Houston: METRO wants your help reimagining your transit system!

What are you basing this on?

I agree. The 1983 plan was the best rail plan Houston has ever seen, and most likely will ever see again. Light rail is effective in small areas but will not be able to serve the whole region. The master plan in 1983 had heavy rail going out west where the population is today. Ridership would be much higher.

 

This info lays out quite clearly that population growth is going to continue at a very high rate. You guys are hung up on "double in 10-15 years" but the exact growth figures and time frame isn't particularly relevant.

ALL estimates predict a lot of growth.

 

That's 30 years of Houstonians putting up with widening freeways, nuts-to-butts traffic, etc.

Houston has already made it abundantly clear they have no desire to expand city services when they took out existing rail lines along the I-10 corridor. Don't use those rails for trains, oh no, let's expand the freeways. Again. And again. And.....again.

But yes, paying for all this. It all comes to a screeching halt right there.

But...I guess the city will save its money for the next 30 years and build a hyperloop? Which I think would be astronomically higher than its inventor realizes. These things always are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop

West...as in, I-10? I'll agree on that. I'll definitely add 290. Traffic heading out to the lovely leafy Cypress suburbs is a joke. I haaaaate driving 290. I'd take 225's view of the refineries over 290.

 

Yup.

And you'll see more and more areas like the Woodlands. Where instead of major companies building locations downtown, they move their complexes (like the Exxon facility) North or West. It's one of the reasons why we have the Galleria and now Westchase.

 

I don't think anyone is denying growth. Saying it's going to double even in 50 years is pretty bold though, especially without any sort of data to back it up with. Even with a lot of growth, it won't be doubled the population.

 

Park and ride achieves everything a rail would along I-10 and 290

...and it's much cheaper

 

#1 (we've said this before) Houston's low density is already built, it's here, that's where most people live now and will in the future. Low density populations are not served by centralized transit. People will not consistently walk over 1500 feet; much less in a city with a hot wet climate. So, you can't really retro-fit a transit plan onto the established city and expect to have much effect or ridership. It's certainly a good idea to develop a higher density core with transit, but you per centage effects will be limited.

 

There has been plenty of sources provided that illustrate the population growth some of which state it will double.

So if the population grows by 65% is 30 years, does that mean we can ignore the problem? I don't understand why everybody is so hung up in the "will double" statement. The underlying sentiment is we should be thinking about our problems a little differently.

As Einstein said:
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used to create them."

 

"everything?"

Last time I was in New York, Toronto or Paris, I wasn't thinking to myself, what great "park and ride" systems they have.

Park and ride doesn't solve everything.

 

So are you saying people in Houston are fat and lazy?

Every freeway seems super crowded during rush hour. I mean we have a 26 lane highway and it gets backed up. The reason is because we have a certain bottle necks that everyone needs to go through. That is the problem we are trying to solve with public transport.

 

Really, where? Specifically... in 10-15 years, I'd like to see this. I'm not addressing the problems. I'm addressing how stupid it was to say something like the population would double in 10-15 years when the data shows nothing near that. That's all I'm arguing here, nothing about transit or problems that the city might face with more people.

 

density is different across those cities and Houston

different ballgame

 

Heavy rail to the suburbs and airports needs to happen. Commuter rail could already exist between downtown, clear lake, galveston using existing rail lines.

As long as Katy, pearland, sugar land and clear lake keep growing... Traffic will always exist on the freeways no matter how much they are expanded.

 

but why would rail be better than additional park and ride buses?

 

but traffic is never a problem on the weekends.

 

Because the ones in place now don't seem to be making a difference?

 

Those aren't curing traffic issues.

 

so rail down the exact same corridor would?

please