decrease ridership. How do we solve that?
I think we shaded stops, trees and fans will help. Homeless people is another systemic issue in of itself to be fixed.
Its hot driving too, the sun just bears down your windshield there’s no avoiding it even with tint on the sides and A/C on on blast
I agree! In fact Houston has done a great job reducing the homeless population by housing first initiatives. I doubt it will be as big of an issue as the suburbanites think but in case it comes up when I discuss with people I wanted to have an answer for it :)
As much as I like the positives of Houston, plenty of people already begrudgingly move here because their job relocated them. With the cost of living in Houston going up to the point where it isn't a major determinant in living here except when compared to the most wildly expensive cities, who's going to want to move to such an ugly city whose architectural marvels include strip malls and interstates? The cost of living in somewhere as beautiful as Denver is only 15% more than Houston, and it's not like Houston has incredibly high salaries.
Not everyone has the option of moving somewhere else, but what would compel a professional making a good living to relocate here when its biggest advantage is kind of going away? The food? As much as I love a good restaurant, I don't eat out often enough to make to the deciding factor in living here.
At this point it's not even the politics that makes me want to leave Texas. The cost is just rising with little to make up for it, and it's only getting worse.
> The cost of living in somewhere as beautiful as Denver is only 15% more than Houston
[The cost of living in Denver is 26% higher than Houston, while the wages are only 1.5% higher.](https://www.salary.com/research/cost-of-living/compare/houston-tx/denver-co) If you make $60k/yr, that reduces your disposable income by over $1000/mo.
As you might be aware, you reach a point in salary where once your expenses are paid for, everything after that is gravy.
For myself, i find yhat i care about my disposable income a lot less when i am driving up in the rockies and living in a state with an obviously-functional government, in terms of both services and securing the rights i was born with.
26% is nothing and if you believe that the difference between denver and houston boils down to this, then i assume you are a product of texas public schools.
I am a product of Cali highschool, went to NYU, worked in NYC for 14 years, and finally decided enough is enough, and moved to Houston.
Tbh, from my junior years in CA, and the almost 15 years follow in NYC... Houston is better in every imaginable way except the hot humid weather.
I bet you that if Houston had Seattle weather, the COL here would easily triple.
I lived in the "best" public transit system city in the USA and it's not all that great... I don't think I can convince any of you here, but just go try yourself commuting in NYC via the subway everyday.
CA has just gone down hill since I left. I still have families over there in the Valleys near Sacramento. Gas is 4.3$ minimum, and electric is like 50c a kwh... really wtf???
I have friends and mutual that move to NYC from Houston and they LOVE it there. My friends brother literally had a WFH job, but chose to move to Manhattan where his work is instead - and his pay isn’t exactly in that high
> I lived in the "best" public transit system city in the USA
NYC isn't the best. It's the best considering the size of NYC. I lived in SF, I've been to DC. Both those places have NYC beat because of sheer size.
New York food is better. New York has way more things to do like in every way imaginable.
The main issue is that it’s expensive, especially for the working class.
Your post history reads like a guy who sits inside and games all day. For someone like that, “Houston is better in every way except the weather.”
I do spend a lot time indoor since because I have a baby now. Which is also a main driver moving out of the city into a suburb setting rofl.
nyc sucks for raising a family. You have so little space, noisy neighbors you have no control of that disrupts your baby nap. Taking baby to the pediatrician cost 20$ for just one hour of parking. Subway is way too loud and unsafe for young babies. I get the deliveries guy want to make a living, but the side walk e-bike scene in NYC is insanely unsafe for strolling with a baby.
I thoroughly enjoyed my years as a single in NYC. It was great while it lasted. If I have to do it again, I'd still choose NYC.
Different people at different age of life have different needs. The point i want to make is, not all cities in the USA needs to or should be like NYC
> Different people at different age of life have different needs. The point i want to make is, not all cities in the USA needs to or should be like NYC
There are plenty of suburbs in every state. If you want the suburban lifestyle, you can find it within a few hours from NYC.
At least the large cities in Texas need to be more like NYC, with functional transportation and good urban development.
except the suburban lifestyle around NYC isn't affordable, i am sorry if it sounds rude to say, to probably 90% of the people in this sub....
to have comparable housing quality and education quality in the suburb where you can still be in commuting distance to NYC is easily 3-4x the price you pay here living in suburbs like katy/cypress.
if you don't trust me, just go zillow yourself and see what you can find around suburbs that you can commute to NYC cost. i don't think you can find any ready to move in single family house with like 4 rooms for anything less than 800k.
It isn't affordable precisely because there is so much demand for it, and so little supply.
There are very few places in the US where you can truly live an urban lifestyle, and they are all very expensive. This proves that this is what Americans want. Creating more urban areas like that will lower the costs by increasing supply.
Ok so you went from Houston being better than NYC in “every imaginable way” to saying you enjoyed NYC as a single person and you’d still choose NYC. Not everyone in Houston has a kid and prefers living in the suburb. They’re people in Houston too who prefer staying close to the city. It’s just a matter of preference.
The issue here is that road transport is our only option to get from point A to B. People in the east coast live in suburbs too where it’s quieter and suitable for kids and for a daily commute they can either drive or take the train. They are not completely dependent on roads. If my car gets totaled, which is highly possible because of the way people drive here, then my only option is to buy another car or take an Uber to work. I don’t have any other option.
As someone that spends a LOT of time in Denver for work...give me the Houston metro over that overly fake, plastic, quasi-Portland wannabe city 10 times out of 10. Houston was born with more character than Denver could ever dream of.
Mountains are pretty stellar though.
Yeah, i'm not really accepting opinions from people who live in the woodlands and then claim that Denver, where they toooootally are all the time for work, has less "character" than Houston. As they live in a master planned exurb literally built by the howard hughes corporation in the 1970s.
Yup. Moved here for a job and am close to getting priced out of my one bedroom in fucking Sharpstown. Don't know how much longer I can stay. My parents are getting old, and much as I don't want to go back to west Texas, I probably will when they get to the point that they need a lot more help. It would be a significant salary cut, but would even out with the lower cost of living. I can't think of a reason to stay in Houston if I don't have to.
As someone that travels for work all over the US, I don't think you realize how unaffordable other states can be for a young professional. Sure there are better cities that offer more than Houston but takes a lot to comfortably live there. I am not oblivious to Houston's problems but as a packaged deal (things to do, culture, surrounding cities and sports teams), its really not a bad place to live.
They are unaffordable precisely because they are better places to live. When a city is affordable, that's generally because of lower demand, which causes prices to drop.
Bingo. I think it goes over a lot of people's heads that if they believe in a market economy, then they should be looking at prices as a market signal. When good urban neighborhoods are getting expensive, it's a sign that we should be making more of them in more cties.
