I ride it everyday and no one really cares. Yeah it's not the cleanest place to be, but its the best and most efficient way to get around the city.
I remember living in the lower East side and taking it everyday. If I did not get punished for driving a car with tolls and parking costs I would of never taken it. Fast forward to now I would just Uber/Lyft if I lived there
Houston 627 sq mi 2 million people Madrid 233 sq mi 3.1 million people the population density is 4 times higher. I wonder if that has something to do with different public transportation? I split when traffic is slower than 20-30 mph. I filter at stoplights but wait my turn at stop signs.
Train arguments aside...I am going to need you to learn that it’s “would have” not “would of”. But otherwise..carry on.
Cherry picking here, but this is incorrect. It's more like $1 per ride. Sure, it's still a lot, but that's just because millions of people ride it each day. Houston's (and pretty much every other) bus system loses more money per rider than the typical metro rail system.
At 6 billion usd annual losses that thing should look like the mass transit systems in Asia. Instead you need to carry disinfectant to ride it
I wish it was a dollar... $2.75 a ride (unless you get an unlimited pass, starting at $33 for a week)
That's what they charge, but it was said that the system loses $6 every trip which isn't true. Their farebox recovery is like 55%, so they lose like a dollar or so on every trip.
Ever seen what happens when the MTA goes on strike? Whole damn city grinds to a halt. Ditto BART in the Bay Area.
In Asia, they also heavily regulate cars, parking and fuel. For starters, gas is expensive in other countries. In the US, we're indirectly subsidizing cars by ensuring that we have some of the cheapest gasoline prices in the world (outside of petro-state economies). In addition, a country like Japan mandates that in order to own a car you need dedicated parking. But since single family housing with parking is extremely rare in a city like Tokyo, you have to pay around $200 a month at a minimum for a parking spot before you can own a car. In Singapore, you have to pay out the wazoo just to get a license to own a car through an auction. China is doing the same now as well in its major cities. You have to pay tens of thousands for the right to even own a car and then the cost of purchasing said car is substantially higher than in the US (in addition to gas prices). The reason I bring this up is that if governments tilt the system to discourage car ownership like they do in Asia, it becomes much easier to have successful and profitable mass transit systems. But in the US, our incentives are reversed. We have all kinds of indirect subsidies towards car ownership. Our fuel prices are cheap, zoning codes that mandate public parking, low cost of ownership of cars, perpetual highway construction to suburbs, etc.. So in that environment, it becomes really hard to run public transit systems without subsidizing the cost of travel. The cost of travel on a mass transit system has to at least equate to the cost of driving a car (and in most instances has to be lower). But when the cost of driving a car is so low in the US, we have no choice but to subsidize really low prices for mass transit. $2.75 gets you anywhere in New York. That's way too cheap but they have to price it that low to get ridership. The average trip in Tokyo is closer to $10. So we can all marvel at how great the Tokyo metro is but you pay for it. If New York City starts to regulate car ownership, then the math could change but until then, MTA will lose money. It simply has to in order to function.
the 15 bucks to get in and out of Manhattan is pretty discouraging. I agree with most everything on here. I truly do believe its society's responsibility to pick up the weak that being said its not our responsibility to make public transportation as quick and easy as a personal vehicle when the vast majority of Houstonians want to drive their own car. I used to take the Metro bus when I lived next to a stop that had an express downtown. I feel that I represent the majority of Houstonians under the age of 40 where I will gladly take the bus/train but only if it is a) convenient i.e no transfers b) will not take too much more time and save me enough money to justify it If someone who does not own a car has to take 3 busses and it takes an extra 45 minutes to get somewhere that is really not our problem. It still is getting them there and hopefully one day they can afford that car and when they can and are paying taxes I am sure the idea of a multi billion dollar train system will seem like a poor use of funds
Great Job Metro Houston!!! Invest in the future not outdated expensive rail!!! http://abc13.com/amp/traffic/would-...ot-program/3352228/?__twitter_impression=true
The freakin' bounce. They spent untold millions and years "overhauling" the Pierce Elevated and after they were through, it still bounced. I couldn't believe it. Thank goodness, we moved to Austin years ago, and the traffic is easier to handle than Houston's is. The distances to get anywhere are far shorter, although MOPAC is beginning to remind me of the Gulf Freeway, the grand project that has never ended. We've been here since 1980. Austin was a bit different then.
Looks like the plan is to mimic the Pierce Elevated into something similar like NYC's High Line and call it Pierce Sky Park. I'd rather then keep it called the Pierce Elevated https://abc13.com/7856225/?ex_cid=TA_KTRK_FB&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+New+Content+(Feed)&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
I-35 from SA to north of Waco and I-45 around Houston will always be perpetually under construction, until they prove us wrong.
