Kiplinger Names Houston #1 City to Work, Live & Play

Maybe most but not all. And when "most" could mean anything from 50 to 100%, most isn't an accurate word. I've been riding Metro since I was in High School. Even when I go back to visit family, I still use Metro instead of loaning a relatives car.

Metro has improved quite a bit since I've lived in Houston. More transit stations and better buses. But hardly any new routes and it still takes hours to get somewhere. And don't even get me started on how crappy their pickup signs are downtown. Hell the downtown terminal is terrible compared to the Lockwood station.

What should have been done a long time ago was to have rail lines built parallel with the freeways and then reorganize the bus lines to feed off the rail lines. They could have started small and expanded as demand went up. Maybe starting with 610 loop and going from there. It should be done and not half heartedly. It's only going to help the city no matter what excuse you can come up with for there not being one.

 

krnx,

My MTA card has nothing about "green" things on the back - just terrorism awareness crap.

I'm glad that the MTA is at least speaking about green initiatives - even if it is in generalities and vague recommendations such as those contained in the link & pdf at that link.

Take everything the MTA says with a grain of salt though. Half the crap they mention has to to with the 2nd Ave Subway Line - a line which they have stopped working on - again.

Once again, I'm not arguing that the subway has a higher carbon footprint than a highway-only system. I was pointing out that mass transit does have its drawbacks as well and it is not as environmentally friendly - even if friendlier than driving in a general sense - as many make it out to be. That's before even addressing the cost & tax issues associated with it.

gr8 - Vescey may be exaggerating a bit - mostly about the walking ten blocks after getting into the city - but not by much. Masses & masses of people from Jersey, CT, and upstate drive to stations, take commuter rail into Penn Station, and then switch to the subway. Subway-only only works for those in four of the five boroughs.

 

bravo... excellent post. a lot of people dont use metro buses now because it just isn't a practical option.

 

You make me laugh. I like you.

Just because YOU don't know anyone who commutes like this doesn't make it any less true. Remember that not everyone can afford to live in the city. As an example, I was one of the few people at my place of employment who actually lived in Manhattan. EVERYONE else lived in LI, Hoboken, Staten Island, CT, or out in NJ, like in Short Hills. And my prior description was exactly they commuted; no embellishment, whatsoever. I know this because these people b****ed about their commute constantly and all had similar rants.

And for the record, I never said anything about having to walk 10-blocks to work after getting off the subway. I was pointing out as another "mode of transportation." But now that you mention it, if you happen to work somewhere far away from subway service, like, say, 1st or 2nd avenue, then yeah, it's a little bit of a walk after getting off the subway. So thanks for further making my point for me.

Where do you think everyone lives? Besides, Rocket G pretty much nailed the "living in Manhattan" subway commute experience. I was merely pointing out how those not lucky enough to have the $$$ to live in Manhattan got there for work each day.

Actually, it's quite deserved. In my time there, I'd never been around ruder (and more self-centered) people in my life. Heck, my wife, who grew up in Jersey and lived in NYC as long as me (if not longer), even thinks NYers are mean and have terrible manners. Although she has little love for Texas (mostly due to the weather), she fully admits the people here are 1000% nicer than NYers.

 

Perhaps it's all of the God-awful expansion they do on the 290 side of town. Tearing down trees left and right. Either way, it's a concrete jungle.

 

I don't disagree with any of this, except the part about "most" not being an accurate word. If I cared enough, I would post a poll asking how many people on this site have used Metro. I'd be interested to know.

Agree with the part about the rail. I said a long time ago that the HOV lane(s) should have been set up as mono-rail lines. Hell, I wouldn't be opposed to that if they decided to do it now.

But the part about reorganizing the bus lines to feed off the rails lines - well, frankly I think it's already there. The bus lines are already set up pretty well to feed off the Park and Ride. At least in my experience. I could be wrong, but it seems like I see buses downtown going to pretty much any location in the city already.

It might take you a while, but you can get anywhere you want to go on Metro. I think having rail replace the LOCAL buses, would be very costly and wouldn't give people any more benefit than the buses already give them, except that you wouldn't have to deal with the STIGMA of riding the bus (which I think is silly).

 

The nicer areas of Jersey City and Hoboken are just as expensive as Manhattan these days. Short Hills, Milburn, Summit and other nice areas in NJ will end up costing you the same as you will end up paying car expenses.