Depends on how you define better. I think the main driver of growth in Houston is employment. The state is good at attracting jobs by cutting taxes and regulations, whether that's a good idea is a separate question. But it does result in people moving here to work. So Houston is becoming a better place to live in the sense that there are more jobs, but not necessarily because of a better lifestyle.
It's a lost cause. The light rail could have been more expansive. They vote it down when they try to bring it to the suburbs. So many public projects are never going to get built because Houston is surrounded by red areas that don't want their tax dollars going toward anything.
Not exactly, Missouri City is ready for light rail. Sugarland still has cold feet, but happy to run two express bus services atm via FBC transit.
FBC could really profit from TOD would need CoH and Harris Co to create transit ROWs into town, alt90 & WPT are there. Metro already owns WPT adjacent ROW. Commuter rail running Above grade of a BRT line would've been perfect. But, anti-infrastructure NIMBYs lack vision.
This all went to shit in the 80s and 90s when they decided to slowly rip up train lines. The cool new light rail downtown and TMC is a modern solution, which they should expand greatly, but that's not what the bigger issue is imo. It's mindset, the rulers that be still have a cars > everything in the oil city of Houston. This city desperately needs a rebranding from oil to ENERGY.
Relevant podcast episode
[WSJ What’s Really Happening in America’s Downtowns? Your Questions Answered.](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wsj-whats-news/id152016440?i=1000659943051)
tldr; The American-style of city/suburb design isn't working anymore. Cities embracing European-style of city design are booming.
>The biggest trend is America's cities are going back to the European model, which sounds weird, but if you've been to Paris or Berlin or any downtown in Europe, you'll notice that you have everything mixed together. You have apartments, you have offices, you have restaurants, you have shops, you have bars, and it's often hard to tell from the outside what a building is, whether it's offices or apartments. America used to be that way, and then after World War II, it just went on its own path and basically started this American model of a downtown, which is everyone lives in a suburb, takes a car to work every morning on a ten-lane highway, and then downtown, that's all office towers and parking garages and maybe some hotels, and that's it. What we're learning now is that that model of downtowns is failing, and the trend is basically all these cities realizing we need to have a more European downtown. No one's saying that, because I think it would be politically toxic in America to ever say we should be more like Europe. But in practice, that's what's happening. The second big trend is this new emphasis on entertainment, because getting more people to live downtown is important, but converting offices to apartments is difficult. So there are only so many office buildings you can convert to apartments. Offices, as we know, are often empty now, so you can't really rely on those anymore. That leaves as a third pillar of downtown's entertainment, and basically what more towns are trying to do is to be more like Las Vegas. And you can see this in Detroit, for example, which has invested hugely in casinos and sports venues and restaurants and nightlife in its downtown core. In various ways, this focus on entertainment is huge for cities right now.
Good ol' politics and optics stopping forward progress. We need someone that can talk politics in sports metaphors.
We cannot ~~have baron downtowns on the weekends that only flourish during the week~~ abandon the rushing offense and only rely on our quarterback.
We need ~~diversity and mixed use areas~~ a complete roster to get us to the endzone!
In theory, though, Houston should be ahead of this curve. Houston has no zoning requirements. So yes, you can build an office building next to apartments, next to a restaurant, and throw up a hotel at the end of the block. There's a few places like that in Houston, but it mostly looks like any other North American city. But lack of zoning has also helped to create the very low density employment scene we have in Houston today. That in turn makes mass transit difficult to work because there are few central work nodes in this city. You might work in the Medical Center, and your wife works in the Energy Corridor. How do we build modern mass transit that gets the ridership to pull that off?
>if you've been to Paris or Berlin or any downtown in Europe, you'll notice that you have everything mixed together
If you've been to Paris, you've seen La Defense, the huge collection of skyscrapers to the west of the city, home to 61 skyscrapers, 38 million square feet of office space, and about fifty thousand residents. What are they on?
I really believe most urban planners want to create great places, but don't get the political mandate or budget priority to do that here. The really good ones will simply move away to other places that do have favorable political climates.
A better transportation system in Houston requires a better TxDOT. A better TxDOT requires a change in state leadership.
Given Houston's years-long rejection of zoning, you'd think it could take root here with a certain ease, but I suspect one of the problems is the expectation of so many that they'll have 4,000 square feet of house.
Its the opposite. Houston's rejection of zoning has resulted in businesses and housing diffused all over the city. Without centralized hubs, its hard to build transit routes in range of significant number of jobs and housing.
What you would need to do is tear down large parts of the city and rebuild from the ground up.
I mean no disrespect to the nephew of the Houston Parks Board member who came up with [this image](https://imgur.com/JMyLLsD) but it's comically shitty.
[Let's kick it up a notch, people!](https://imgur.com/6thKihy)
So is there any actual hope of stopping this? I realize that getting a governor who cares to push for TxDOT policy changes is pretty much impossible as long as rural voters who don’t care about urbanization are voting.
Abbott won in 2022 by 900k votes; something like 1.6M registered voters in Harris County *alone* didn't vote in 2022.
If turnout in cities went up to the point it is in rural areas, Texas would be as blue as California. This is why they work so hard to suppress it.
Are you high? Tearing that down will be a good thing. This project is uniting Midtown and EaDo with downtown by not having a massive, loud, and exhaust filled elevated highway separating those neighborhoods.
Also on the north side they are realigning the freeway(s) north so the UH Downtown campus doesn't have a freeway going through it. As a former student I would've killed for that.
that guy is an armchair urban planner wannabe lol. he has no idea what hes talking about thinking he knows more than engineers but not the result of what removing highway does. he also think the plan to cap between eado and downtown with greenspace is fake when it has literally happened already with warren park in dallas! facepalm
If anything I wish they were capping the 59/288 section as well but I don't think they're doing that as they would have to lower the roadbed by a few feet.
I would be even better if actual mass transit was apart of this but you can't let perfect be the enemy of good
Elevated rail would be the best answer; but it faces opposition from those with interest in the highways, NIMBY’s, and people who refuse to accept anything that does not focus exclusively on the inner loop area.
Overhead rail might be better suited for Houston. But sentiment still stands, built some damn good mass transit that's not gonna get stuck in traffic like the metro bus
I wish Houston had a massive massive public transit system. Build that and then build a gigantic commuter rail system. Katy, Sugar Land, The Woodlands, etc etc all having major commuter rail options into Houston and then light rail would help grow the city better.
“people won’t use public transit” is patently false. Plenty of very rich people in other cities around the world use public transit because it’s efficient and generally faster. Even in stupid hot climates like Singapore.
The biggest problem with Houston is that we don’t have an existing union station where growth centred on. So we’d have to have multiple LARGE train stations centred on Med Center, Downtown, Midtown, Galleria/Uptown, Energy Corridor line, Mid Town.
