Texas
?These 15 memberships to Houston, Texas’ best attractions are worth the price for your summer plans
HOUSTON – Looking for one thing nice to do that summer season or a present for somebody in your life who’s unattainable to buy?
Contemplate experiences — a yr of entry to nice locations, enjoyable and journey that is smart for leisure this summer season. As a present merchandise, give one thing the one you love may not splurge on themselves. Perhaps tickets someplace they’ve by no means been or one thing they’ve by no means achieved.
Listed below are 15 subscriptions and memberships to Houston’s high sights that can delight you and even the pickiest current recipients.
Costs listed beneath are for particular person memberships.
? Texas State Parks Move
$70 | ? Buy right here
A Texas State Park Move waives entrance charges to greater than 80 state parks for you and your same-vehicle friends (card holder have to be current) for a full yr. Undecided which state parks are close to you? Listed below are 9 positioned in and across the Houston space excellent for a day journey or fast weekend getaway.
Advert
Move holders additionally obtain tenting reductions, particular reductions for packages, actions, and occasions, and a ten % low cost on retail and rental gadgets at state park shops.
Purchase a Texas State Park Move at any state park or on-line. Observe that the one who purchases a move turns into the move holder and can’t switch it to another person. If you wish to buy a move as a present, buy a state park reward card. The reward card recipient can change their reward card at anytime.
For extra data, name (512) 389-8900.
? Nationwide Parks & Federal Leisure Lands Annual Move
$80 | ? Buy right here
The move supplies entry to greater than 2,000 federal recreation websites. Every move covers entrance charges at nationwide parks and nationwide wildlife refuges in addition to normal amenity charges (day use charges) at nationwide forests and grasslands, and at lands managed by the Bureau of Land Administration, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Military Corps of Engineers. The move covers entrance, normal amenity charges and day use charges for a driver and all passengers in a private car at per car charge areas (or as much as 4 adults at websites that cost per particular person).
Advert
Passes can be found at collaborating company websites or on-line at retailer.usgs.gov/move.
For extra data, name 1-888-ASK-USGS (1-888-275-8747, ext. #1) or go to Recreation.gov/move.
? Houston Zoo
$139 | ? Buy right here
The Houston Zoo acquired its begin in Hermann Park in 1922. Quick-forward a century and the zoo, now a well-liked 55-acre vacationer attraction, cares for some 6,000 animals and attracts an estimated two million guests yearly. The zoo has seen a number of unbelievable upgrades lately, together with the Texas Wetlands habitat and the Pantanal habitat. In 2023, the most recent habitat – The Galapagos Islands – will open.
Advert
Zoo membership perks embody free admission for 12 months, early entry to the zoo on choose mornings, unique reductions for extra admission, particular occasion tickets, reward store purchases, and extra, in addition to discounted admission at over 100 different zoos and aquariums nationwide.
For extra data, name (713) 533-6500 or e mail membership@houstonzoo.org.
? The Museum of High-quality Arts, Houston
$70 | ? Buy right here
Established in 1900, the Museum of High-quality Arts, Houston, is among the many 10 largest artwork museums within the nation and options an encyclopedic assortment of practically 70,000 artworks created all through the world, from antiquity to the current. The MFAH has two cafés and a restaurant, a repertory cinema, two libraries, and two close by home museums for ornamental arts: Bayou Bend Assortment and Gardens, and Rienzi.
Advert
Membership advantages and reductions range by membership degree. All MFAH members get pleasure from yearlong free common admission, free tickets to exhibitions, unique early entry earlier than exhibitions open to the general public, discounted parking at MFAH garages, discounted admission at Bayou Bend and Rienzi, free or discounted admission to lectures, packages and occasions.
For extra data name (713) 639-7550 or e mail membership@mfah.org.
? Houston Museum of Pure Science
$65 | ? Buy right here
Based in 1909, the Houston Museum of Pure Science homes the Burke Baker Planetarium, Wortham Big Display Theatre, Cockrell Butterfly Heart, and 5 flooring of everlasting reveals spanning astronomy, area, science, Native Individuals, paleontology, power, chemistry, gems and minerals, seashells, Texas wildlife, and extra. The museum additionally hosts touring particular reveals.
