Setting down roots in the East End

The East End is a happening place, lots of coffee shops, restaurants and whatnot. It is also a very welcoming place, we are finding it is easy to connect with people and find ways to engage. Here are some of the ways you could plug in:

Join our bike tour: This is something CoHousing Houston is organizing and a great way to meet members, at least the ones that ride bicycles. Saturday April 13th from 9 to 11 am. We meet in Eastwood Park. Please register here. While you're there, drop by our site (on Delmar between Brady and Sherman), things continue to go up. Take a look:

Eastwood Park Cleanup: This is a city sponsored event to do spring cleaning and planting at Eastwood Park. The city provides the plants, the mulch and the tools. All you have to do is show up and roll up those sleeves. Saturday April 20, from 8 to 11 am.

Salsa de Mayo: This is a party sponsored by Finca Tres Robles on May 18 from 10 to 3. It takes place at their new location at 5715 on Canal Street. They are about to start construction on their new facility and we're all super excited. So come help celebrate. Register if you want to participate in the Salsa competition. If you had not heard about Finca Tres Robles, here is their site. We're huge fans and they're a 5 minute walk from our site.

Trainspotting: Here is a simple thing you could really help with. As you probably know there are a number of railroad tracks that run through the East End, and man, those trains are long. Quite often they stop, and too often they stop for a very long time. If you get stuck at a crossing you might spot a blue sign that has the ID number of that crossing and a telephone number. It turns out that that telephone numbers goes to the railroad, and we're not sure what they do with the information you provide.

What we'd like you to do is report stoppages to the Federal Railroad Administration. They do use the information. In fact, if anything is going to be done about this issue, the FRA needs the information to prioritize improvements, like tunnels under the tracks. So to see improvements in the East End we need to report blocked crossings.

Here is what you do: go to the FRA reporting site: https://www.fra.dot.gov/blockedcrossings/, click the "I UNDERSTAND" box, identify the crossing (the FRA makes it very easy, particularly if you report from your phone -- why not file a report, you're just sitting there waiting) and answer a couple of questions about the duration and nature of the delay. Do this every time you're blocked. The more reports are filed, the more East End projects move to the head of the line for improvements, and the better off we'll be.

Thanks for doing this and we hope to see you at one of the events.