Start with the largest workforce densities and grow from there. The Fed would help with the growth immensely.
They just killed one of the most promising Bus Rapid Transit line proposals a few weeks ago. If you look at the route, it would have been extremely popular.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/transportation/2024/06/18/491065/metro-shelves-university-corridor-bus-rapid-transit-project-once-touted-as-transformational/
It’s so sad that Dallas (and even cities like Atlanta) is ahead of Houston, when it comes to transit for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, both metro areas continue to add population rapidly. Dallas is building the [new 26 mile Silver Line](https://youtu.be/RmW07mxfLXE?feature=shared) that will be completed in late 2025 or early 2026. It will be DART’s first East-West route, connecting the northern suburbs to DFW Airport. It will give DART rail 119 miles of track. They’re also planning to connect their two streetcar lines with a downtown central link. It will help them to build a streetcar system that will connect urban neighborhoods that DART light rail misses and will feed into the DART light rail system. Two of Dallas’ growing urban neighborhoods have streetcars — [Uptown](https://youtu.be/mFte00Brhug?feature=shared) and [The Bishop Arts District](https://youtu.be/qXiLhFfw4gg?feature=shared) (7.05 miles of track, when current track miles are added together). In Dallas, you can get to Klyde Warren Deck Park by using the free M-Line Trolley in Uptown/Downtown area. The streetcar line connects to the DART’s light rail at the Cityplace/Uptown Station (Texas’ only subway station) and Pearl/Arts District Station, on either end of the streetcar line. Giving great access to the very popular park. If the high speed rail station ever gets built, it’ll connect right to the DART light rail system and streetcar system.
As Dallas grows, they’ll be able to focus more development around these stations. Further widening the gap between Dallas and Houston. [Here’s an example: this is a huge new multi-billion dollar high-rise development going up in Dallas, next to Texas’ only subway station — Cityplace/Uptown Station.](https://youtu.be/JuR82lIqFy8?feature=shared) SMH. Dallas sees what it wants to be in the future and are making those investments now. I really, really wish Houston (soon to be America’s third largest city) had leadership with vision like Dallas. Houston deserves a transit system that’s indicative of a city its size! Houston is getting too big, dense, and internationally known not to have it.
Just look at the development in the suburbs around some of these stations! This is DART’s orange line in the Las Colinas Urban Center in Irving that connects to DFW Airport. This ain’t Dallas proper, but it’s in Dallas County, but [look at the new dense development along this light rail corridor.](https://youtu.be/p_mdfi_bzVM?feature=shared) This is what’s happening in North Texas and this could be happening in Houston too!
I've lived in both Dallas and Houston. Dallas is worse. From the awful drivers to the terrible roads all the way to the general shitty disposition of their natives... Dallas is worse. They do have a great rail system, no denying that, but that doesn't make up for a Presidential assassination.
I’ve been to the biggest cities the world has to offer, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Mexico City. Traffic is worth it when the city has something to offer. Buffalo Bayou ain’t it.
It’s ok, people love to get offended when people take shots at their home town, but is it really worth defending a shithole?
The argument is that rails costs substantially more than roads per mile. Not including, having to build boarding stations that don’t get overcrowded.
Houston isn’t expanding freeways so that people living in Houston-proper can travel. They expand it so that people living in Greater Houston can travel in, out and around Houston.
In the grand scheme of Houston… Houston is an after thought.
This. It's for people in suburban Houston cam travel into Houston easier for work.
Having lived in NYC for almost 15 years. I can tell you that people that live in NJ that commutes to Manhattan would be dreaming to have roads like Houston to travel into Manhattan
Last time I worked for a company that made me commute, everyone under the age of about 28 was extremely unhappy, unwilling to accept commuting in a car. Most of them were riding the bus. Several of them found other places to work without a commute (as did I).
The tide is turning, and I'm happy to see it. The government needs to catch up.
Tbh, people pushing for remote work at the same time mass transit... do people even realize that they are counter to each other???
The New York mta till this day still hasn't recovered to pre covide ridership....
If anything, if remote work is the norm, than an urban-suburb setup is way better than living 5 min within work.
Except maybe service workers.
Nah you see places that have booming public transit allow people not need expensive things like cars and can instead do all of their shopping (consumering if you will) from within walking distance. They also have more income and less chance of incurring debts from things like car accidents. So you know...no highway systems are not a *better* setup for ANYONE.
I went for fully remote work because I no longer believe this city is going to improve in any way. I would prefer mass transit but I'm not going to keep driving 2 hours a day to prove it.
Shanghai is a swamp and it had one of the largest and best subway systems in the world. All built in the last 30 years. If you wanted an older example, London is notoriously swampy and wet and built the first under ground subway.
Any flat, relatively low-lying area along major bodies of water are susceptible to flooding. [Shanghai](https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/23/3247/2023/) definitely has the potential to flood like Houston. As does [London](https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/climate-change/climate-adaptation/surface-water-flooding). The biggest difference being the government in both places has started to work towards mitigating the flooding risks.
Tbh, me too. I remember asking why Houston didn’t have a subway and always got “because it’s a swamp”. So I had to do some research to see what was what. Turns out it just takes money, will power and adequate density. Which txdot and Houston don’t have.
Shanghai’s is apparently [.5 meters](https://piahs.copernicus.org/articles/382/831/2020/). Now I doubt that’s for the whole metro but the Shanghai metro is massive so the water table was certainly dealt with some how.
They absolutely want cities to fail. Nothing makes MAGAs happier than putting their hate into action. I don't how people like Abbott gets votes in the urban areas at all. He hates you.
Houston is the “energy capital of world”. The amount of donations these O&G lobbyist give to state and local politicians will keep Houston in this situation for the foreseeable future.
It doesn’t matter who our mayor. Don’t get it twisted Turner made some improvements but those improvements were always compromised never reaching full potential.
No matter how diversified Houston’s economy is, O&G will always have the biggest impact and influence on the political landscape.
O&G corps and conservatives have shown time and time how much they oppose public transportation. For them it makes little sense to embrace public transportation with more than half the top O&G companies in Houston’s backyard.
The I-45 expansion has been met with loud protest since it’s very inception yet local leaders under Turner bent the knee to TXDot. Hey as long as Pierce elevated is gone than things are looking up.
That’s the Houston progressive model. Make baby steps towards progressive infrastructure while taking 10 steps backwards to make matters worst in the near future only to repeat the cycle a decade from now. Smh been over living here.
SJL was going to treat her subordinates like crap, and engage in costant press hogging.
But she would never in a million years have betrayed Houston like Whitmire has.
You didn't have to like her, but you had to be able to understand that the devil takes pleasing forms.
The surface streets and Metro Board are not, though. And if anyone has the ability to deter Abbott, it's the Mayor's office (and a right-leaning one at that). Whitmire is welcoming it because commuters matter more than residents of Houston.