Advert
The Museum additionally maintains two satellite tv for pc services: The George Observatory in Fort Bend County, which homes one of many largest public telescopes within the nation; and the Houston Museum of Pure Science at Sugar Land, which has reveals on dinosaurs, physics and a newly opened Corridor of Expertise.
Membership advantages and reductions range by membership degree. Perks all members get pleasure from embody 12 months limitless admission to everlasting exhibit halls at HMNS Hermann Park and HMNS Sugar Land, together with the Morian Corridor of Paleontology, the Cullen Corridor of Gems and Minerals and the Wiess Vitality Corridor, discounted admission to all particular ticketed exhibitions, the Cockrell Butterfly Heart, the Wortham Big Display Theatre and the Burke Baker Planetarium, lowered charges for George Observatory stargazing, and reductions on the museum retailers.
For extra data, name (713) 639-4629 or e mail membership@hmns.org.
Advert
? Armand Bayou Nature Heart
$45 | ? Buy right here
Thought-about the biggest city wilderness protect within the nation, the two,500-acre Armand Bayou Nature Heart in Pasadena consists of wetlands forest, prairie and marsh habitats that are residence to greater than 370 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. ABNC has 5 miles of mountain climbing trails, reveals, and presents discipline journeys, Scout packages, birding, guided evening hikes, bat hikes and boat excursions.
Members get pleasure from free admission, reductions on packages, actions, occasions and reward retailer merchandise and free admission for at the least one visitor. Member perks range by membership tier. Particular person memberships begin at $45.
For extra data, name (281) 474-2551.
? Holocaust Museum Houston
$50 | ? Buy right here
Opened in 1996 with a mission to coach college students and the general public in regards to the risks of prejudice and hatred in society, The Holocaust Museum Houston is devoted to remembering the six million Jews and different harmless victims of the Holocaust and honoring the legacy of the survivors. The 57,000-square-foot museum is the nation’s fourth-largest Holocaust museum and consists of a welcome heart, 4 everlasting galleries and two altering exhibition galleries, lecture rooms, a analysis library, café, 187-seat indoor theater and a 175-seat outside amphitheater.
Advert
Membership advantages and reductions range by membership degree. Perks all members get pleasure from embody limitless free admission to the Museum and all particular exhibitions for one yr, invites to members-only exhibition previews, packages and occasions, precedence discover and free or discounted admission to discussions, lectures, performances, live shows and different occasions, subscription to the Museum Member Journal, 10 % low cost on the HMH Museum Retailer, and library privileges, together with entry to the library catalog and new digital assortment of e-books.
For extra data, name (713) 527-1616 or e mail membership@hmh.org.
? House Heart Houston
$55 | ? Buy right here
House Heart Houston is a nonprofit science & area studying heart and the Official Customer Heart of NASA Johnson House Heart. The favored vacationer attraction has greater than 400 issues to see and do and homes the biggest collections of spacesuits and Moon rocks on public show on this planet. Highlights embody the George W.S. Abbey Rocket Park, the place one in all solely three of the remaining Saturn V rockets is displayed, the enduring Apollo Mission Management Heart from which NASA-led Gemini and Apollo missions, together with the momentous first lunar touchdown, and a shuttle reproduction Independence, mounted on high of the historic and authentic NASA 905 shuttle provider plane, that guests can step inside.
Advert
Membership advantages and reductions range by membership degree. All members obtain free common admission and entry to all particular reveals, free parking, early entrance on choose peak dates, superior or discounted entry for choose shows, and reductions on Explorer Camps, eating, presents and souvenirs, photographs, and Galaxy Lights.
For extra data, (281) 244-2100 or e mail membership@spacecenter.org.
? Alley Theatre
? Buy right here
Begun in Houston in 1947 as an newbie theatre troupe, the Alley Theatre has grown right into a nationally-recognized performing arts firm that produces some 400 performances yearly. It’s the oldest skilled theatre firm in Texas and one of many oldest working resident theatres within the nation.
Advert
Alley Theatre presents three subscriptions packages: a five-play bundle, an eight-play bundle and 10-play flex bundle. The theatre additionally sells reward passes which value $50-75 and might be redeemed at any time for any efficiency, excluding some summer season and vacation productions.
