For those who like to grouse about how ineffective, unused and dangerous the light rail line downtown would be... http://www.ctchouston.org/blogs/christof/2009/01/01/the-little-line-that-could/ - It carries 40,000 people on an average weekday. That’s remarkable for a line so short; it’s more than the 12-mile line in Minneapolis, the 25-mile system in Pittsburgh, 27-mile system in northern New Jersey, the 30-mile system in Baltimore, or the 42-mile system in San Jose. Only one other light rail system in the United States carries more passengers per mile, and that’s Boston’s, which had a 100-year head start. Dallas carries less than twice as many passengers on seven times as much track built for $2 billion. - It’s turned out to serve a lot of trips very well. About half of rail riders have a one-seat ride, compared to only 34% of Houston bus riders. - It has attracted new riders to transit. Half of riders have a car available; 40% didn’t ride transit before the line opened. It even seems to have attracted people to connecting bus routes: 12% of Houston bus riders weren’t riding before rail opened. - It’s made service faster, more reliable, and more frequent for many existing transit riders. - It has proven (again) that Houstonians will walk. 2/3 of light rail trips start on foot. - It has attracted a wide range of riders going to a wide range of destinations. Unlike the Park-and-Ride buses, which are full during rush hour but idle during the day, the light rail line is carry lots of people all day, every day. Average weekend ridership is around 15,000, more than any Houston bus route carries on a weekday. Only about half of trips are home-to-work. I’ve found myself on standing room only trains on every day of the week and nearly any time of day. - It’s reduced the number of accidents on Main Street. Yes, that’s true: there were more car wrecks on Main before rail was built than there are now. - It has supported extensive development along the line: new highrises Downtown, new hospitals in the Medical Center, and new apartments in the Museum District: at least 50 significant projects. The story has links to all kinds of facts and information about other light rail lines, studies, etc.
I have no doubt that the rail system is effective at what it is doing. Getting people into the medical center, getting into downtown, etc. has been nice. I have used it to park downtown, take the train to the musuem district and then come back. I am not sure if/when it will be expanded to different parts of the city though. I remember the chronicle printing a story about the eventual plan of having it go to the woodlands, tomball, etc. Not sure when that will happen.
Sure it's reduced accidents on Main street: since Main (in downtown) is only one lane now, there are much fewer people driving on it. It's got a lot of riders? I guess that's why they raised ticket prices recently.
I have a few problems with this fluff piece from Spieler (who is extremely pro-rail). 1) Claiming that it's got high ridership ship does not equal success. 60% of those riders used transit (the bus) before this rail line opened. 2) The new development is verrrry difficult to attribute to rail only. New hospitals built due to rail? That's a stretch. New highrises? Another stretch due to the robust downtown real estate market over the last 5 years. I personally feel that rail has served to limit a lot of growth along the line in midtown due to the ridiculous rise in value of the land along the rail line preventing developers from building things there. 3) Fewer accidents on Main Street. Duh, all the buses are gone and there's fewer lanes of traffic. That's simple math that there would be fewer accidents. Please compare the number of wrecks due to MetroRail to those of other cities' rail systems on a wreck per mile basis. The money we spent on the rail line was more for marketing for the city (hey look, we got a cool train just like other major cities!) than any meaningful transit solution.
Great post, Jeff, and timely, considering how gas prices, despite their current slump, finally climbed high enough to give Americans a taste of the future if they stick to big, gas guzzling cars/SUVs/vans. Build light and heavy rail. Build it as quick as you can, because it will simply get more expensive to do so the longer you wait. Had this been done many years ago, the cost would have been far less. Time to go for it while land prices have slumped. Buy the right of way now. I sure hope Obama's huge stimulus plan includes massive rail projects. Got my fingers crossed.
you cant expect a 5-mile stretch of rail speak for the potential of the rail system in it's entirety. of course the red line isn't a meaningful transist solution for the whole city, but it is an important first step in what will ultimately be a viable solution for most of houston (and perhaps one day a vast majority of suburban houston as well).
the train is great for going to the hospital district where parking is about $20 a day and going to texan games. it only takes 15 to 20 min to get from the top to bottom at reliant stadium and given the traffic around reliant its great. it may not be viable long term for the entire city but its been good for its location and if its so terrible why would property value have risen. funny, i believe this claim is direct opposite of the disdain showed to mass transit riders just a couple of years ago by the same complainer.
Property values rising is not as good as quality development. You could have taken the bus to the Med Center or to Texans games.
That speaks to the inefficiency of the bus routes more than anything else, IMO. I know this from personal experience. You don't suppose gas prices had anything to do with that, do you? My busses were standing-room-only all summer when gas prices were pushing $4/gallon. Now that it's back down again, I almost always get a seat to myself. Not sure I get this one. Do they have a choice? Of course there are going to be less accidents on a street that goes from 3 or 4 lanes to 1 each way Again, I am FOR mass transit and open to building more lines, but several parts of this story were reaching IMO. I think they should have started with building lines along the HOV lanes instead of down Main street. Just my opinion.
yall seen this? i dont have sound at work, so be cautious this is in japan, its amazing how people just get stuffed and stuffed.... think of the smell.... yuck our system will probably never amount to anything like this though <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/X9nnXw_6WQs&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/X9nnXw_6WQs&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
^^^ WTF? Why do you even bring THAT up? GO ahead and * It would have taken you LONGER, * the bus would have made more stops, * the bus would have made the same trip less frequently, * spent MORE GAS and hurt the environment, and * you would have ridden a MORE BUMPY vehicle. All costing the same to you as a consumer, but MORE for traffic, environment, etc. How's that?
From the article: Didn't Denver prove that Bus Rapid Transit (their train-looking things that run in dedicated lanes and on dedicated roads) was much better for them than the rail? That they got more users at a lower cost? I never understood why Houston didn't try that first.
....except the bus did not require millions upon millions to build, as rail did. The environmental aspect is debatable, and one not frequently used by the pro-rail crowd...the rail is powered by electricity, which is produced largely by coal fired power plants....the construction process to build the line involved huge amounts of heavy equipment, which was a huge source of pollution....net net it's not clear that rail beats bus from an environmental point of view on this stretch of 7 miles To say that it costs the same for me as a consumer is ignoring the tax money that was spent on the line face it, we paid for a cool looking train. To call it a success based on Spieler's argument is quite a stretch
For the same money and 10 years earlier we could have had a high speed monorail system that ran from IAH to HOU, that didn't conflict with surface street traffic and that promoted the image of Space City instead of Trolley Car City. Oh sure, it's better than nothing. But it's still a laughable, anachronistic boondoggle that has introduced no real significant mobility gains for Houston. It was always about real estate development; proposed and supported by the real estate developers who ran the city.
