Shifting from consumptive to participative culture.
Houston's infiniteTransit Flyway creates more social spaces at many different scales of activity. Primarily at the Pauseways, people of all ages interact and engage with a thriving metropolis. Digital technologies are assisting the creation of social activities in more participative communities leading to open-source, self-organized cooperation, and better governance. Houston's new Travel Services are designed to support these lifestyles with Places where people desire to be.
Houston is well-positioned to lead the country creating these new mixed-community Places. Large American cities typically have antiquated Zoning Laws, or similar Form-Based complications intended to predetermine economic activity and the kinds of places people might desire in the future. Such complicated regulations inhibit the creation of local economic ecosystems in the service of abstract ideals.
Places are the attractor points that the infiniteTransit Flyway connects. Locally determined economic development is free to coordinate amenities to serve each Place's economic ecosystem and lifestyle interests. And it supports new lifestyles as generations evolve. These centers of activity connect each social Place with many others around Houston, including the airport, quickly connecting to the wider region, continent, and world.
Four ways infiniteTransit creates social Places:
Twentieth-century cities were designed by city planners to keep children safely out of cities. An unfortunate corollary has been that people in cities have fewer children, leading to the demographic collapse of birthrates in developed countries. Considering the African aphorism:
“It takes a village to raise a child”
infiniteTransit and its creation of smaller-scaled "social spaces" support existing Places. More importantly, it creates networked urban villages to raise many children which will generate economically thriving 21st-century metropolises.
Pauseway Plaza
Rides
Entrepreneurial Opportunities
The UN Sustainable Development Goals come after a century of inventing and then consuming physical things to appease human curiosity. Today society is beginning the shift towards participative interaction-based entertainment. Rather than buying stuff at a mall, people are choosing to interact with others in small and large community activity. As more attractor points for these interactions are formed, more participative events emerge where people and groups of people contribute to more meaningful societies.
Increased Amenity Accessibility
Places within one (1) mile radius of the Pauseway are no longer limited by traffic congestion. Increasing density is complemented by increasing the frequency and quality of common-spaces, at all levels of community life. The access point to Travel Services is the Pauseway itself, a grand-scaled urban plaza fostering the success of local entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Pauseway
Flyway ramp entering
Flyway ramp exiting
Each of the Places where a Pauseway is proposed will choose from alternative sites/developments (typically 3) to host their Pauseway. Conceptually three integrated Flyway Circuits would create a robust network supporting the next 50-100 years of evolution in Houston.
Participation in the community acknowledges the economic realities of the costs needed to run and maintain a municipality. Large projects envisioned to support infiniteTransit also provide the municipality with an equity stake in the development of projects in their place. This removes the animosity between developers, citizens, and politicians, instead, they are all on the same team, working to make their environment better for all parties, within tangible economic constraints
Houston Uptown
Nine (9) distinct opportunities to build three (3) Pauseways are proposed for Houston's core. Two additional Pauseways would serve the Health Care and University Districts.
Katy
Three attractive opportunities to build a Pauseway in Katy, each have their unique development potentials. While other sites are possible, Katy Mills, Colonial, and Mercantile each offer new kinds of opportunities to the people living and working near Katy.
Jersey Village
Each site opportunity for building a Pauseway needs a "Jersey Village Pauseway Site Alternatives Study" to find the most appropriate solutions. From three potential sites, people in Jersey Village will select the final location.
(Sample images are from Pauseway Site Alternative Studies in other cities.)
This location, Site A, is at the intersection of two arterial streets and a large available corner site for development.
Site B is built above the existing submerged highway, bringing together neighborhoods divided for decades.
And Site C is built adjacent to the historic commercial district and existing Metro lines.
Tomball
Three opportunities to build a Pauseway will be developed in the "Tomball Pauseway Site Alternatives Study." More information to follow.
Woodlands
Three opportunities to build a Pauseway will be developed in the "Woodlands Pauseway Site Alternatives Study." More information to follow.
Additional Places to Come...
Stay tuned as we develop Site alternatives for Places that interest you, or
send us a message with your comments, suggestions, concerns, or compliments.