For extra data, name (713) 220-5700 or e mail boxoffice@alleytheatre.org.
? Galveston Railroad Museum
$50 | ? Buy right here
The Galveston Railroad Museum is a railroad museum housed within the former Santa Fe Railroad station, at twenty fifth and Strand in Galveston, Texas. It boasts one of many largest restored railroad collections within the Southwest, show 40 rolling inventory, together with locomotives, passenger vehicles, freight vehicles, and cabooses. There are additionally quite a few rotating reveals and weekly alternatives to take open-air caboose rides on the Harborside Categorical.
Advert
Membership advantages range by membership degree. All members obtain free museum admission, free prepare rides on Harborside Categorical, one-time use visitor admissions passes, entry to the Polar Categorical presale and a ten % low cost on the reward store.
For extra data, name (409) 765-5700 or e mail information@galvestonRRmuseum.org.
? Houston Ballet
$117 | ? Buy right here
Based in 1969, the Houston Ballet is an internationally famend troupe and the nation’s fifth largest ballet firm. It has a efficiency area constructed particularly for the corporate, Wortham Theater Heart, and the biggest skilled dance facility in America, Houston Ballet’s Margaret Alkek Williams Heart for Dance. Every season, the corporate produces six exhibits and holds practically 100 performances.
Advert
Full-season subscriptions for the 2022-2023 season are on sale now and begin at $117. Although perks range by subscription degree, all subscribers have the flexibility to change and swap tickets, and can obtain a ten % low cost on any further tickets bought, a one-year subscription to Houston Ballet Information, precedence seating for “The Nutcracker,” two free seating upgrades and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Heart For Dance.
Houston Ballet additionally presents “mini packages.” These packages include tickets to 3 exhibits slightly than six and are cheaper than a full-season subscription.
For extra data, name (713) 522-5538 or e mail information@houstonballet.org.
? Houston Symphony
? Buy right here
Advert
One of many oldest performing arts organizations in Texas, symphony held its inaugural efficiency at The Majestic Theater in downtown Houston on June 21, 1913. At the moment, the full-time ensemble {of professional} musicians presents practically 170 live shows yearly, making it the biggest performing arts group in Houston.
Houston Symphony presents a collection of curated and create-your-own packages with which you should purchase as few as 4 live shows or as many as 18. Although subscription advantages range by subscription degree, all subscribers obtain precedence seating and versatile ticketing.
For extra data, name (713) 224-7575.
? Moody Gardens
$120 | ? Buy right here
Moody Gardens started within the mid-Eighties with a horse barn, a driving enviornment with an equine-assisted driving program for folks with head accidents. Now, along with offering horticultural remedy, schooling and employment for individuals with a variety of bodily and emotional disabilities, it’s one in all Galveston’s hottest vacationer sights. Moody Gardens boasts an aquarium, rainforest habitat, discovery museum, theater, a cruising paddlewheel boat, white-sand seaside, ropes course, zip line and a golf course.
Advert
Membership contains limitless admission to most Moody Gardens sights.
For extra data, name (409) 683-4287 or e mail memberships@moodygardens.org.
? Houston Botanic Backyard
$50 | ? Buy right here
Opened in 2020 on the previous website of a municipal golf course, the Houston Botanic Backyard options 132 acres of horticultural shows, pure ecosystems and a couple of.5 miles of strolling trails. Sims Bayou runs by way of and across the northern fringe of the backyard — creating two distinct areas, the Island and the South Gardens, related by a bayou bridge. Out of doors gallery areas show a group of tropical, sub-tropical, and arid crops that showcase the biodiversity that thrives alongside the Texas Gulf Coast. The backyard hosts particular occasions weekly.
Membership advantages range by membership degree. All members obtain free common admission, a ten % low cost at The Backyard Store, and early registration for choose Backyard courses and occasions.
Advert
For extra data, name (713) 715-9675.
? Kids’s Museum Houston
$150 | ? Buy right here
Thought-about one of many largest youngsters’s museums within the nation, the Kids’s Museum of Houston boasts 90,000 sq. toes of kid-friendly, interactive reveals, unfold out amongst 14 galleries. Dubbed a playground for the mind, the museum presents kiddos 12 and beneath foundational studying experiences within the guise of enjoyable, kid-friendly actions.