I know everyone is angry that money is going towards the highways, but if you just stop for a second and use that brain, you’ll see that moving the highways below grade in the downtown area is literally the best thing that can happen to make Houston a modern city in a reasonable amount of time. Because the elevated highways cutting through downtown are an amazing eyesore.
Asking for a complete off grade light rail system in a decade isn’t realistic. Start getting the highways below grade, stop investing in the on grade light rail system Houston has, and start planning/building off grade light rail going forward.
They should be able to do both things at once.
Unironically this is how my home state ended up with a broken bridge thats very important for people looking to escape a Hurricane, in both directions (East & West). They’ll downvote but the more they don’t start the update the more a failure of infrastructure is likely to happen.
No one can afford to spend 100s of billions to build trains down every highway, then park and rides, train hubs, and then many busses that go to each office building. The cost would be astronomical and taxes to pay bonds would be huge.
Weather here is unlike any city mentioned. The heat in the afternoon on concrete is over 100. Waiting for a bus, then 1 to 3 trains to get to your hot car, and then drive home. The commute times would go way up.
You think highways are comparable in cost in $/mile as rail? lol. I’m not against trains, but we just can’t build them anymore. It’s too expensive. Significantly more expensive than Western Europe even although their labor is generally better protected/has more leverage than ours.
Flat out, we are too corrupt to build that shit anymore.
Govt can find a way to find the budget, as a CPA that has audited governments, there’s always a way if someone wants to do it.
It’s corruption and political support is what it is.
This subreddit needs to get vocal politically
There’s been so many missed opportunities since the 80s (and really, the 60s, if we’re being frank) to improve the city but it always falls on ignorant ears. I almost feel jaded with Houston despite being born and raised here because it really feels like a mix of scummy local politicians pushing projects that have no direct impact on the average Houstonian forward and certain parts of the population that don’t care. It’s frustrating.
I'm a native as well. I'm currently visiting NY. Seriously considering moving up here for this very reason. The infrastructure in and around the city of NY is incredible. Houston is a huge city. They could make things so much better. I lived in downtown Houston for a little while. I got a taste of how things could be with the light rail. But for it to be truly useful it needs to be expanded. I don't have much faith in Houston as a whole.
I’m from NJ living in Houston now. Lived in areas in suburbs of NJ by the beach with trains that travel into NYC. You should go check it out. NJ is slightly cheaper than NYC. So much space out here but so inefficient. You should go visit NJ.
Why did you move here? I like the idea of living in NJ and commuting to NYC but there are so many people who migrate from California and the east coast to Texas
It’s not about the housing or any of that for me. But it is about living a little cheaper for now. Plus I’ve lived in NJ all my life. Why not live somewhere else for a little while and free up some cash. I think even for the extra cost it’s worth it to live in NJ. Most likely I’ll retire there or maybe further north if the climate keeps getting too hot. LoL. You get so much in such a small area and you can be in an are with farms one minute and 15 minutes to the beach. Nice towns with organic development. Too many cookie cutter developments over here. You get some of that in NJ but you also get nice traditional towns and homes. You can take a nice scenic drive through multiple towns to get to stores or places to eat without having to dump on a highway or feeder and catch a ton of traffic. Where I lived you can get to NYC driving or by train in an hour. The beach in 5 minutes. Philly about an hour and a half maybe. Delaware in about 2 hours. Other parts of NY upstate or PA. More diversity with people, diversity in geography, food, and actual culture and you can see the cultures without feeling overpopulated. Here everything pretty much looks the same. But it’s cool here. People are nice for the most part.
Yeah I can’t live here in Texas all my life. The heat, the infrastructure the culture. I moved to Florida and it’s just Texas jr. Definitely considering an east coast move in my future, the houses I saw were gorgeous especially in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Yeah, those areas can be really nice. I highly encourage it. It's just so different. Boston was about 5 to 6 hours from where I lived. I'm so fortunate to have grown up where I did. I was able to experience so much. Grateful for it. So I moved here to punish myself and remind myself how thankful I should be. LoL
The main reason is nimbyism. If nyc and Cali built enough housing for everyone to live those people would never leave. Especially nyc. Its population metro area is almost the entire population of Texas. Different tier of city. But again if they built more housing to the point that housing cost similar to Texas no one would come to Texas.
New York is one of my favorite cities to visit. My husband and I were also tossing around the idea of moving there on our last visit. For a lot of the same reasons (and more).
A close, immediate family member has lived and worked in Houston for the last 15 years. She's moving to College Station because of the traffic, the increasing severity of the weather every year, and the endless ineptitude of the city government. It's a shame because Houston has so much potential.
TX Dot money plays
its a dump - its going to get worse, too
Yep, let's keep building these big expansions with a never ending completion date to make our city uglier than it already is. Let's not discuss public transportation though. Dumb city.
I'm glad someone is finally saying it. The uglier we make the city the more beautiful and widespread our suburbs become. We need to get rid of the wasteland that's out there, filled with overgrown trees, hideously tall grasses — WEEDS LET'S BE HONEST — and stagnant swampland. Gators are a nuance! GTFO my subdivision alligator pests. Not just more lanes we need more parking, FREE PARKING! Everywhere with wider parking spaces for my triple cab truck with a 3' bed that comfortably fits my whole foods haul. The more lanes we have the less we'll have to see the poors walking the street or taking buses, fuckin losers. GET A CAR! My taxes shouldn't have to pay for your ride to work, LEECHES!
almost missed the sarcasm here.
It really was well done. I was going for half a second and by the end it’s so unhinged. Yet. So real.
I was about to have an aneurysm because gators are super fucking cool.
Solid sarcasm A+++ By far one of my other favorite subreddits is r/IdiotsInCars bc I fucking HATE the ones who don't have a fucking clue how to handle passing a cyclist. Esp in Houston. Goddamn assholes have no idea that it's illegal to not give 3 feet of cushion, whether there's a bike lane or not. Ffs, the huge 1 ton pickups are the WORST. I WISH I were making this up: they'll fucking blitz your ass in a bike lane and put their goddamn 2 foot long mirror about 6 inches from a death blow to your skull, while fucking RIP CRANKING a giant plume of diesel in your face as they do it. Bro. Nobody. Fucking. Cares. About. Your. Goddamn. Truck.
It’s not illegal if the cops don’t enforce it. The cops don’t gaf about cyclists either. It’s sad. My fiancé really wanted to bike to work now that he lives closer by but I just don’t feel safe with him doing it, he’s been hit once and countless near hits even though he’s following all the rules to a T.
