Monday, January 13, 2014

Best thing to happen in Houston in 2013, HOU-DFW high-speed rail, HISD A+, METRO HOV adjustments, and more

Some smaller misc items this week, but trying to put together something special for my 1,000 blog post next week...
Finally, there is a pretty cool promo video here for private Texas high speed rail (also embedded below). I'm skeptical of public HSR spending, but a private investment is a different matter entirely. If you'd like to learn more, there's a public event Monday I'm attending that you may want to attend:
You are invited to H-GAC’s January Brown Bag Series presentation on Texas High Speed Rail by Judge Robert Eckels, President of the Lone Star High Speed Rail, LLC. 
Judge Eckels' legal practice is built on a decades-long career in public service and leadership of the nation's third largest county. He is recognized as a national leader in issues of transportation, public finance/public private partnerships, homeland security, the environment and health care.
Eckels is the founding chairman of the Texas High Speed Rail and Transportation Corporation, a coalition of local governments, educational institutions and the private sector working to bring high speed rail to Texas. Eckels left that organization in 2010 to join Lone Star High Speed Rail, LLC; a private enterprise seeking to build a high speed rail system linking the major metropolitan areas of Texas with true high speed rail service. 
When:   Monday, January 20, 2014, Noon to 1:00 PM
Where:  H-GAC offices, 3555 Timmons Lane, 2nd Floor, Rm A, Houston, TX 77027
Bring your lunch and join us!
This event is open to the public, so feel free to extend this invitation to others. Contact Ms. Rosalind Hebert CAP-OM, at 713-993-2471 or Rosalind.Hebert@H-GAC.com, with inquires, comments, or to submit an abstract for a future presentation.

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Wednesday, January 01, 2014

2013 Highlights

It's time for the Fall 4Q13 quarterly highlights post, which also summarizes all of the best posts from 2013.  I'll be making my 1,000th blog post later this month, and entering my 10th year writing this blog in March. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

These posts have been chosen with a particular focus on significant ideas I'd like to see kept alive for discussion and action, and they're mainly targeted at new readers who want to get caught up with a quick overview of the Houston Strategies landscape. I also like to track what I think of as "reference posts" that sum up a particular topic or argument; and, last but not least, they've also been invaluable for me to track down some of my best thinking for meetings or when requested by others (as is the ever-helpful Google search). They're not quite as useful as they were when I was still doing multiple posts each week, but still have some value (at least for me).

Don't forget we offer an email option for the roughly once/week posts - see the Google Groups subscription signup box in the right sidebar. An RSS feed link is also available in the right sidebar.

As always, thanks for your readership.

December
November
October
And from Summer 3Q13:

September
August - none
July - none

And from Spring 2Q13:

June
May
April
And from Winter 1Q13:

March
February
January
And don't forget the highlights from the first few years. For what it's worth, I think the best ideas are found there, often in the first year (I had a lot "stored up" before I started blogging) and most definitely in the 5th birthday retrospective (which I'm now updating at the end of each year).

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