Should I Vote Yes or No on Rail? Houstonians Please Help

This is like chum in the water for the partisan sharks around here.

 

Exactly what I was thinking.

I'd do some research over at the Chronicle on-line, if I were you. I found some very informative articles in the Chronicle last week, so I assume you could find them there.

 

Light rail will never solve Houston's congestion problems. It moves at street level side by side with cars and buses. There is no advantage of light rail over a bus in terms of moving people. Light rail is EXTREMELY expensive. If you want to move commuters, a dedicated bus lane would be much cheaper and do the very same thing a light rail line would do. Now I realize there are many people who will ride a train but not a bus. Their numbers do not justify spending the HUGE amount of money to build out a rail line.

A lot of people will be voting for rail because "it looks cool", or they're willing to try ANYTHING except for building more freeways to solve our congestion problems. Now I do see some value in improving Houston's image by having some sort of train system, but it is not worth the amount of money that will be diverted away from highway spending. If we want to talk about reducing congestion, my favored plan is building out a huge system of dedicated bus lanes complete with boarding platforms like trains have. Curibita, Brazil has this system in place and it works wonderfully. It can be had at a tiny fraction of the cost of a rail system.

We need to find a long term solution to congestion in Houston. Throwing money at light rail just because we have to try SOMETHING is not a good decision in my opinion.

 

I'm not sure how it will benefit 90% of Houstonians.

 

ima_drummer, you got close with this quote:


"What I'm really undecided on is Rail. I think Houston needs a rail system, but I'm just not sure this plan is the right plan or not. Then again, if this is voted down it could delay the whole process for years. So I am truly 50/50 at this point and I've got to make a decision soon (obviously)."


If Houston had voted for rail... Austin too, for that matter... it would already be far along in the building process and cheaper to construct. The longer it is taking to start this, the more expensive it will be. Past time to start, in my opinion. I favor a mixture of heavy commuter rail and light rail, myself. Look into what Dallas is doing. They are having more success than they expected and development along the system. I don't know if you've traveled much, but if you've ever wanted to see a mature mass transit system built around several types of rail, check out San Francisco.

Good luck. Houston still doesn't have zoning, another example of the reactionary bent against change that crops up whenever something new is put on the ballot there. There is always some special interests willing to spend a great deal of money to keep things as they are.

 

bigtexxx - I think you're right on target with your post.

Mr. Clutch - I think you're being generous with that 90% figure.... Seems a bit low to me. But I don't have any data to back this one up.

light rail does not meet the city's needs. Interestingly enough, light rail is not proiftable (or even solvent) in ANY United States city (much less a sprawling suburbia like Houston).

However, I'm not fully convinced that dedicated bus lanes are the way to go in Houston. Admittedly, I don't know much about dedicated bus lanes, but a study that one of my colleagues is about to publish actually shows that busses CREATE more congestion! Intuitively, we'd think they'd reduce congestion (due to having more commuters in a single vehicle) but at current [low] ridership levels in the United States, the frequent stopping/starting and consumption of an entire lane of traffic actually increases congestion. Well, that's the result of the study at least.

I'm not sure about the effects of dedicated bus lanes on congestion though.

If I were voting in Houston, I'd say no to light rail. It's like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound. No, I take that back. It's like putting a ripped newspaper on a gaping wound. (A ripped newspaper that's REALLY expensive). We need a nationwide rethinking of driving habits. The automotive suburban culture that was installed in America in the 50s is at the root of the traffic/congestion/sprawl problem.

 

Houston is a crap town. No amount of light rail will make it any more pedestrian friendly. Probably the least aesthetically pleasing city I have ever been to.

 

go to chron.com and look up "light rail"

pretty good stuff there

 

The chronicle is a stooge to Metro and their light rail dreams.

The Texans for true mobility website will have a nice counter argument to the chronicle's rail-leaning information.

 

I agree with Texx and have written extensivley in the past but to summarize: Light rail will not decrease congestion in Houston, is overly expensive, conflicts with existing auto traffic, is inflexible in it's origins and destinations rendering it inefficient in a low density city.

What we need is an interim solution of better bus service while we develop a really forward looking solution for the future.

Monorails that can be built quickly and cheaply like tinker toys; that travel fast and quiet over the existing traffic. Or piggy-back mag-lev trains that work with our personal trasportation. so low density dwellers have access to the system.

Imagine this; you jump in your carbon fiber Mini-Cooper powered by an electric/hydrogen hybrid engine drive 3 miles from your spaciuos inexpensive house in Katy over to the Metro station, you que up on a platform with 25 other small vehicles headed to the Medical center station, the platform moves slowly over to the monrail maglev track and then woosh! you are accellerated smoothly up to 120 MPH. The tracks run over the existing highways with the heavy traffic below. Computers guide your platform from the I- 10 rail to the west loop rail to the 59 rail . Less than 10 minutes later the platform slows to a stop. The 25 mini-cars drive off and on to the surface streets. Even though it's raining you can stop at Starbucks and the dry cleaners in comfort and still be at work in 20 minutes.

It could happen but not if we commit all our resources to a dressed up streetcar from the 1900's.

 

You ever been to Dallas?

Also, the point of light rail isn't to make it more pedestrian friendly. Dallas isn't a pedestrian friendly city, but it works great there.

 

Dallas's "success" is very debateable. Just because it hits its ridership goals or because there was a new apartment complex build along the rail line does not make it successful. The question is, could the money have been better spent on other transit projects? More lanes on the freeway or improved design of on/off ramps (like what is going on now at 59/610) could greatly reduce congestion. What % of motorists have been taken off the road from rail in Dallas? My guess would be <1%. Probably less than half a percent. How many BILLIONS has Dallas thrown at this?

 

Actually I was really impressed with the DART. Very well designed, as it runs all throughout downtown Dallas, and into the Mockingbird areas.

The Houston light rail will work really well if you live in the Astrodome and work in the med center. Otherwise, I'm having a hard time seeing how the hundreds of thousands of people living in Sugar Land, Katy, Kingwood, etc. will be affected by it.

 

More lanes? Isn't 59 already 12 lanes around Chimney Rock and 610?

 

Downtown Dallas and the Mockingbird areas? Wow, that's a great coverage of where 1% of Dallas lives.

 

Yes, and it's also the least congested of the major freeways at rush hour. Go figure.

 

Baqui, the suburbs should be serviced by high-speed heavy rail with very few stops. Ideally, when you get into the major employment areas inside the Loop, for example, you would transfer to light rail, or Gene's monorail, and/or buses.

 

Goes all the way out to the airport, Fort Worth, Irving, Plano, and Garland. I'd say it works pretty damn well. They've even got plans to expand into Las Colinas, which is perfect if you're doing the dry wall at the new Mc Donald's.

 

Sure, with unlimited resources, go ahead and build out a light rail system. It will go lots of places. Will it go anywhere a bus or HOV lane wouldn't go? No. Will it reduce congestion? Possibly by <1%. The question is not whether it goes to a lot of places, it's whether the money could be better spent somewhere else.

Explain to me how you think it works "pretty damn well".

Nice office space quote.