From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • Morning rains have created some road closures in town. • A body has been discovered in a gully near Seabrook • Hit and run accident critically injures pedestrian. • Unmanned drones are being tested by the FAA in Houston. • Could it really be? Lower property taxes for Harris county homeowners. • A plane owned by a Houston area man crashed in...
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Results tagged “pedestrian”
Good morning, Houston. If you've walked — or driven — downtown or in Midtown lately, chances are you've noticed the fancy new "countdown signals," which flash the number of seconds pedestrians have to cross an intersection before traffic lights change. They'll soon be installed at more than 300 intersections in neighborhoods with high amounts of pedestrian traffic, including the Medical Center; though they cost $1.3 million to put up, officials say the efficient LED...
Good morning, Houston. Did you watch last night's Emmy Awards show with bated breath? Yeah, neither did we. If you want to check out the winners, the Chron has a nice cheat sheet that will bring you up to speed for today's water cooler conversation. We did get to wondering where the name "Emmy" came from though, and turned to Wikipedia to ease our minds. Turns out it's a feminization of the word "immy,"...
Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market...
City Council voted yesterday to sell the 2400 block of Bolsover (between Kelvin and Morningside - we can't Street View it yet, but here's the Google Map) in Rice Village to Lamesa Village Ltd., a mixed use developer, for $1.5 million. Many residents expressed practical concerns about traffic and parking, but some were also bothered by the city selling public land for private profit. Lamesa Village Ltd. plans to build a development called Sonoma, which...
Good morning, Houston. The AP reports on an interesting phenomenon: According to preschoolers, anything tastes better if it's wrapped in McDonald's packaging — even carrots, milk and apple juice. The study was done by Stanford University researcher Tom Robinson, whose subjects were 63 low-income children aged between 3 and 5; Robinson's conclusion was that the kids' perception of foods' taste was "physically altered by the branding." Anyone want to make the argument that marketing...
While running along Montrose Ave this morning, discovering the sidewalks (and subsequent ankle-twisting cracks) of a neighborhood we have often admired, but of recent become a resident, we got an upclose look at many of the establishment we have visited many a time, yet on foot were allowed to explore a bit more. In the effort of being visionaries, we've decided to name this strip of road SoMo (or South Montrose, for you slow pokes.)...
More information in the story of Sonoma, the giant mixed-use development being planned for a two-block site in the Rice Village: The Chronicle reports that the city has released the appraisals for the 2400 block of Bolsover Street, and there's a little bit of variation between the two — about a half-million dollars' worth, to be specific. The appraisals — for $913,171 and $1,460,340 — pertain to Lamesa Properties' plans to buy that stretch of...
Meet David Purdie, a true AstroWorld fan: When he heard that the park was going to close, Purdie decided to capture its last days on film. With a hand-held video camera, he visited AstroWorld every weekend in October 2005, filming everything he could — from the drive down Kirby to the walk over the pedestrian bridge to the slow climb up the first incline on the Texas Cyclone. And then, when cranes and bulldozers moved...
The Chronicle reported this weekend on the current state of the former AstroWorld site — and it's not too good: The site's new owner, Angel-McIver Interests of Conroe, has been cited by the city for letting the 104 acres become overgrown. Angel-McIver last week was given 30 days to clean up the site or face a city cleanup bill and a fine of up to $1,500; officials with the company blamed the recent rainy weather....
We figured it was worth recapping the traffic closures coming downtown in the next couple of days as part of the Freedom Over Texas celebration — so if you're planning to drive that way, pay attention: As of 10 a.m. today, the exit ramps to Allen Parkway from I-45 north- and southbound are closed, as is the ramp from Walker Avenue to Allen Parkway. The inbound lanes of Allen Parkway are closed at Taft and...
So it's almost time for Chevy's Freedom over Texas, the city's July 4 celebration — and that means some traffic changes you'll want to know about, beginning this weekend. One change in the festival plans is the result of all the rainy weather we've been having lately: The main stage will move from the south bank of Buffalo Bayou, where it's usually located, to the inbound lanes of Allen Parkway and the feeder road...
Last night wasn't a good one for people on foot in Houston: Two people were killed in two separate vehicle-pedestrian accidents, and in both cases, the drivers fled the scenes. The first accident happened around 9:15 p.m. yesterday at Emnora and Peppermill in Spring Branch, where a 16-year-old girl and her friends were crossing the street. A Ford F-150 heading east along Emnora went across oncoming traffic and onto the shoulder, hitting the girl, who...
Today’s Photo of the Day comes from flickr user and Houstonist photo contributor sanctamonius who captures a random pedestrian in the crosswalk as a MetroRail train passes. Houstonist feels a theme coming on this week. Get those black and white images submitted to the group and let's see where we can take this week's unannounced theme. If you enjoy taking pictures of Houston, consider joining over 230 of Houston's best photographers in the Houstonist...
If you've ever wondered what you could do to really make a lasting impression on Houston, have we got a deal for you: For $1,500, your name could be inscribed on the sidewalk alongside the soon-to-be-spiffy Kirby Drive. The sale of the 18-by-18-inch pavers will help fund the Kirby Coalition and Upper Kirby District's upgrade project for the street, which is being (or is planned to be, anyway) carried out at the same time as...