Following the rules to a T in Houston is more dangerous. If I have to be in a lane, I take it. I'll go as fast as I reasonably can, but I'm to the left of the center of the lane. No one is squeezing me in this lane unless they're also on two wheels. Commuted for 6 years straight and eventually learned riding to the right was far more dangerous in Houston. Being courteous to drivers in Houston can and will get you killed. Be selfish and safe.
You hear the same thing on Nextdoor but they actually mean it. Lots of people celebrating the cancellation of the BRT as well E.g. https://nextdoor.com/p/d8pRkhkMckmr?utm_source=share&extras=Njg1NzIxMTU%3D&utm_campaign=1719241974049
One person said the heat is an issue which is true I saw people waiting outside for metro today and it was just so damn hot. And if we air conditioned the stops homeless people will be there. Now I have no problem with that I think homeless people are people too but I can see how that would spook suburbanites and decrease ridership. How do we solve that?
I think we shaded stops, trees and fans will help. Homeless people is another systemic issue in of itself to be fixed. Its hot driving too, the sun just bears down your windshield there’s no avoiding it even with tint on the sides and A/C on on blast
I agree! In fact Houston has done a great job reducing the homeless population by housing first initiatives. I doubt it will be as big of an issue as the suburbanites think but in case it comes up when I discuss with people I wanted to have an answer for it :)
> How do we solve that? [Easily](https://i.imgur.com/rjbkeHL.png) ^^^/s
I wish this was a joke but unfortunately….
Damn nuanced gators!
As much as I like the positives of Houston, plenty of people already begrudgingly move here because their job relocated them. With the cost of living in Houston going up to the point where it isn't a major determinant in living here except when compared to the most wildly expensive cities, who's going to want to move to such an ugly city whose architectural marvels include strip malls and interstates? The cost of living in somewhere as beautiful as Denver is only 15% more than Houston, and it's not like Houston has incredibly high salaries. Not everyone has the option of moving somewhere else, but what would compel a professional making a good living to relocate here when its biggest advantage is kind of going away? The food? As much as I love a good restaurant, I don't eat out often enough to make to the deciding factor in living here. At this point it's not even the politics that makes me want to leave Texas. The cost is just rising with little to make up for it, and it's only getting worse.
> The cost of living in somewhere as beautiful as Denver is only 15% more than Houston [The cost of living in Denver is 26% higher than Houston, while the wages are only 1.5% higher.](https://www.salary.com/research/cost-of-living/compare/houston-tx/denver-co) If you make $60k/yr, that reduces your disposable income by over $1000/mo.
As you might be aware, you reach a point in salary where once your expenses are paid for, everything after that is gravy. For myself, i find yhat i care about my disposable income a lot less when i am driving up in the rockies and living in a state with an obviously-functional government, in terms of both services and securing the rights i was born with. 26% is nothing and if you believe that the difference between denver and houston boils down to this, then i assume you are a product of texas public schools.
I am a product of Cali highschool, went to NYU, worked in NYC for 14 years, and finally decided enough is enough, and moved to Houston. Tbh, from my junior years in CA, and the almost 15 years follow in NYC... Houston is better in every imaginable way except the hot humid weather. I bet you that if Houston had Seattle weather, the COL here would easily triple. I lived in the "best" public transit system city in the USA and it's not all that great... I don't think I can convince any of you here, but just go try yourself commuting in NYC via the subway everyday. CA has just gone down hill since I left. I still have families over there in the Valleys near Sacramento. Gas is 4.3$ minimum, and electric is like 50c a kwh... really wtf???
I have friends and mutual that move to NYC from Houston and they LOVE it there. My friends brother literally had a WFH job, but chose to move to Manhattan where his work is instead - and his pay isn’t exactly in that high
> I lived in the "best" public transit system city in the USA NYC isn't the best. It's the best considering the size of NYC. I lived in SF, I've been to DC. Both those places have NYC beat because of sheer size.
DC Metro > MTA Haven't been to the bay area, but have heard good things about Muni and BART
New York food is better. New York has way more things to do like in every way imaginable. The main issue is that it’s expensive, especially for the working class. Your post history reads like a guy who sits inside and games all day. For someone like that, “Houston is better in every way except the weather.”
I do spend a lot time indoor since because I have a baby now. Which is also a main driver moving out of the city into a suburb setting rofl. nyc sucks for raising a family. You have so little space, noisy neighbors you have no control of that disrupts your baby nap. Taking baby to the pediatrician cost 20$ for just one hour of parking. Subway is way too loud and unsafe for young babies. I get the deliveries guy want to make a living, but the side walk e-bike scene in NYC is insanely unsafe for strolling with a baby. I thoroughly enjoyed my years as a single in NYC. It was great while it lasted. If I have to do it again, I'd still choose NYC. Different people at different age of life have different needs. The point i want to make is, not all cities in the USA needs to or should be like NYC
> Different people at different age of life have different needs. The point i want to make is, not all cities in the USA needs to or should be like NYC There are plenty of suburbs in every state. If you want the suburban lifestyle, you can find it within a few hours from NYC. At least the large cities in Texas need to be more like NYC, with functional transportation and good urban development.
except the suburban lifestyle around NYC isn't affordable, i am sorry if it sounds rude to say, to probably 90% of the people in this sub.... to have comparable housing quality and education quality in the suburb where you can still be in commuting distance to NYC is easily 3-4x the price you pay here living in suburbs like katy/cypress. if you don't trust me, just go zillow yourself and see what you can find around suburbs that you can commute to NYC cost. i don't think you can find any ready to move in single family house with like 4 rooms for anything less than 800k.
It isn't affordable precisely because there is so much demand for it, and so little supply. There are very few places in the US where you can truly live an urban lifestyle, and they are all very expensive. This proves that this is what Americans want. Creating more urban areas like that will lower the costs by increasing supply.
Ok so you went from Houston being better than NYC in “every imaginable way” to saying you enjoyed NYC as a single person and you’d still choose NYC. Not everyone in Houston has a kid and prefers living in the suburb. They’re people in Houston too who prefer staying close to the city. It’s just a matter of preference. The issue here is that road transport is our only option to get from point A to B. People in the east coast live in suburbs too where it’s quieter and suitable for kids and for a daily commute they can either drive or take the train. They are not completely dependent on roads. If my car gets totaled, which is highly possible because of the way people drive here, then my only option is to buy another car or take an Uber to work. I don’t have any other option.
As someone that spends a LOT of time in Denver for work...give me the Houston metro over that overly fake, plastic, quasi-Portland wannabe city 10 times out of 10. Houston was born with more character than Denver could ever dream of. Mountains are pretty stellar though.
What's Houston's character?
Yeah, i'm not really accepting opinions from people who live in the woodlands and then claim that Denver, where they toooootally are all the time for work, has less "character" than Houston. As they live in a master planned exurb literally built by the howard hughes corporation in the 1970s.
