Gayla Hamilton, a local real estate broker, asked the Wizard to post her comments she made on July 30th, 2009, to the proposed changes to Chapter 15 and Chapter 42 of the City of Houston Ordinances. Planning commission chair Carol Lewis cut her off before she could complete her remarks. These were Mrs. Hamilton's remarks in full.
My name is Gayla Hamilton and I am a native Houstonian, a member of Corridors United and a Texas Real Estate Broker engaging in residential and commercial real estate.
City Planning starts each of its Major Thoroughfare meetings by stating that it has nothing to do with METRO’s chosen alignment routes, nor anything to do with the Land Planning Studies by the City, nor the City of Houston’s Public Works consent agreement with METRO which allows numerous and unlimited variances to METRO and disclaim anything to do with METRO property takings. Have any of you reviewed the 60% completed Engineering Drawings on the alignments or right of way Paving Drawings? Have any of you reviewed the Metro-Parsons design element contracts on any of these streets?
How can the City Planning Commission ignore these KEY components? Your power point presentations state these components are UNIQUE, but instead it should state that they are Extremely Adverse based upon the Traffic Engineering Reports for these current major thoroughfare streets and all collector streets. How can you even consider making Post Oak Boulevard, Rusk, Capital, North Main or Martin Luther King Blvd. a Transit Street Corridor without considering all the elements that will affect these streets?
City Planning cannot vote YES to these street designations until ALL components mentioned above have been reviewed as a WHOLE. City Planning can NOT allow METRO to reduce current street lanes OR go to a 10 ft wide lane which was previously tried on Westheimer and did not work, nor give METRO the authority to close medians, restrict left turn lanes and create a grid-lock in all areas of the transit which will have a boomerang effect on all areas around the transit lines.
CORRIDORS UNITED has reviewed ALL reports to get a glimpse of our future traffic impact disasters. At least two members of this Commission are conflicted because of METRO connections - Dr. Lewis, and Mr. Freeman, and should be disqualified to serve or vote on the Transit designation.
City Planning must look at the traffic impact and the many variances that METRO is already demanding. If the whole is not examined, City Planning has not done due diligence and MUST NOT sign off on this and send it on to City Council for approval.
In Uptown on Post Oak Blvd., there is right in and right out only from parking lots with a total of 9 Traffic Lights between San Felipe and Westheimer. Post Oak Blvd. at San Felipe is losing one through lane going south and one key left turn from Post Oak Blvd. turning on to San Felipe. Left turns lanes will need to be 350 ft long which is longer than a football field according to the traffic report. Deterioration occurs at most of the intersections to an “F” - San Felipe, Post Oak Blvd. and Westheimer at the 610 West Loop. We believe the 2008 Traffic Count being used by Walter P. Moore is off by 50% based upon a previous traffic count in our possession.
What was left out of the METRO study is the significant impact on existing properties parking lots regarding ingress and egress. In other words the impact on Hotels, Office buildings and the Retail in our biggest sales tax area is going to be adversely affected. Without a Signalized Light at the property, drivers must turn right only. The Hampton Retirement home loses it current ability to turn left on Post Oak driving its traffic to West Alabama. Further, residents cannot turn left when going south on Post Oak Blvd. This is one of about 10 significant properties that lose ALL ability to turn left from its garages or current parking lots.
Even if a property has a signalized light like the Doubletree Hotel, what is the property’s ability to handle major functions with 1000 plus attendees? Instead of wide open median turns, drivers will have to wait for a light to turn green prior to turning left backing traffic up into the garage. This will be a traffic jam disaster! All this will create major traffic issues on all surrounding streets like Sage, Mc Cue, Hidalgo, West Alabama, Ambassador Way, Post Oak Lane, Del Monte and the traffic will disperse through neighborhoods like Tanglewood and Del Monte and affect all the residential apartments, townhomes and high-rises in the area. Grady Middle School currently backs up with carpools on San Felipe @ Sage. Can you even imagine the gridlock with a train crossing Post Oak @ San Felipe? What about the churches – St. Martin’s Episcopal, St. Michael’s Catholic and Baraka on the collector streets?
Corridor United thinks This Is Your Problem!!! All the reports and impacts should be reviewed entirely and as a whole before City Planning even considers going forward with this plan. Do not VOTE on this change of Major Thoroughfare to a Transit Corridor until City Planning has reviewed all these reports to do their due diligence. And please make sure the conflicted Planning Commissioners mentioned do not take part in these discussions or vote.
Mr. Kilkenny, as a Professional developer for 25 years and Vice Chair of Planning, please perform the same due diligence your Mischer Corp. would perform, by compiling the Traffic Effects contained in all these various reports, prior to City Planning voting to approve our city streets as a transit corridor street. Our city’s sustained or future growth will rely on our Street Grid which is being decimated by this new classification. 99% of us are going to take a serious hit. The Risk is not worth any reward.
The Southeast Corridor involving Downtown is a whole other issue. In Downtown, the Light Rail will be abutting existing garages on Rusk and Capitol Street with 40% of the current vehicle traffic going elsewhere. A 25-50% LOSS of current street lanes, basements and tunnels having to be rebuilt; the noise, sound and vibration; exclusive left or right turn lanes will reduce the number of current through lanes on Rusk and Capitol. The so-called Interline (from Capitol to Main) or (Main to Rusk) is unsafe, unmitigatable as well as grade level rail that will be crossing grade level rail. All of this will adversely impact our world renowned Theatre District, not to mention creating a traffic nightmare for downtown office workers.
Wizard