If you've missed the fountains at Main Street Square, which have been turned off since a hard freeze six weeks ago screwed up a seal between two pipes, there's good news: The fountains are back. We'll give you a few minutes to celebrate. Honestly — and Houstonist goes past Main Street Square pretty frequently — we hadn't even realized anything was wrong. It's been windy the last few weeks, so we figured the fountains were...
It was kind of a hair-raising night on the North Freeway: First, a pedestrian trying to cross the freeway was hit and killed, and then several hours later a driver ran into an HPD patrol car blocking the roadway after a truck lost its load of nails. The pedestrian accident happened at around 8:45 p.m. near the northbound North Freeway and Parker, where police say a man in dark clothes was trying to cross both...
Sprawled and traffic-clogged Houston isn't traditionally known as a bicycle-friendly city. BikeHouston is trying to change that, promoting bicycling as an alternate method of transportation, educating both bicyclists and motorists about bicycle safety, and lobbying the city to build more bicycle lanes and Metro to attach bicycle racks to the front of buses. BikeHouston’s annual meeting is tonight. There will be food, along with a talk by the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s Pedestrian-Bicycle Coordinator, Dan Raine....
This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own, Phillyist co-editor Star C. Foster, passed away early in the week. Her wit, intelligence, and good nature shone through the site, making Phillyist an immensely fun read. She was loved by many and will be missed by all. Phillyist paid tribute to her this week with a heartfelt letter to her and an obituary. And now, the awkward...
Having a speeding car crash into the side of a house is bad in any case — but when the car takes out the only staircase leading from your apartment to the ground, well, that's even worse. That's what happened to Rick Jansen this weekend when an SUV hit a pedestrian, then careened into the side of Jansen's building. Police said they first got a call about the SUV mowing down the pedestrian, who was...
Halloween is Tuesday, which means this weekend is really the time for all of the –ists to celebrate. And whether they’re designing super-spooky costumes or talking about the super-spooky upcoming elections, we’d say that they’re doing a fine job of it. Austinist knows that few things in life are scarier than zombies, people with way too much money, and politicians who try too hard to be funny. Slightly less scary, depending on whom you...
Love it or hate it, we'll bet you know where the Taj Mahal is. No, not that one — we're talking about the former HISD administration building, which will be history within a few days, to be replaced by ... a Costco. No kidding. HISD had its headquarters in the building at 3830 Richmond Ave. from 1969 until the district moved to new quarters off 610 and 290 earlier this year. The big, white...
A Houstonist public service announcement: Don't walk on the freeway. If you do, bad things may happen to you — take, for example, the poor soul who was pummeled to bits by passing cars on the Southwest Freeway last night. It was a small, but horrible, news item: No one's sure how the chain of impacts began, but police believe the pedestrian was first hit by an 18-wheeler, then by four or five other cars,...
The Chronicle reported yesterday on an interesting dilemma facing people who want to make Houston a more urban, walkable city: In many cases, they can't, thanks to existing development ordinances that defer to the almighty car. The Chron article focuses on Midtown, where a lot has been done in the last 10 years to create pedestrian-friendly districts. Even so, "a lot" is relative — the area has gone from a no-man's land of abandoned warehouses...
So, once upon a time, there was a boy from the Wrong Side of the Tracks who had to do community service at the art school he vandalized because he's Misunderstood. He meets a Priviliged Ballerina who needs a dance partner and....why am I recapping the plot? Step Up is totally predictable and, oddly, completely engaging. Wisely, the director (first-timer Anne Fletcher) does a lot of what she does best: sexy, frenetic dance sequences that...
So here's a civic project to get excited about: Tonight, Buffalo Bayou Partnership will host "Blue Bayou," a party to celebrate the opening of the Sabine to Bagby Promenade, a new park along Buffalo Bayou from downtown to the Sabine Street Bridge. The $15 million park — which doubles as a flood-control project — includes 2 miles of hike and bike trails linking the Allen Parkway/Memorial Drive trails with Sesquicentennial Park, 12 new street-to-bayou stairways...
An Amtrak train bound for Houston and a truck loaded with gravel crashed near Columbus this morning, injuring the truck driver, a train engineer and several passengers The price of crude oil closed the week at $70.19 after $2 decreases Wednesday and Thursday; the final number reflected a 25 cent increase over Thursday's price A pedestrian was injured this morning in Midtown when he got off a MetroRail train and jaywalked in front of a...
Vince Young on being passed over by the Texans: 'If I get picked to play for a team that's going to be playing them, it's going to be pretty rough on them' Kirby Drive was closed between Westheimer and Fairview this afternoon after a construction crew broke a gas line Houston plastic surgeon Mark Gilliland began serving two years in jail today for the 2005 Galleria-area hit-and-run accident that severely injured two British television producers...
The staggering amount of concrete in Houston — whether it's in the shape of strip malls, freeways, parking lots or society matrons' hair — is one of those things you learn to live with around here. A nice old building gets torn down to make way for a parking lot and we just shrug and say, "Eh, all in a day." But now there's something new: an effort to install art in a parking lot....
Last week, a Metro bus hit a woman and her daughter crossing the street near Courthouse Square; yesterday, another bus mowed down another pedestrian at Metro's trasit center in the Texas Medical Center. The man stepped into the pedestrian crosswalk, "so the operator will be at fault," said Raequel Roberts, a spokeswoman for Metro. The pedestrian was taken to an area hospital, "but his injuries do not appear to be life-threatening," Roberts said. The accident...