I recently moved to NYC, but have traveled through the city extensively over the years. I find people in NYC to be very polite and respectful. Especially the professionals. I often found people in Texas to be close minded and unwelcoming of strangers. I think NYC'ers are rude is a popular misconception that alot of people have. Maybe because I'm nice to everyone I meet, I get the same respect back, but I really haven't met too many obnoxious people here.

 

sure buddy.

 

I'm jumping into this thread way late -but I'd just like to mention that i've been pretty impressed with the downtown development. I believe bigtexxx posted a link to several new skyscrapers being planned or starting construction soon in some other thread. The new development with the addition of the big park will make downtown a place to be again over the next decade IMO.

 

I have a friend who uses nothing but public transportation in NYC. He lives in Massapequa and works in Manhattan. He has been visiting Las Vegas twice a year for the last 10 years and he says the people who use the bus system here are much more rude than NYC. Las Vegas has rail but it's confined to the strip. I don't see that and I use the bus to get to work. I assume he's talking about the drivers because, yes, they are crappy.

The first time I took the El in Chicago, I could feel the coldness from the other riders, but every year I've returned riding has been a lot more relaxed.

True story, last year I came back to visit family. It was early June. I was taking the 25 (Richmond) bus to get back downtown. It was around 9.30pm and the bus was pretty full. I was sitting in the front and this old guy gets on and he's acting drunk. He starts chatting to anyone who will listen, not really being obnoxious. He looks at me and he sees my Rockets t-shirt and says "you know we're getting Francis back, right?". I just said "I hope" hoping that would be the end of that. He starts laughing and says just wait and see. I promise on my grave that this really happened. And it wasn't Morey.

 

Really interesting discussion.

5 and a half million people already in Houston?

I think Houston is a great place to live and work in.

Will the cost of living in Houston rise, though?

 

I'm surprised not a lot of you have mentioned IMO Houston's biggest problem... fat people.

 

Well the fact that you live here indicates that you obviously feel that the positives outweigh the negatives.

I'm disagreeing with a ton of it- and you know what? I'll take a winter over Houston's May-October worth of 90's & humidity every day. The climate is vastly superior, especially if you wear a suit to work. You're right that it is expensive - that's the tradeoff about living in a desirable place to live.

Again, you are being offensively stupid - this is like saying since a bus uses more gas than a car, it's worse for the environment to take a bus.

Yes, the subway uses power and produces greenhouse gases - but that is a tiny fraction of the millions of car trips it replaces every day.

 

Does that discount all the "Houstonians" b****ing here about Houston then?

Huge exageration. We don't begin to average 90 degrees as a high until mid-June...by October 1st, average highs are in the low 80's

We have 4 months a year of really hot weather. Outside of that, it's fine. It all depends on what you like, but I prefer warm to hot weather over cold weather at any point.

 

imma,

the strip mall issue is not that there are strip malls in Houston as opposed to everywhere else. its that they are built in the middle of freakin no where. I took a real estate class in college and my professor actually used to talk about this. Disclaimer: he was an old man from NY city but he loved living in Houston. The strip mall issue came about with SNL crisis in the eighties and it was especially true in Texas. Alot of these loans failed. that's why people talk about them in reference to houston.

its one thing to build a strip mall on westheimer or kirby or richmond or main inside the loop in the middle of an established neighborhood, its another to build one off 1960 and nowhere hoping a neighborhood plops up around it.

 

No, they obviously feel the same way, but I think that's the different side of an economic phenomenon. People are paid a premium to live in Houston whereas in NYC, SF & other cities, people have to pay a premium to live there.

Not average 90's but it hits it pretty frequently in May and October - it was 90 over memorial day right? And it's going up to the mid 90's today I see?

 

Disingenuous. The subways in New York don't replace cars. The roads in New York are filled to capacity, cars are sitting there idling and polluting much more than a car driving at highway speeds in from Baytown, and the subway just supplements that traffic.

 

When I don't use the subway for a non-walkable distance I take a cab - how do you suppose people would get around otherwise? Horsedrawn carriage?

Oh yeah, i just walked by Lexington Ave- I observed zero cars sitting and idling and the roadway did not appear filled to capacity.

 

More reasons to love Houston:

* 45 minutes to hop on a luxury 7-day cruise

* 5 hours from Bourbon Street

 

I've lived and worked in both NYC and a Houston suburb, and I must say I definitely prefer taking the subway over having to drive an hour to get to work in Houston. I've never had to commute from Jersey or CT though, so I can't really speak to that. If you live close to the subway and make a decent amount of money NYC really can't be topped.