In 10 years we will be walking everywhere in Houston!

Making highways bigger only increases traffic

 

We will all be on scooters with huge ass gas tanks.

 

Rocket River

 

The explosion of apartment complexes in Houston is largely to blame, as far as I'm concerned.

Several complexes were built near my neighborhood and now the local streets (like 11th and 18th) are overloaded with people because we have too many apartment complexes.

During rush hour, it takes far too long to drive a very short distance on local streets.

It sucks.

 

Yeah...fat ass Houstonians are going to walk anywhere in August.

 

The pandemic showed us how to solve traffic problems...telecommute. We don't need wider roads; we need fewer cars on the roads. Before the pandemic I never telecommuted but it worked out so well that my direct reports and I are now permanent telecommuters. Why do businesses want to spend money on buildings/leases if their employees can do the same job from home? I'm surprised at how many people have gone back to the office.

 

I work from home. I still need to go to grocery store, pharmacy, restaurants, walmart, etc. And, yes, I can shop online, but life can't be entirely spent in my house....

...but driving down an overcrowded street full of apartment-dwellers really really sucks.

 

Hmmm. I live inside the loop next to the Galleria where there are at least 10 highrises and a few apartments. All within a half mile. The Galleria side is where all the traffic sucks. It clears up on my side.

 

Certainly the building of more houses (and the two-on-one-lot build-ups) have contributed... but, sheesh, there are just a TON of apartment buildings now, flooding the streets with congestion.

Near the heights (my house is inside the loop, just West of the heights), the neighborhood roads clog up like crazy. MUCH more than they used to. It can take 20 - 30 minutes to drive a mile.

 

Are... are you blaming poor people for not being able to own SFH? Apartment complexes and just an increase in housing is a necessity unless you want Houston to turn into Seattle/San Francisco or even what Austin is going through right now where the housing market is going insane and rentals are going up by 25% on renewals or more.

 

Not sure how long you're lived over there, but the Heights is far more popular than it was 20 years ago. Over here, Galleria traffic has sucked as long as I can remember, and again, tons of new properties have blown up where I live with no noticeable traffic increase.

 

I think we shouldn't permit more and more apartment complexes if it causes too many problems with other parts of our infrastructure (road congestion, emergency coverage, flooding, electrical, etc.)

...and I think that the building of more and more apartment complexes have had a lot of negative impact on those parts of infrastructure in my neighborhood.

 

Bought our house here 24 years ago.

Certainly, I expect that, over time, population (and popularity of the area) will increase. But as each apartment complex gets built nearby, I see a big difference. It's like a huge people-bomb gets dropped.

 

While true, endlessly sprawling out and widening the highways and roads in an effort to outpace growth is not a sustainable system. Density is inevitable. That being said density should be planned better to your point. Popping up random apartments everywhere shouldn't be the main route compared to redesigning blocks of neighborhoods to be less car dependent and more walkable and planning out some decent public transit. Houston infrastructure will not survive increased density with zero infrastructure changes.

 

I will say that the streets are so old in the heights it is laughable. An area that populous that still has gutter ditches? They should've been redoing the streets years ago.

 

Houstonians would find a way to create massive traffic jams even if they walked everywhere.

 

Why walk when you can ride Metrorail then wait at traffic lights same way cars do?

Such a poorly planned method of transit