Member perks embody free admission for one yr, members-only character meet-and-greets, entry to members-only events and occasions and early ticket reservations, and a ten % low cost at Fiddle Sticks Toys. Memberships are additionally legitimate on the at Fort Bend Kids’s Discovery Heart. The primary membership tier, Achiever, contains admission for 4 folks (at the least one have to be a baby) and prices $150.
Advert
For extra data, name (713) 535-7212 or e mail membership@cmhouston.org.
MORE: Received a toddler, Insiders? These are manageable Houston household experiences that received’t make you remorse leaving the home
Copyright 2022 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
Texas
Should States Like Texas Be Allowed to Grade Their Own Highway Homework? — Streetsblog USA
In late October, protestors in Houston watched as officials wheeled a trough out into the middle of St. Emanuel Street and each scooped out a ceremonial shovelful of sand.
The officials were ostensibly there for a symbolic groundbreaking for the North Houston Highway Improvement Project, which will widen or rebuild around 25 miles of Interstate 45 in the heart of Texas’s largest city. For the protesters, though, the bulldozers that loomed in the background of that photo-op were a very real threat of the harm soon to come to St. Emanuel Street, and the estimated 1,079 homes, 344 businesses, five places of worship and two schools that will be razed to make way for the highway.
“Half of that street is going to be gone,” added Erin Eriksen, an organizer with Stop TxDOT I-45. “Half of those businesses are going to be torn down. And TxDOT was basically thumbing its nose at these places that were going to be destroyed because of this project.”
According to official analyses, though, the destruction of St. Emanuel Street and so many like it isn’t enough of an “environmental impact” to justify canceling the I-45 project, even though it will dramatically exacerbate pollution, flooding, and inequality in the disproportionately low income communities of color through which the expansion will largely run.
And that’s probably because the Texas Department of Transportation wrote those official analyses itself.
‘A fox guarding a hen house”
Thanks to a little-known loophole in federal law known as the “NEPA assignment” program, DOTs from Texas and six other states — Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Ohio, and Utah — are temporarily “assigned” the responsibility of conducting what are normally federally overseen environmental assessments (the states must reapply every five years when their authority expires. Texas’s authority expires this year, and members of the Texas Streets Coalition are urging advocates to comment on whether it should be rescinded before Dec. 9.)
In theory, NEPA assignment is supposed to help responsible state DOTs build projects quickly, without having to wait on a single understaffed federal agency to work through a backlog of proposals from across the country before giving the green light on simple repaving or repair. Some argue that it also gives environmentally progressive states an opportunity to conduct an even more thorough analysis than the feds would do on their own.
In car-dominated Texas, though, NEPA assignment is essentially a “fox-guarding-the-henhouse situation” — and its consequences shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, argues Heyden Black Walker of Reconnect Austin.
In Walker’s native Austin, for instance, advocates say that Texas DOT misleadingly “segmented” the expansion of a single intestate known as I-35 into three smaller projects along the exactly same road, hiding the staggering impacts the expansion would have for the region on the whole — and, advocates say, violating federal law. Walker says the “9,000 pages” of official documents about the project also didn’t adequately consider the highway’s impacts on air pollution, and failed to study whether railway investments could address the same problems the expansion was meant to solve.
That the I-35 expansion received even that degree of scrutiny, though, is something of an outlier.
Texas activists found that between 2015 and 2022, only six TxDOT projects receive a full-blown “environmental impact statement,” an exhaustive process that details exactly how the agency will mitigate the harm it will cause. A staggering 130 projects, by comparison, only received a far-simpler “environmental assessment,” all of which resulted in a “finding of no significant impact,” or FONSI, which is pronounced like the shark-jumping character on “Happy Days.”
Cumulatively, though, those “insignificant” projects displaced a stunning total of 477 homes and 376 businesses, and consumed $24 billion. And advocates say that lack of oversight is particularly damning for a state that would rank eighth in the world for carbon dioxide emissions if it were a country, and that polluted nearly twice as much as second-ranked California in 2019.
