Buses can (and do) fan out ALL OVER the city whereas rail can only cover so much territory. If you live inside the Beltway, you can go anywhere in the city without a car. Sure, it might take you a while, you may have to tell the driver his route (see my earlier post in this thread) and the bus might smell like an old shoe, but that's why IMO money needs to be put into improving the already existing bus service. Newer buses, more efficient routes, better training for the drivers, etc. I think that's what Metro needs to be focusing on. Even if all the rail gets built, there are still going to be a LOT of people too far away from a line to walk, so ironically they are going to have to take a bus to get to it.
That's the reason you need bus in conjunction with rail. Adding bus rapid transit would be even better.
I see rail as proactive, not reactive. If you wait to the point where you need to start building rail, it's already too late. Rail influences the area it is built around. It's not being built for you to use immediately, that's silly talk. It's 20+ year thinking. Connect the major traffic areas of Houston with rail, you'll see those areas become more desirable places to live and work. Will you benefit from it? Probably not. But that's not the point. I want Houston to be able to grow, not spread out like an amorphous blob. That hinders progress. Rail goes a long way towards streamlining the infrastructure and influencing development. If you're a NIMBY and don't want to spend money on something that you won't use, that's fine, but don't tell me that rail isn't a good thing for Houston. It's just not a good thing for you (unless you count the externalities).
Houston is already, today, 800,000 single family homes, housing 3 million people, spread over 500 square miles. That infrastructure is already built, it's worth on the order of 100 billion dollars. Properly maintained single family houses can last 100 years. The Urban Land Institute studies show that the maximum distance a pedestrian will walk is about 1500 feet, not calculating in 100 degree heat indexes and 60 days of rain a year. That means a fixed train system will effect an area of about 1/2 mile around it. If you build 50 miles of trains you effect 25 square miles of land; 25/500= 1/20th of the mobility service area. Sure we are building it to the high density nodes, sure a train will attract it's own higher density development but it is and always will be a small fraction of Houston's mobility needs. Most Houstonians rarely go downtown, most Houstonians rarely go to the Med Center. Most Houstonians commute to jobs in outlying areas, the port, the refineries, the energy corridor, oilfield supply campuses, freeway associated retail centers etc. Buses at least have flexibility. They can expand their routes in a tree-like patterns to spread their effect over a larger area; serving more of the lower density area that already has infrastructure and housing. The increased speed of trains (and ours goes 30 mph) is negated by the added time it takes to get people to and from trains and their destinations (since we already live and work over a vast area). Most people in Houston find personal transportation convenient and affordable. Most people in Houston do not travel traditional rush hour patterns and those that do have bus options they generally choose not to use. Most people in Houston do their shopping and entertainment within the neighborhoods they live in. Houston was developed after World War 2. The automobile has been the driving force in our land development patterns for 70 years of explosive growth. The future for Houston is efficient personal transportation. The 800,000 single family homes will not ever be abandoned for high denisty housing, because no one could afford to abandon them and rebuild even a small percentage of it. That is the reality. Med/Center/ Downtown/ UH, sure, it needs a train. But, IAH, Galleria Memorial, Deer Park, The Woodlands, Kingwood , Clear Lake etc. etc. etc. will never be efficiently served by a train. It could not go where the people are or take them where they want to go. Reality, truth, acceptance.
30 people on a bus = 29 less vehicles on the road. And we've already built a system of bus capable HOV lanes. Our buses can be converted to LNG and our cars will someday be electrically powered using cleaner natural gas generation.
So what? "Most" isn't necessary to build rail. "We're spread out, so we shouldn't try to condense anything". Sorry, philosophical differences. Using something to substantiate and perpetuate itself isn't convincing to me. The whole point is a new direction in development. LOL. Calling bulls**t on that one all over the place. No rush hour travel pattern? "Most" have bus options? Seriously? Have you ever really looked at or used the Houston bus system? A 12 mile ride to work can take 90+ minutes, sometimes not even including exchanges. It sounds like you have zero experience with METRO. That is reality, it is not, however, permanent. Condensation and mass transit are the inevitable future. The suburbs will be the last to get served by it, probably long after we're dead, but UH, the Med Center, Downtown, the Galleria, the airports, are all going to get rail in our lifetimes. Houston will probably never stop growing outward, but you severely underestimate the ability and timeframe of its upward growth. Myopia, dishonesty, denial.
