High-tech innovation key to downtown vision
Plan for district looks to driverless cars, electric vehicles and ride-sharing apps, as well as more residents, shopping
City planners’ ambitious 20-year vision for downtown Houston includes more of everything that has transformed the central business district into a more vibrant destination.
More apartments, restaurants and shops. More walkable parks and attractions. More innovative startups and Fortune 500 businesses.
But with new technological advances and cultural shifts, Central Houston Inc. also envisions a future when downtown denizens overwhelmingly use driverless cars, electric vehicles and ridesharing apps to get around.
“By starting now and working together, we can position downtown to be a leader in connectivity innovation and adapt to these new changes,” Central Houston President Bob Eury said as he unveiled the “Plan Downtown” vision at the organization’s annual meeting Friday.
Central Houston imagines a downtown featuring electric vehicle charging stations, dedicated lanes for autonomous buses, and pickup and drop-off zones for ride-sharing vehicles and autonomous taxis.
Sidewalks will have digital “way-finding stations” with maps to help visitors navigate downtown. Public Wi-Fi will extend to pedestrian walkways, parks and other public spaces, Eury said.
What will be absent from downtown’s streets of the future? Traffic lights.
“With autonomous vehicles, there’s no need for traffic signals,” Eury said. “We should be planning for streets of the future, which may not have street lights.”
Instead, smart traffic tech-
nology may be there to guide driverless vehicles around downtown.
Embedded sensors could collect and share data on weather, traffic and air quality with downtown residents and workers, Eury said.
Technology was just one of several topics covered in Plan Downtown. The 88page report laid out plans for the “Green Loop,” a 5-mile pedestrian and bike circuit that would connect downtown to surrounding neighborhoods.
It also called for an “innovation district” to attract startup companies.
Central Houston hopes to realize its downtown vision by 2036, when Houston will celebrate its bicentennial.
“For Houston to compete as a top global city, we must expand our efforts to create a core that is a thriving hub for culture, lifestyle and commerce,” chairwoman Anne Taylor said.
City and county leaders said Friday that they support Central Houston’s downtown plans. Prior proposals have helped bring new apartments, parks, athletic and performing arts venues downtown, which in turn have made downtown a more attractive place to live, work and play.
Over the next two decades, Central Houston hopes to quadruple the number of downtown residents to 30,000.
“There are more people living downtown,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said. “That’s a great asset. But we need more retail in the downtown area.”
Harris County Judge Ed Emmett urged city planners to create more parks and downtown green space, which could also help the city more effectively combat flooding.
“What we have to do together is take these bayous and watersheds that are seen as problems into assets,” Emmett said.
“We need to turn them into green space and things that draw people in our community rather than drive people away,” he added.