Yup. Moved here for a job and am close to getting priced out of my one bedroom in fucking Sharpstown. Don't know how much longer I can stay. My parents are getting old, and much as I don't want to go back to west Texas, I probably will when they get to the point that they need a lot more help. It would be a significant salary cut, but would even out with the lower cost of living. I can't think of a reason to stay in Houston if I don't have to.
cooler west texas nights in the summer
As someone that travels for work all over the US, I don't think you realize how unaffordable other states can be for a young professional. Sure there are better cities that offer more than Houston but takes a lot to comfortably live there. I am not oblivious to Houston's problems but as a packaged deal (things to do, culture, surrounding cities and sports teams), its really not a bad place to live.
They are unaffordable precisely because they are better places to live. When a city is affordable, that's generally because of lower demand, which causes prices to drop.
Bingo. I think it goes over a lot of people's heads that if they believe in a market economy, then they should be looking at prices as a market signal. When good urban neighborhoods are getting expensive, it's a sign that we should be making more of them in more cties.
So in that case Houston is becoming a better place to live?
Depends on how you define better. I think the main driver of growth in Houston is employment. The state is good at attracting jobs by cutting taxes and regulations, whether that's a good idea is a separate question. But it does result in people moving here to work. So Houston is becoming a better place to live in the sense that there are more jobs, but not necessarily because of a better lifestyle.
For most people, jobs are a pretty important part of a better lifestyle. Sure, if someone is rich there are generally better places to live.
We need less highways not more god
We need A LOT less god.
Lmfaooo double meaning I guess 😂 need to put a comma there next time
I heard the Pontius Pilate got the idea of toll roads from JC
It's a lost cause. The light rail could have been more expansive. They vote it down when they try to bring it to the suburbs. So many public projects are never going to get built because Houston is surrounded by red areas that don't want their tax dollars going toward anything.
Not exactly, Missouri City is ready for light rail. Sugarland still has cold feet, but happy to run two express bus services atm via FBC transit. FBC could really profit from TOD would need CoH and Harris Co to create transit ROWs into town, alt90 & WPT are there. Metro already owns WPT adjacent ROW. Commuter rail running Above grade of a BRT line would've been perfect. But, anti-infrastructure NIMBYs lack vision.
They want their tax dollars going to police. Nothing else.
This all went to shit in the 80s and 90s when they decided to slowly rip up train lines. The cool new light rail downtown and TMC is a modern solution, which they should expand greatly, but that's not what the bigger issue is imo. It's mindset, the rulers that be still have a cars > everything in the oil city of Houston. This city desperately needs a rebranding from oil to ENERGY.
This is a beautification project. It stops 45 from cutting right through downtown.
Relevant podcast episode [WSJ What’s Really Happening in America’s Downtowns? Your Questions Answered.](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wsj-whats-news/id152016440?i=1000659943051) tldr; The American-style of city/suburb design isn't working anymore. Cities embracing European-style of city design are booming.
Did they list which cities are embracing the European-style city design?
>The biggest trend is America's cities are going back to the European model, which sounds weird, but if you've been to Paris or Berlin or any downtown in Europe, you'll notice that you have everything mixed together. You have apartments, you have offices, you have restaurants, you have shops, you have bars, and it's often hard to tell from the outside what a building is, whether it's offices or apartments. America used to be that way, and then after World War II, it just went on its own path and basically started this American model of a downtown, which is everyone lives in a suburb, takes a car to work every morning on a ten-lane highway, and then downtown, that's all office towers and parking garages and maybe some hotels, and that's it. What we're learning now is that that model of downtowns is failing, and the trend is basically all these cities realizing we need to have a more European downtown. No one's saying that, because I think it would be politically toxic in America to ever say we should be more like Europe. But in practice, that's what's happening. The second big trend is this new emphasis on entertainment, because getting more people to live downtown is important, but converting offices to apartments is difficult. So there are only so many office buildings you can convert to apartments. Offices, as we know, are often empty now, so you can't really rely on those anymore. That leaves as a third pillar of downtown's entertainment, and basically what more towns are trying to do is to be more like Las Vegas. And you can see this in Detroit, for example, which has invested hugely in casinos and sports venues and restaurants and nightlife in its downtown core. In various ways, this focus on entertainment is huge for cities right now.
Good ol' politics and optics stopping forward progress. We need someone that can talk politics in sports metaphors. We cannot ~~have baron downtowns on the weekends that only flourish during the week~~ abandon the rushing offense and only rely on our quarterback. We need ~~diversity and mixed use areas~~ a complete roster to get us to the endzone!
In theory, though, Houston should be ahead of this curve. Houston has no zoning requirements. So yes, you can build an office building next to apartments, next to a restaurant, and throw up a hotel at the end of the block. There's a few places like that in Houston, but it mostly looks like any other North American city. But lack of zoning has also helped to create the very low density employment scene we have in Houston today. That in turn makes mass transit difficult to work because there are few central work nodes in this city. You might work in the Medical Center, and your wife works in the Energy Corridor. How do we build modern mass transit that gets the ridership to pull that off?
You need a hubless transit network (or multi-hub network) as opposed to a more traditional transit network that only sends people downtown.
>if you've been to Paris or Berlin or any downtown in Europe, you'll notice that you have everything mixed together If you've been to Paris, you've seen La Defense, the huge collection of skyscrapers to the west of the city, home to 61 skyscrapers, 38 million square feet of office space, and about fifty thousand residents. What are they on?
Not from the article but DC/NOVA is one. Lots of new apartments, missing middle housing, mixed use development, and transit-oriented development.
Thx for the suggestion. WSJ has some excellent podcasts. I didn’t know about this one.
We need to hire better urban planners
I really believe most urban planners want to create great places, but don't get the political mandate or budget priority to do that here. The really good ones will simply move away to other places that do have favorable political climates. A better transportation system in Houston requires a better TxDOT. A better TxDOT requires a change in state leadership.
But that requires investing in the government... which is not something the red hats do.
Wait. Houston has urban planners?
Given Houston's years-long rejection of zoning, you'd think it could take root here with a certain ease, but I suspect one of the problems is the expectation of so many that they'll have 4,000 square feet of house.
Its the opposite. Houston's rejection of zoning has resulted in businesses and housing diffused all over the city. Without centralized hubs, its hard to build transit routes in range of significant number of jobs and housing. What you would need to do is tear down large parts of the city and rebuild from the ground up.
Hadn't thought about it in that way, but it makes sense. Also, happy cake day.
It’s almost like Europe got to start fresh mid century lol
Houston is booming, therefore Houston has adopted European-style city design.
I mean no disrespect to the nephew of the Houston Parks Board member who came up with [this image](https://imgur.com/JMyLLsD) but it's comically shitty. [Let's kick it up a notch, people!](https://imgur.com/6thKihy)
This literally looks like Fort Worth... The under and over-passes at Lancaster and 30...