I agree but I would argue that we've already passed that point. Decades ago, frankly. What's the difference between growing and spreading out? In Houston, they are one in the same and they always will be. We are never going to be a city like New York or Chicago where half the population lives in a 30 mile radius (I'm sure those numbers are wrong but you get my point). We are always going to have suburbs surrounding the city where more and more people want to live. And those suburbs are going to keep moving farther and farther to the North and West, not condensing towards downtown. What is a NIMBY? I probably spend around $1,500 on Metro every year. I haven't driven to work more than 4 or 5 times a year since 2008. I use the Park and Ride and a local route every day. I'm not one of these people afraid to leave my car at home. I'm the exact opposite, actually. I HATE driving in Houston. Is the current bus service perfect? No, and that's my point. It needs to be improved and that should take precedence over building a rail system and hoping that people start moving their families from the burbs to the city.
A fair point. Certainly things would've been different had we not torn up the existing rail infrastructure before WW2. Call me an optimist, though. Eh, growing out and growing up are not the same. For Harris County, maybe. But not for Houston. I agree, we're never going to be like "those cities", but having efficient infrastructure doesn't mean you're trying to emulate some yankee town. It's just smart planning. The burbs will always be there, and I certainly encourage any NIMBYs to move out there and stop telling urbanites how they should live. FYI "those" cities also have their fair share of suburbs, too. Houston is the fastest growing city in the US, so, I wouldn't bet against its upward mobility. That statement wasn't directed at you, but rather, the majority of anti-rail advocates. NIMBY = not in my back yard. Generally people who are against doing anything that doesn't directly benefit them, look at government as a profit center and not a public service, short-sighted folk who won't put up with temporary inconvenience for long-term gains, etc. Sounds to me like walking and chewing gum at the same time. I see no reason why both can't be accomplished. Not saying your concerns aren't legit (I have my own frustrations with the bus service), but I see them as completely separate, non-competing problems.
High speed rail out to Sugar Land, would cut the commute time to downtown from an hour to roughly 20 minutes. Way faster than the bus. Equip it with WiFi, and even more riders will use.
Since the abandonment of the West Park and Katy rail lines, the only remaining Westside freight rail route is the 90A tracks. As I understand it, the freight lines consider it 100 per cent committed and do not plan to share the ROW with a commuter system.
Donny, the things that are most inevitable are the things that already exist. The things that are most affordable are the things already paid for. The most likely future condition is a small variation of the status quo. Political choices are made for the general welfare of the most people or for the greatest return for political powers. I'm fine with a street car connecting the Med Center/Downtown/UH area and the lower income/higher density area's that service those. That makes sense. I'm fine with Park and Ride commuter bus service on HOV's in the rush hour patterns. I think every major thoroughfare should have a bus route up and down it with buses at regular intervals, all the major freeway service roads too. But thinking you will somehow influence a 'redevelopment' of Houston with a train is a naive fantasy.
Exactly. This same snake oil was sold when Enron Field was approved a long time ago. Now look at the area around it -- disappointing to no development, except for additional city-invested development like the dynamo stadium. The rail line development has been negligible, as well, and that was sold as "transformational change". The only thing it changed was putting companies out of business during the construction phase.
I do not agree with the above statement. The hotels, Soccer stadium, Discovery Green, success of the George R. Brown, increase in lofts seem to be working for the Near East side plan. There is a place for density in an overall City plan. We do need 'shared' cultural centers. I think the streetcar will eventually produce a strip of high rise development in it's immediate proximity also.
It's not about "redevelopment", at least not in the short term. No one is expecting a rail line to revitalize a dead area in less than 10 years. That's no one's naive fantasy, that's just a strawman. The new rail lines are about "more development" and "different development". The first rail line was about convenience and traffic, and it has worked beautifully to that end, connecting 4-5 high traffic destinations (not high population areas) making it easier, faster, and cheaper to get around. The ridership has borne that out. The new rail lines will actually be going through and to places of higher population density (eado, galleria, UH, etc.), and the places it will be passing through aren't in need of some 'miracle' economic shot in the arm, nor is that what is promised. It will help, no doubt, but it is, at best, a long term effect. I would be interested to see a few things about the existing lightrail though, such as, the property values of the land nearby, and the change in population density of the areas it serves. Every study out there shows a direct economic improvement of areas where rail transit services, how long that typically takes, I'm not sure of.
hotels (except for the Landry's Inn at the ballpark), soccer stadium, Discovery green, GRB are all city funded. You can't call it a success if the vast majority of the stuff is city funded. I do think Discovery Green was good, as it spurred some construction, but that had little to do with Enron Field. My issue is that Enron Field was supposed to spur all kinds of development, and it didn't except for other city investment.
Speculative studies are usually written by engineering firms trying to expand their work, and are paid for by developers looking to spur their own profits. That's how we got the streetcar instead of a monorail. Texx, if those projects serve the people, run at break even and pay off their bonds that's every bit a 'sucessful' as a private enterprise turning a private profit.
