... if you lack a car. What gives? Why doesn't this city have top notch mass transit system already? And why do most business signs outside of Uptown look so raggedy?
Maybe you can lie about how much you make to the government, but you can't lie about how much gas your car needs. Excise tax is 80%. The gov. is gonna get that money from you one way or another.
Any prospective transit system is gonna piss off other existing businesses that feel threatened by it. Or its going to upset car dealers.
I am visiting for the week, staying just outside 610. If I wanted to go the Toyota Center area, I would have to walk a few miles to the bus stop before taking an hour bus ride. If I wanted to visit Rice village it's about 4 transfers. Why not connect all the hot spots of Houston with a light rail or subway system, and let the buses connect to any point of the light rail or subway. It works pretty well. Oh, and increase gasoline taxes to pay for it. But this is a driving city 100%.
u know majority of this traffic comes from college kids. like this week, going to work has be so much better! in fact yest at 8am i had no traffic on 288. other days it takes at least 45 mins to get to downtown.
I thought light rail was going to get an upgrade in 2012. http://offcite.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/houston2012lrt.jpg
Yeah because we all know that a morning commute in a car is far more reliable than a train.... Houston = Concrete Jungle. If I could take my Rockets with, I would probably never go back.
We are working on light rail now. Most of the older cities back east and up north started building their mass transit systems a hundred years ago. Down south and out west, cities are newer and have had rapid growth in recent years. The newer cities have freeways and are spread out. For many years gas was cheap and people wanted to drive their own cars. Houston is not alone when it comes to a lack of mass transit. Dallas, Atlanta, phoenix, and many other "newer" cities are trying to roll out light rail as quickly as possible.
You need a 6-12 month lease for any apartment. The problem is some employers only hire for 3-4 months. Plus, the weather sucks. Biking is not an option. I can easily live like a king in this city without a hybrid or fuel expenses.
I prefer having really good highways and driving my own car. I dont particularly enjoy meeting smelly people and being is such close encounters with strangers any time I want to go anywhere. Different lifestyles, but I definitely prefer the car culture over riding a train every morning, traffic and all. I imagine a mix of both would be workable in Houston, but a city this big and spread out like Houston or even LA are not really suitable for mass transit in the way much of the older cities up north are.