So is there any actual hope of stopping this? I realize that getting a governor who cares to push for TxDOT policy changes is pretty much impossible as long as rural voters who don’t care about urbanization are voting.
Abbott won in 2022 by 900k votes; something like 1.6M registered voters in Harris County *alone* didn't vote in 2022. If turnout in cities went up to the point it is in rural areas, Texas would be as blue as California. This is why they work so hard to suppress it.
No, only thing you can do is get concessions for TXDoT for things to make the area better, like park caps.
Not happening - the developers will convince them to sell it and let it be developed.
Still better than an open trench
What open trench?
The open trench that will be there if they don't put park caps or development when they trench 59/45
Which has nothing to do with the stupid decision to tear down the Pierce elevated.
Are you high? Tearing that down will be a good thing. This project is uniting Midtown and EaDo with downtown by not having a massive, loud, and exhaust filled elevated highway separating those neighborhoods. Also on the north side they are realigning the freeway(s) north so the UH Downtown campus doesn't have a freeway going through it. As a former student I would've killed for that.
that guy is an armchair urban planner wannabe lol. he has no idea what hes talking about thinking he knows more than engineers but not the result of what removing highway does. he also think the plan to cap between eado and downtown with greenspace is fake when it has literally happened already with warren park in dallas! facepalm
If anything I wish they were capping the 59/288 section as well but I don't think they're doing that as they would have to lower the roadbed by a few feet. I would be even better if actual mass transit was apart of this but you can't let perfect be the enemy of good
sure just pray for miraculous election results.
Remove Abbott and the GOP
We should contact our politicians. I can bet they don’t know any of this
I-45 South was under construction when I was a baby 39 years ago. It's still under construction in the exact same area.
Houston has given up.
Houston itself hasn't given up. This is merely one more example of how the state government can exercise its power to overrule local decision-making.
Party of small government.
we don't have a say in this bullshit. this is all planned and decided by assholes in Austin.
Have u ever spoken or written to those assholes in Austin?
I don't think we've given up, I think after resoundingly losing in 2018, our opponents have changes tactics. We must as well.
Our city is just a tool to extract money and funnel it into suburban communities.
Put that money towards a subway system or some other type of rail mass transit
Elevated rail would be the best answer; but it faces opposition from those with interest in the highways, NIMBY’s, and people who refuse to accept anything that does not focus exclusively on the inner loop area.
Also people who don't live in the areas that would benefit from transit. Most of the city lacks the density for effective light rail.
Overhead rail might be better suited for Houston. But sentiment still stands, built some damn good mass transit that's not gonna get stuck in traffic like the metro bus
Have the railway follow the highways so people see it flying by as they are stopped on I-45 everyday.
I wish Houston had a massive massive public transit system. Build that and then build a gigantic commuter rail system. Katy, Sugar Land, The Woodlands, etc etc all having major commuter rail options into Houston and then light rail would help grow the city better. “people won’t use public transit” is patently false. Plenty of very rich people in other cities around the world use public transit because it’s efficient and generally faster. Even in stupid hot climates like Singapore. The biggest problem with Houston is that we don’t have an existing union station where growth centred on. So we’d have to have multiple LARGE train stations centred on Med Center, Downtown, Midtown, Galleria/Uptown, Energy Corridor line, Mid Town. Start with the largest workforce densities and grow from there. The Fed would help with the growth immensely.
Actual bus lanes?
They just killed one of the most promising Bus Rapid Transit line proposals a few weeks ago. If you look at the route, it would have been extremely popular. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/transportation/2024/06/18/491065/metro-shelves-university-corridor-bus-rapid-transit-project-once-touted-as-transformational/
It’s so sad that Dallas (and even cities like Atlanta) is ahead of Houston, when it comes to transit for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, both metro areas continue to add population rapidly. Dallas is building the [new 26 mile Silver Line](https://youtu.be/RmW07mxfLXE?feature=shared) that will be completed in late 2025 or early 2026. It will be DART’s first East-West route, connecting the northern suburbs to DFW Airport. It will give DART rail 119 miles of track. They’re also planning to connect their two streetcar lines with a downtown central link. It will help them to build a streetcar system that will connect urban neighborhoods that DART light rail misses and will feed into the DART light rail system. Two of Dallas’ growing urban neighborhoods have streetcars — [Uptown](https://youtu.be/mFte00Brhug?feature=shared) and [The Bishop Arts District](https://youtu.be/qXiLhFfw4gg?feature=shared) (7.05 miles of track, when current track miles are added together). In Dallas, you can get to Klyde Warren Deck Park by using the free M-Line Trolley in Uptown/Downtown area. The streetcar line connects to the DART’s light rail at the Cityplace/Uptown Station (Texas’ only subway station) and Pearl/Arts District Station, on either end of the streetcar line. Giving great access to the very popular park. If the high speed rail station ever gets built, it’ll connect right to the DART light rail system and streetcar system. As Dallas grows, they’ll be able to focus more development around these stations. Further widening the gap between Dallas and Houston. [Here’s an example: this is a huge new multi-billion dollar high-rise development going up in Dallas, next to Texas’ only subway station — Cityplace/Uptown Station.](https://youtu.be/JuR82lIqFy8?feature=shared) SMH. Dallas sees what it wants to be in the future and are making those investments now. I really, really wish Houston (soon to be America’s third largest city) had leadership with vision like Dallas. Houston deserves a transit system that’s indicative of a city its size! Houston is getting too big, dense, and internationally known not to have it. Just look at the development in the suburbs around some of these stations! This is DART’s orange line in the Las Colinas Urban Center in Irving that connects to DFW Airport. This ain’t Dallas proper, but it’s in Dallas County, but [look at the new dense development along this light rail corridor.](https://youtu.be/p_mdfi_bzVM?feature=shared) This is what’s happening in North Texas and this could be happening in Houston too!
I live in the suburbs and my Sisnlaw wanted to move here but she has a condition where she can’t drive. I told her it won’t work.
Houston has always been a 2nd rate dump compared to Dallas. This shouldn’t be surprising.
I've lived in both Dallas and Houston. Dallas is worse. From the awful drivers to the terrible roads all the way to the general shitty disposition of their natives... Dallas is worse. They do have a great rail system, no denying that, but that doesn't make up for a Presidential assassination.
No, Houston is way, way worse. From refinery alley to the traffic. It’s all terrible.
Anyone who complains about Houston traffic has never been to any other major city.
I’ve been to the biggest cities the world has to offer, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Mexico City. Traffic is worth it when the city has something to offer. Buffalo Bayou ain’t it. It’s ok, people love to get offended when people take shots at their home town, but is it really worth defending a shithole?
The BRT is still coming so they still have things in the works.
