I also cannot understand those who feel that the solution to our gridlock is to build more roads. That's sort of like telling a cancer patient that the solution to his smoking habit is to chew tobacco. I have travelled extensively all over the country, and I make it a point to use light rail or the subway if it is available. In December, I used Atlanta's system ($1.50 to ride from Hartsfield Airport to Buckhead) and Washington DC ($1.25 from Reagan National Airport to Bethesda MD via DC) and both systems were clean, economical and easy to use. I've also never had any problem riding the subways in San Francisco, NYC and Boston. Houston needs light rail to survive in the 21st century. ------------------ "Blues is a Healer" --John Lee Hooker
I'm all for light rail. Like jeff said the first line will benefit the Olympians if we get the Olympics. If we don't then it will help with all of the downtown and Med Center traffic, as well as the Astro-Domian. All of our sporting stadiums and areana will be connected by this line. That's pretty cool. Another plus is that all HOV lanes can easily be converted to rail lanes. That's really sweet because 1) they're already in place, and 2) HOV sux! My guess is that the main opposition will come from the old-skool oil people who have nightmares about Houstonians starting to not drive thier cars. ------------------
Tex: I found it particularly funny that when Tom De Lay (resident ******* and light rail opponent) kept Houston from getting any federal funds for light rail that a bunch of mayors from HIS DISTRICT flew to Washington to ask him to change his mind. One mayor wisely said that they were out of space and, essentially, the only space left was up and he couldn't see double-decker roadways being safer and cheaper than light rail. ------------------ Me fail English? That's unpossible.
Well, we have light rail in Dallas, and the places where rail is an available alternative are as congested as ever (if not moreso, though since the construction on Central has finished, the traffic there is not as bad as it was a couple of years ago, but that's because the road is open again, not because the rail line runs along side). I don't know that adding rail in Houston is going to make any noticeable difference to the traffic problems in Houston. And any easing of congestion that is achieved will probably not be realized for decades (until the trains actually go to the places people need to go, and even then, people might not ride). Ridership in Dallas is growing very, very slowly (0.7% per quarter compared to 7.7% growth per quarter for DART HOV lanes). Almost four times as many people use the HOV lanes than ride the rail (and HOV lanes can ease traffic by encouraging carpooling), and over four times as many people ride the bus than ride the rail each day (and bus ridership is increasing faster than train ridership, too). Considering the cost, the lack of flexibility of a rail line (you can't move it when population patters change, you just have to build new lines to where the people live) and the fact that most people will still prefer driving (even in gridlock) to riding the trains (the trains in Dallas are never full, and studies have noted that most of the people who ride the trains are the people who rode the buses before the trains were built), it's hard for me to justify the expense. If Houston needs mass transit that people will use, they need to find something other than light rail because people don't tend to use it, either. And it will take most of our lifetimes and billions upon billions of dollars to build a system that will actually get everywhere people need to go, and people may still not ride in very large numbers even after the trains are put in service. ------------------ Houston Sports Board The Anti-Bud Adams Page
There's light rail here in Utah. I don't use it because I don't go downtown much but during Jazz games it's packed in them. Quite a few people use and like it and it's only a buck for the whole day (I think) and you can use the pass for the buss. ------------------ Cuttino Mobley Online
mrpaige: The problem is that light rail is FAR FAR less expensive than building more roads. The proposed downtown line is $300 million. A similar small stretch of the Grand Parkway being built on the far west side of town is estimated at $2 billion. Part of adding rail is the elimination of buses. This first line is expected to eliminate 50 to 75 downtown and medical center buses reducing pollution and congestion in those areas. I agree that many people will simply drive in gridlock anyway but light rail at least gives and option and costs MUCH less than simply continuing to build new roads. In addition, it is far less invasive than roads because it doesn't require as much claiming of eminent domain for its right of way like freeways and roads do. ------------------ Me fail English? That's unpossible.
