Tag Archives: downtown Houston skyline

Texas Politics

Texoblogosphere: Week of September 1st

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The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone had a good Labor Day as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Like many people, Off the Kuff was cheered by the ruling in the school finance lawsuit.

The TXGOP had a really lousy week, and it only got worse for Greg Abbott as the Labor Day holiday weekend began. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs doesn’t wonder why the attorney general is running away from debating Wendy Davis, because he can’t say ‘no comment’ when asked about his many scandals in a debate.

Libby Shaw now posting at Daily Kos notes that this week has not been particularly good for Republican lawmakers. The bad includes Texas Attorney General and 2014 Gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott. Not a good week for Republicans, including Greg Abbott.

From WCNews at Eye on Williamson. The economy in Texas has never been miraculous. Bleeding the people dry while stockpiling cash is no miracle, Neglect and Greed.

Make no mistake, Republicans are waging a war against public education. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is glad that the Texas constitution is standing in their way.

Texas Leftist applauds the Leticia Van de Putte campaign for catching Dan Patrick in a bold-faced lie. He cannot hide from the 2011 education cuts. Plus, we reveal the true reasoning behind Greg Abbott’s ‘Debate and Switch’.

Neil at Blog About Our Failing Money-Owned American Political System asked why Texas Democratic Lt. Governor Leticia Van de Putte would look the other way at vocal supporters of her campaign who voted for the state-mandated rape of the forced sonogram law.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Beyond Bones has everything you need to know about sharks but were afraid to ask.

Nancy Sims examines the feminism of Beyonce.

Newsdesk introduces us to the widely discredited “expert” who coached the state’s witnesses in the HB2 lawsuit.

Ben Sargent solves the GOP’s Latino outreach problem.

The Lunch Tray asks if using junk food tactics to sell vegetables to kids is a good idea or not.

TransGriot has good wishes for the new school year.

Better Texas Blog analyzes the school finance decision.

Nonsequiteuse reacts to the story of Greg Abbott’s partisan witch hunt against Houston Votes.

And finally, the TPA congratulates The Great God Pan Is Dead for its fifth blog anniversary.

 

 

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Houston

Crane Insane: Downtown Houston Construction Update

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By now, most Houstonians are used to seeing the occasional crane in downtown, and even more so in the Texas Medical Center. There is always something being built anew in the Bayou City these days.

But as we enter the latter part of 2014, Downtown construction is about to go from a small group of projects to insane with cranes. This rapid growth, the largest growth spurt seen in Houston since the 1980s, will also have it’s fair share of growing pains. As Swamplot reports, traffic can get tricky…

IF YOU’RE wondering what the late-night traffic holdup is in and around Main St. and Texas Ave. over the weekend, here’s your explainer: 180 mixing trucks are going to be lining up to pour a continuous stream of concrete onto this site surrounded by Main, Texas, Fannin, and Capitol streets downtown, where D.E. Harvey builders is putting together a little office building — now slated to rise 48 stories — for the Hines CalPERS Green development fund. The action starts at 7 pm on Saturday and should finish up around 3 in the afternoon the next day.

Weekend street closures are just the beginning. If you are a frequent visitor to downtown, start planning some alternate routes now. By the fourth quarter of 2014, downtown should see 15 simultaneous projects (possibly more) entering the high construction phase. That translates to a lot of blocked streets!

The motivation behind the copious construction is in part due to the business community’s self-imposed deadline of having a new and different downtown by the 2017 Super Bowl. Hopefully everything can get done by then, but for the meantime, Houstonians are definitely going to notice the changes.

Here are some pictures of the 609 Main construction this weekend, along with a preview of the coming rail stations…

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Here is the crane base for 609 Main 

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A view of the assembly crane (needed to construct the primary cranes) with a second project crane in the background.

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Some projects will be completed this year, like the Houston MetroRail expansion. Here is a view of Central Station for the Green and Purple Line. 

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Here is the Main Street portion of Central Station. Houston’s new rail transit services should start in December 2014