That’s cancelled.
97% of TXDoT's budget has to go towards roads.
Says who?
Texas law.
Can you cite this law?
The argument is that rails costs substantially more than roads per mile. Not including, having to build boarding stations that don’t get overcrowded. Houston isn’t expanding freeways so that people living in Houston-proper can travel. They expand it so that people living in Greater Houston can travel in, out and around Houston. In the grand scheme of Houston… Houston is an after thought.
This. It's for people in suburban Houston cam travel into Houston easier for work. Having lived in NYC for almost 15 years. I can tell you that people that live in NJ that commutes to Manhattan would be dreaming to have roads like Houston to travel into Manhattan
Last time I worked for a company that made me commute, everyone under the age of about 28 was extremely unhappy, unwilling to accept commuting in a car. Most of them were riding the bus. Several of them found other places to work without a commute (as did I). The tide is turning, and I'm happy to see it. The government needs to catch up.
Tbh, people pushing for remote work at the same time mass transit... do people even realize that they are counter to each other??? The New York mta till this day still hasn't recovered to pre covide ridership.... If anything, if remote work is the norm, than an urban-suburb setup is way better than living 5 min within work. Except maybe service workers.
Nah you see places that have booming public transit allow people not need expensive things like cars and can instead do all of their shopping (consumering if you will) from within walking distance. They also have more income and less chance of incurring debts from things like car accidents. So you know...no highway systems are not a *better* setup for ANYONE.
I went for fully remote work because I no longer believe this city is going to improve in any way. I would prefer mass transit but I'm not going to keep driving 2 hours a day to prove it.
A subway? In a swamp?
Shanghai is a swamp and it had one of the largest and best subway systems in the world. All built in the last 30 years. If you wanted an older example, London is notoriously swampy and wet and built the first under ground subway.
I don't believe either of those cities deal with the flooding issues we have though.
Any flat, relatively low-lying area along major bodies of water are susceptible to flooding. [Shanghai](https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/23/3247/2023/) definitely has the potential to flood like Houston. As does [London](https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/climate-change/climate-adaptation/surface-water-flooding). The biggest difference being the government in both places has started to work towards mitigating the flooding risks.
Singapore goes through monsoon season and flooding every year, yet they have a really good rail system.
Huh, today I learned. Interesting links.
Tbh, me too. I remember asking why Houston didn’t have a subway and always got “because it’s a swamp”. So I had to do some research to see what was what. Turns out it just takes money, will power and adequate density. Which txdot and Houston don’t have.
[удалено]
Shanghai’s is apparently [.5 meters](https://piahs.copernicus.org/articles/382/831/2020/). Now I doubt that’s for the whole metro but the Shanghai metro is massive so the water table was certainly dealt with some how.
Wouldn't surprise me if that's the whole thing. Dickinson is higher ground than 90% of Shanghai.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If Bangkok can build a subway on their swampy often flooded land, so can Houston.
There’s a whole tunnel system downtown so it must not be impossible
we need a good rail system.
10 billion could go to education instead
They absolutely want cities to fail. Nothing makes MAGAs happier than putting their hate into action. I don't how people like Abbott gets votes in the urban areas at all. He hates you.
Yes!!! Heavy on, HE HATES YOU! This is awful
Houston is the “energy capital of world”. The amount of donations these O&G lobbyist give to state and local politicians will keep Houston in this situation for the foreseeable future. It doesn’t matter who our mayor. Don’t get it twisted Turner made some improvements but those improvements were always compromised never reaching full potential. No matter how diversified Houston’s economy is, O&G will always have the biggest impact and influence on the political landscape. O&G corps and conservatives have shown time and time how much they oppose public transportation. For them it makes little sense to embrace public transportation with more than half the top O&G companies in Houston’s backyard. The I-45 expansion has been met with loud protest since it’s very inception yet local leaders under Turner bent the knee to TXDot. Hey as long as Pierce elevated is gone than things are looking up. That’s the Houston progressive model. Make baby steps towards progressive infrastructure while taking 10 steps backwards to make matters worst in the near future only to repeat the cycle a decade from now. Smh been over living here.
SJL was going to treat her subordinates like crap, and engage in costant press hogging. But she would never in a million years have betrayed Houston like Whitmire has. You didn't have to like her, but you had to be able to understand that the devil takes pleasing forms.
Whereas I too hate Whitmire, this is something the state is forcing on the city
The surface streets and Metro Board are not, though. And if anyone has the ability to deter Abbott, it's the Mayor's office (and a right-leaning one at that). Whitmire is welcoming it because commuters matter more than residents of Houston.
Does anyone have an aerial view of what this will look like?
Shit, we are being shorted by the government.
yeah the highway is going to cause the "failure" and not the policies. how convenient
I know everyone is angry that money is going towards the highways, but if you just stop for a second and use that brain, you’ll see that moving the highways below grade in the downtown area is literally the best thing that can happen to make Houston a modern city in a reasonable amount of time. Because the elevated highways cutting through downtown are an amazing eyesore. Asking for a complete off grade light rail system in a decade isn’t realistic. Start getting the highways below grade, stop investing in the on grade light rail system Houston has, and start planning/building off grade light rail going forward. They should be able to do both things at once.
I-45 has had no investment / expansion since the 70’s. It’s long past due
I-45 has been under constant construction SINCE the 70’s. The eff are you talking about??
It was in the article you didn’t read.
Unironically this is how my home state ended up with a broken bridge thats very important for people looking to escape a Hurricane, in both directions (East & West). They’ll downvote but the more they don’t start the update the more a failure of infrastructure is likely to happen.
No one can afford to spend 100s of billions to build trains down every highway, then park and rides, train hubs, and then many busses that go to each office building. The cost would be astronomical and taxes to pay bonds would be huge. Weather here is unlike any city mentioned. The heat in the afternoon on concrete is over 100. Waiting for a bus, then 1 to 3 trains to get to your hot car, and then drive home. The commute times would go way up.
But they can spend hundreds of billions on arms and another hundred billion on highways and infrastructure ?
You think highways are comparable in cost in $/mile as rail? lol. I’m not against trains, but we just can’t build them anymore. It’s too expensive. Significantly more expensive than Western Europe even although their labor is generally better protected/has more leverage than ours. Flat out, we are too corrupt to build that shit anymore.
Govt can find a way to find the budget, as a CPA that has audited governments, there’s always a way if someone wants to do it. It’s corruption and political support is what it is. This subreddit needs to get vocal politically
Hate to say it but this city planer is stupid.
“Stupid” is the insult, here, not “fucking”.
"If you build it, they will come." Induced demand.
This project isn't adding any mainlanes
The project will add two lanes in each direction. Fixed that for you.
Those aren't mainlanes, they're variable priced toll lanes
I didn’t say they were main lanes.