Google optimizing traffic signals, idea for HTX office to residential conversions, Why Texas is Becoming America's Most Powerful State, NYT on Houston winning vs homelessness, and more
Just catching up on some backlogged smaller items this week...
- New Whitmire administration: Can Houston please sign up to be next for this?!
"Google AI models that can autonomously optimize the traffic timing at that intersection, reducing idle times as well as the amount of braking and accelerating vehicles have to do there."
- And I'd be happy to help get METRO on a better path while they're at it?...
"Light rail's proven in Houston, where transit ridership fell from 95 million bus trips before opening its first light-rail line to 78 million bus and rail trips in 2019 after spending nearly $4 billion on light rail... It has proven to be the most expensive way transit agencies can reduce transit ridership."
- Bloomberg: A $100 Billion Wealth Migration Tilts US Economy’s Center of Gravity South - Some 2.2 million people moved to the Southeast in just over two years. That’s roughly the population of Houston.
- WSJ: America’s Downtowns Are Empty. Fixing Them Will Be Expensive. - Lonely sidewalks and closed storefronts inspire proposals to recast office districts into neighborhoods where people live, work and raise families. A chart shows over 25% of downtown Houston's office space is vacant and only 7.5% of it could be easily converted to residential. A Hines exec at a GHPartnership event last week said that: converting empty offices to residential creates Class B apartments that don't pencil out. But maybe Habitat for Humanity could make that equation work with volunteer labor for affordable Class B condos?
- Texas Tribune: To fight climate change and housing shortage, Austin becomes largest U.S. city to drop parking-spot requirements. Houston has expanded the zone where this applies from downtown to midtown and EaDo, but I don't see why it couldn't go citywide. Hat tip to Thomas.
- NYT: Here’s How Houston Is Fighting Homelessness — and Winning
"Dallas officials were prickly when I toured their city and asked them pointedly why Houston was doing better...
The lesson I take from Houston and Dallas is that success doesn’t come from repeating bromides about how housing is a human right; homelessness is indifferent to earnestness but does respond to hard work and meticulous execution. Houston has succeeded because it has strong political leadership that gathers data, follows evidence and herds nonprofits in the same direction. It is relentless."
Finally I'll end with this really well-done video on the population, economic, and energy boom in Texas, which is on track to pass California by the 2040s: Why Texas is Becoming America's Most Powerful State
Labels: downtown, economy, home affordability, homelessness, land-use regulation, Metro, mobility strategies, parking, rail
posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:28 PM
6 Comments:
Removing parking space requirements will not keep people from driving nor improve air quality. I lived in Montrose for a decade surrounded by businesses which provided no parking. Such neighborhoods are not pedestrian valhallas. Instead they are parking hells with cars constantly circling the block, idling for extended tens of minutes whilst they wait for a spot, and trampled, trash strewn lawns. Most patrons of Montrose, Neartown and EaDo businesses drive there from outside and have little to no respect for the peace and quiet actual residents might expect in their own neighborhoods. Maintain parking requirements if you want improved air quality, higher quality retail and streets safe for pedestrians to walk across.
My thought has always been let the market decide how much parking they need, not some urban planning formula (which is especially hard on bars). But as you point out the tragedy-of-the-commons problem can be significant. I'd be really curious how things have worked out in downtown, midtown, and EaDo since min parking requirements were cut. Is it causing significant problems or enabling new businesses to thrive that previously couldn't afford enough parking?
Privatize curbside parking and I might agree that there should be no parking requirements. In the absence of parking requirements, parking demand moves to the nearest free parking first, which is free curbside parking. When that fills, demand moves to those who will pay, for curbside parking, with their time, circling the block and loitering their auto in the street. The balance of demand then flows to pay garages. If curbside were privatized and curbside charged market rates, just as parking garages do, then there would be fewer of the problems which I described. Curbside parking would likely come at a substantial premium over garage parking. Circling and loitering would probably disappear.
Chicago really screwed itself privatizing street parking, but I agree it needs to be priced appropriately, which according to studies is high enough that 10-20% of the spaces are empty at any given time so people *aren't* circling and loitering.
There is something to be said for frictionless transactions. The harder you make the purchase process for a given good the less likely people are to buy it. How this relates to businesses and parking, is elimination of parking requirements means increasing parking transaction friction. This will discourage the pool of customers from going to the business. Basically I'm not going to montrose to buy anything (I used to), as parking is too much of a hassel (friction) for too little benifit. I'd rather go to walmart where I can always find a space.
Dropping parking minimum requirements does not mean businesses won’t construct parking if they feel they need it. Look at Texas Tower and recent high-rise residential for examples. The issues in Montrose and elsewhere often arise because street parking is free. I look at how much better the parking situation in Rice Village got once they started metering.
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