Archive for October, 2009
The Brazos Corridor
Continuing our look at High-Speed Rail in Texas, today we’re getting to the fun part: intercity travel. As you recall in the long series of previous posts, for the sake of this series I’m imagining a privately owned and operated rail system. As a private enterprise, the rail system would need to start small, building [...]
Ares 1-X Launch Successful!
Check out this very cool video of NASA’s successful launch of the new Ares 1-X rocket. This is intended as the replacement system for the Space Shuttle. Congratulations to NASA today!
Houston – Part 3
To finish laying the framework for inter-city rail, we need a regional corridor that serves Northwest Houston. Today we’ll take a look at the Northwest Corridor, and see what it looks like when we tie this in to the rest of the system.
Hair Balls!
Yours truly was featured in an entertaining blog post from John Nova Lomax at the Houston Press. Lomax wrote about “Dress for the Weather Week,” an idea that I’ve been kicking around with my friends and coworkers for some time…
CNU-Houston Meeting Tommorrow
CNU-Houston will be meeting tomorrow to discuss the Transect. The Transect is one of the key elements of New Urbanism – it’s the idea that human environments form a spectrum from natural countryside to agricultural lands to small towns to the neighborhoods and centers of large cities. The Transect is an attempt to classify the [...]
Changing Behavior through Fun
Sometimes humor is the best way to change behavior. At a particular subway station in Sweden everyone rode the escalator up, virtually no one chose the stairs. Well, stairs are clearly a little healthier since they require more effort to walk up… so is there something that we can do to encourage people to make the healthy choice? See for yourself:
Administrative Note
You’ll notice a minor tweak on the site today, posts are now able to have subtitles as well as titles. This isn’t a huge thing, but I hope it helps keep the long series with sub-series that I’m currently working on more organized. I’m trying to make time for several other back-end tweaks to improve [...]
Houston – Part 2
Today let’s look at Part 2 of the Houston regional rail system – the Gulf Corridor. This corridor is the big one in the news lately, and rightly so. It’s the primary link between the region’s two major historical centers (Houston and Galveston), and features a number of major institutions and attractions along the way. So how effectively can we connect it?
Houston – Part 1
As a privately funded system, the Texas High-Speed Rail system would need to start out small – ideally with a short commuter corridor that had potential for TOD. Houston’s South Corridor is a strong candidate. Would you like to be able get from Pearland to the Texas Medical center in 12 minutes? Come take a look.
Discovery Green Thrives while Boston’s Greenway Struggles
A coworker forwarded me this very interesting article comparing Houston’s Discovery Green with Boston’s RFK Greenway. …since Discovery Green opened in spring 2008, people have flocked to the 12-acre park, especially on weekends, when downtown streets feel empty enough for tumbleweeds. It boasts a signature restaurant, a café, an express branch of the public library, [...]