Morning Roundup: Please stay on the sidewalk edition

Good morning, Houston. Next time you happen to be walking along Northwood Drive in Baytown — and really, we can't imagine why you would be — be sure to use the sidewalk. If you don't, you could end up being slapped with a $150 citation. It happened to Clifton Stewart, a minister who said he moved to the neighborhood to save money; on Aug. 21, Stewart was cited for violating a state law that prevents pedestrians from walking in a roadway when a sidewalk is available. Police ran into Stewart again 45 minutes later and claim they offered him the chance to walk home 15 times, but he persisted in asking them about the citation — we can't help but think we might have done the same, though maybe not as persistently — and Stewart ended up being arrested. Baytown police said they're just trying to clean up the street, which they say is a hotbed of crime at times; Stewart claims he was the victim of racial profiling. The real lesson here? Never walk anywhere. Check!

>> TxDOT: This ramp isn't safe! No, wait: The ramp connecting the northbound Sam Houston Tollway with the westbound Katy Freeway was closed for seven hours Wednesday because of engineers' concerns that it was structurally unsound — but the ramp has re-opened after crews did some shoring up. Inspectors became concerned about the ramp after its companion, which joined the ramp in a Y shape, was demolished last weekend; the demolition put all the stress of the traffic load on the existing ramp, which wasn't designed to support that load alone. During today's closure, engineers looked at the ramp to determine how well it could handle the load; they decided to place 24 concrete barriers on the north side of the ramp to balance the weight of traffic on its south side, and the roadway re-opened at 6:30 p.m. It's a temporary fix, sure, but it's also a temporary problem: The ramp is scheduled to be demolished in about a month, according to the Chronicle.

>> Comcast: We won't raise your rates ... except this time: Comcast, which took over the Houston cable market this summer with a promise of no rate increases, has announced it'll raise its rates 6.1 percent for all subscribers after all — a decision a Comcast spokesperson told KTRK was made "to closely align the Houston price to be more complimentary with Comcast prices around the nation." (And, we assume, to build trust and loyalty in Houston's new cable provider.) The increase works out to $3 for basic cable subscribers, $5 for digital classic subscribers and more for people who have additional channel packages. The rate increase comes with improvements in service — video-on-demand and 10 more high-definition channels on the TV side, and more than 200 new employees on the customer service side — but, as you'd expect, it's not going over all that well with some subscribers. "It seems like everybody wants more money," Larry Soape told Channel 13. The rate increases will go into effect beginning Oct. 1.

>> Today's weather: Well, good news and bad news, depending on how you look at things: There's less of a chance of rain today, but the temperatures will be back up to normal late summer levels. Expect a chance of showers, mainly after 1 p.m., with an afternoon high around 90 and a heat index as high was 102. Tonight, the sky should clear up as temperatures drop into the upper 70s.

Keep on the straight and narrow with this morning's headlines ...