“The things that NEPA was intended to protect us from — from inordinate displacement, from worse air quality — Texas is failing on all of those metrics,” said Peter Eccles, director of policy and planning at LINK Houston, a transportation advocacy group. “Since TxDOT entered NEPA assignment in 2014, displacements have skyrocketed across Texas, dwarfing the national average in terms of how many households are displaced for freeway projects, as well as the number of counties that are no longer in attainment for criteria pollutants. … It’s not working as intended.”
If the federal government was conducting the NEPA process, advocates argue that Texas might face stricter parameters for what constitutes a “significant” impact of a highway project, rather than letting the state write off families losing their homes and residents getting sick as unfortunate but necessary evils. And maybe, bad projects might even be stopped before they start.
“TxDOT is setting up its own environmental reviews, setting its own parameters, and then self-grading its own performance by the parameters that it sets,” said Bobby Levinski, an attorney with the Save Our Springs Alliance. “And we don’t have that federal oversight that used to exist where, if you did have a disagreement over what the current state of the science is, [you might have] a technical expert at the federal level who could say, ‘No, you didn’t quite do a good enough job looking at, say, this air quality aspect.’
“That check no longer exists,” he continued. “And at the end of the day, they’re going to give themselves an ‘A.’”
NEPA Assignment Under Trump
Levinski and the rest of the coalition acknowledge that some might be wary of handing environmental power back to the federal government — especially with Trump returning to the White House.
Project 2025, which many believe will serve as the incoming president’s playbook, promises to restore regulations limiting environmental review that Trump put in place the last time he was in office, as well as “frame the new regulations to limit the scope for judicial review of agency NEPA analysis and judicial remedies.”
Advocates in Texas, though, say they’re already living in a world where NEPA has been badly watered down — and because of their state’s special authority, Washington was powerless to intervene. Restoring federal oversight, they argue, is a critical first step to making things right, followed by voting in a presidential administration that takes NEPA seriously.
“Here in Texas, we’ve been facing basically a mini-Trump administration, anyway, with our governor,” said Katy Atkiss, facilitator for the Texas Streets Coalition, referring to Gov. Greg Abbott. “He appoints the Texas Transportation Commission, which is basically five old white men — none with transportation experience. So I feel like we’ve been working in a similar environment anyway. We’ve had several conversations with DOT and other federal representatives throughout the course of of the year, and while they are extremely sympathetic, basically, they said, ‘We believe you, but there’s nothing we can do.’”
Until Texas’s NEPA assignment is revoked, all advocates can do is sue to stop bad projects — though with the president picking many of the judges, that’s an increasingly bleak prospect, too.
“With Trump being in office, the courts aren’t getting easier either,” added Levinski. “[And] making the public be the enforcer of NEPA, I think, puts a big onus on the residents of Texas to go up against the giant Goliath that is TxDOT on every single case. … We need some sort of measure of oversight. You can’t just write off the entire state of Texas.”
The members of the Texas Streets coalition acknowledge that getting their state’s NEPA assignment revoked won’t be easy — and if it can’t be done, they hope USDOT will at least make some common-sense changes.
The state might still be allowed do its own environmental assessments, but not on massive highway projects that displace hundreds of residents. The feds also might force the DOT to wait at least 30 days to collect public comment after they make changes to their plans, or submit to “an annual NEPA compliance audit” to ensure they’re not flouting federal laws. At a minimum, they could acknowledge that granting states like Texas the ability to do their own environmental review even as they’re suing to hide their greenhouse gas emissions from the public seems like a pretty obvious flaw in the system.
At the end of the day, though, advocates say we need to address the shortcomings of NEPA itself, which still doesn’t factor in the power of induced demand — and still offers all states too many opportunities to build destructive highways, even when the federal government is grading their projects.
“I think that NEPA assignment and its abuses by TxDOT are a symptom of the larger failings of NEPA as a whole,” added Eccles. “NEPA was very well intentioned at the time [it was written], but certain states like TxDOT have gotten very good at gaming it to rubber stamp projects that they want to do regardless. Contrast that with the NEPA burden that the Federal Transit Administration puts on transit projects; it’s much more rigorous, and it ends up slowing down those projects significantly. We need to have a clearer picture of what projects benefit the environment and which projects harm it.”
Texas
Texas Democrats say they won't back down from school choice fight | Texas: The Issue Is
When the Texas Legislature gavels in a new session this January, we will see another round in the battle over school vouchers.
