Study finds Houston won't curb its driving desires

Houston area drivers kept sitting in traffic over the last dozen years as commuters in other metro areas sharply reduced their automobile use, according to a new analysis.

Though transit, biking and other alternatives to driving have always been a tough sell in Houston, similar cities with harsh climates and sprawling urban footprints far outpaced Houston's slight decline in the percentage of people driving to work.

"We had a lot of cities show a real drop," said Phineas Baxandall, a co-author of the report. "In Houston, we didn't see it."

In Austin and Seattle, for example, the proportion of people commuting by car declined more than 3 percentage points between 2000 and 2007-to-2011, depending on what studies were completed. Houston's car-commuting percentage dropped by 0.3 percentage points over the same period.
Among the nation's 100 largest metro areas, Houston ranked 94th in driving decline. More than nine of every 10 workers take a private vehicle to work, when solo drivers and carpool participants are combined.

Outside major cities with robust transit like New York, Boston and San Francisco, driving to work is the dominant choice, and even in those cities more than half of workers get to their job site or office by car. But as the number of automobile commuters dropped by more than 2 percentage points in cities like Phoenix and Atlanta - metros not known as bastions of bus and rail development or friendly, year-round weather - places like Houston and Oklahoma City posted fractional dips.

"I think there is still a desire at the higher levels of government here to move cars and to prioritize that over other modes of transportation," said Kevin McNally, an urban planner with Better Houston, a local nonprofit advocating for denser land use, sidewalk repairs and trail and transit investment.

Driving declined at slightly higher levels in Dallas and San Antonio than in Houston.

Houston's ever-expanding metro area is one reason driving doesn't seem to diminish, said Baxandall, a researcher with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The agency advocates for greater transit development and density.
"A lot of it is about land use patterns," he said of Houston's car preference. "If it takes you 10 miles to get to a store to get milk, you don't have much of a choice but to do a whole lot of driving."

Notably, the percentageof households in Houston that did not own a car was unchanged from 2006 to 2011, around 4 percent according to the Census Bureau, though the figure increased in many large cities. Houston's percentage of households with two or more vehicles also stayed the same around 71 percent, according to the report, titled "Transportation in Transition."

The analysis, by the Frontier Group and the research group, found some big changes in Houston habits, however.

Researchers found that Houston's per-mile use of transit per capita dropped 7.6 percent, although the region added thousands of new residents and homes in established neighborhoods and in outlying areas.

Local driving trends changed little despite the opening of a new rail line and substantial investment in park and ride routes. Bus service was scaled back for the period studied, a widely criticized move that Metropolitan Transit Authority officials have spent the past year trying to reverse.

The analysis relied on 2011 or earlier data that doesn't include recent developments, such as additional bike trail construction in the past two years and ongoing route changes for the bus system, which has seen an increase in ridership lately after years of decline.

Mayor Annise Parker said in a release that accompanied Wednesday's report that projects such as additional bike trails and three new light rail lines planned to open by the end of next year will help Houston catch up.

"I think it is an opportunity because it does mean when Houston starts doing a better job giving people an alternative to driving, there could be a lot of pent up demand," Baxandall said.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/new...b-its-driving-desires-5038750.php?cmpid=btfpm

 

At that distance it's easier to walk.

 

Lol god forbid

 

I agree. If the right system is built people will ride it. The problem with that has been two things, a failed vote in 1983 and Bob Lanier killing a plan when he took office. Also recently John Culberson stalling the most important part of our new system for the last 8 years, and before him Tom Delay blocking federal funds. It's hard when the politicians are so against it (I wonder why).