Earlier this month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott held a news conference claiming victory on the issue. Abbott says he has the votes to pass vouchers, which has become one of his legislative priorities.
Abbott actively campaigned against rural Republicans who opposed his school voucher plan in the previous legislative session.
“There was a tidal wave of support for those House candidates that I supported,” the governor said. “We will ensure that every parent has the right to choose the school that is best for their child.”
Gov. Abbott says he has 79 solid votes for school vouchers. A bill needs 76 votes to pass the Texas House.
Voucher opponents, like State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, are not giving up the fight.
State Rep. James Talarico
Talarico talked with FOX 7’s Rudy Koski about the upcoming debate and if compromise on the issue is possible.
State Rep. James Talarico: “I think the fight to save public education will be the number one issue in the next legislative session. A majority of the counties in the State of Texas don’t have a single private school in them and the cost of the voucher doesn’t even cover the full cost of tuition at most private schools in Texas, so working class families, like the ones in my district, or my former students on the west side of San Antonio, they can’t take advantage of this voucher scam, and so instead the vast majority of the money will end up going to wealthy families who are already sending their kids to private school.”
Rudy Koski: “The governor has spent the last several months doing what some would describe as a revenge tour, going after rural Republicans who were part of this pro-education, bipartisan blocking coalition. They are gone. You have lost them. He says he has the numbers. Are you throwing up the white flag?”
Rep. Talarico: “Not at all. We didn’t lose all of them, despite the onslaught of big money and big lies into these Republican districts you still had pro-public education Republican legislators survive and are coming back to the Capitol this session. I’m thinking about Drew Darby and Stan Lambert and Gary VanDeever, despite the victories that the governor may have scored in this election cycle, this should not be mistaken for a mandate on private school voucher scams. The governor didn’t campaign on vouchers. The majority of Texans, according to the latest polling, reject private school voucher scams.”
Rudy Koski: “Is there ground for compromise in this debate?”
Rep. Talarico: “I think a voucher is bad public policy no matter how you cut it. I will never support a voucher scam, but if my colleagues in the House, Republicans and Democrats, if we can all agree that we need to fully fund our neighborhood public schools, then I will work with anyone to make that a reality.”
You can watch Texas: The Issue Is every Sunday night on TV and anytime on FOX LOCAL.
Texas
North Texas enjoys warm, windy weather for Parade of Lights
Strong winds and humid conditions will make for an unusually warm Sunday in North Texas.
High temperatures are expected to reach 80 degrees in some areas, which is about 15 degrees above normal for this time of year. This warm weather will make for a balmy atmosphere for the Parade of Lights in downtown Fort Worth tonight, starting at 6 p.m.
However, the warm stretch won’t last. A cold front is expected to hit Monday morning.
Morning temperatures on Monday will start near what is typically a daytime high, similar to today. But as the cold front moves in, gusty winds from the north will cause temperatures to drop to the upper 50s by late afternoon – the first of two cold fronts expected this week.
So far, November has been remarkably warm, currently ranking as the fifth warmest on record from 1899 to the present. However, it won’t end that way.
The cold front arriving on Thanksgiving will drop temperatures down enough to require winter coats.
North Texas is anticipating a widespread freeze by Friday morning, with the Dallas-Fort Worth area forecasted to stay just above freezing during what is expected to be the coldest morning of the season. A First Alert Weather Day has been issued in preparation for the cold weather.
-
Business1 week ago
Column: Molly White's message for journalists going freelance — be ready for the pitfalls
-
Science5 days ago
Trump nominates Dr. Oz to head Medicare and Medicaid and help take on 'illness industrial complex'
-
Politics1 week ago
Trump taps FCC member Brendan Carr to lead agency: 'Warrior for Free Speech'
-
Technology7 days ago
Inside Elon Musk’s messy breakup with OpenAI
-
Lifestyle1 week ago
Some in the U.S. farm industry are alarmed by Trump's embrace of RFK Jr. and tariffs
-
World1 week ago
Protesters in Slovakia rally against Robert Fico’s populist government
-
News1 week ago
They disagree about a lot, but these singers figure out how to stay in harmony
-
News1 week ago
Gaetz-gate: Navigating the President-elect's most baffling Cabinet pick