...with an emphasis on the former! Couldn't have said it better myself. Tom DeLay is a disgrace to our community. ------------------ "Blues is a Healer" --John Lee Hooker
Ripping up the HOV lanes (which four times as many people use) to install light rail lines will only lead to more traffic congestion. And let's also note that adding a rail line is equivilent of taking away only 10% of one lane of current traffic on a downtown highway (according to studies of ridership). So, if you take away a lane of traffic to add a rail line, you've added 90% of that lane's current traffic to the remaining lanes. And that's the best case. According to studies, the best success with rail lines have come from lines that go downtown because they can be set up as express lines and people won't have to change trains. When the trains start going other places and people have to start changing trains and getting transfers, they don't ride as much. So, on non-downtown-headed highways, the ridership is likely to be lower than that 10% of one lane of traffic (who would otherwise be driving). And in most big cities, only a small percentage of the population actually works downtown (about 6% in Dallas' case). So, the best case scenario for light rail in a large and spread out (NYC and many East Coast cities have the advatange of not being as spread out as Houston or Dallas) metropolitan city is possibly removing 5% to 6% of the cars from one lane of the highways (and that's for a full system. Rail systems that only go a few places will take fewer cars off the total roadways). For the cost, that's not much of a result. I don't think people that are against light rail are necessarily people who are afraid people will stop driving their cars. I think most people who are against light rail are against spending billions of dollars to built a transit system that won't decrease pollution or gridlock by any measurable amount. ------------------ Houston Sports Board The Anti-Bud Adams Page
By the way, I am for light rail. I just don't think the impact is going to be anywhere near as large as many supporters make it out to be. If I lived near a rail line that went where I needed to go, I would ride. I think the trains are cool. They just aren't going to help the problems that much (if at all). ------------------ Houston Sports Board The Anti-Bud Adams Page
The light rail will be at street level, and therefore have to stop at traffic lights, right? So, how much faster will it be than a bus? It all depends on how well the stoplights on Main are timed?
Also: what difference does it make if it costs less if it doesn't actually get cars off the road or ease congestion. I could wear paper bags on my feet. It would be cheaper than buying shoes, but the bags wouldn't give me the same protection from the elements that shoes would. If light rail doesn't acheive the results that a new highway would, then the cost savings is immaterial. (Of course, I don't know that a new highway would help anything, either. I saw a recent study that said building roads doesn't decrease congestion, either). Your point about buses is solid, I suppose, though how much polution savings is there really in taking those buses off the road? And wouldn't it be cheaper and more flexible to simply buy buses that use cleaner burning fuel? ------------------ Houston Sports Board The Anti-Bud Adams Page
My understanding is that the light rail will be elevated in heavily traffic-ed areas avoiding the signal problem. I spoke at length with Jordy Tollet from the Convention and Facilities Management Dept. after the election about this and he had very strong viewpoints on how it would work. I was very impressed with how well thought out the whole thing is. I also met Robert Miller, Metro's chairman, during the election and talked with him about it. Again, very impressive what they have planned. It really goes far beyond one simple rail line from downtown to the dome and it is MUCH cheaper than continued bus service and pouring of concrete highways. ------------------ Me fail English? That's unpossible.
I haven't seen Houston's latest light rail proposal. The one that was shot down a few years back involved a Galleria-to-Downtown line, which I guess is no less useful than Dome-to-UH. In Austin, we recently voted against a light rail proposal because it just didn't look like it would help many people. Forgetting all the other doubts about light rail, why would you trust Houston Metro to implement it? I don't know how many people here have ridden public transportation on a daily basis, but I did for several years. And let me tell you, Houston's bus system is terrible. Now that's either a problem with mismanagement, or a result of trying to implement public transportation in a city that spread out. Either way, I don't think the city should spend your tax dollars on rail. If it wouldn't work in Austin, it certainly wouldn't in Houston. But hey, I don't have a vote. ------------------ I am Jack's utter lack of surprise. www.clutchtown.com
It seems like I remember hearing once that Houston has the highest number of cars per capita of any city in the nation. True, we love our vehicles and many people might not ride the rails simply because they are not used to NOT riding in their own cars, but a rail system of some sort needs to be here. Even though the % of rail passengers in Dallas is growing slowly, it is growing; and the more the rail lines grow, the more people will have access to it, and all the more people will use it. I've ridden every kind of rail from the tram at IAH to the subways of NYC and DC to the tubes in London, the Metro in Paris and the rail in Dallas. The damn things work and they get you where you need to go quickly and cheaply. Saying we don't need a rail just because people aren't used to riding in them is no reason to impede future progress as a world-class city. It might take some time, but it is a better option than building more roads at a million-times the cost. ------------------ "Salt Lake City, Utah. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany." --Olaju-Won Kenobi, to young jedi Steve (Fran)'chiseWalker [This message has been edited by Lynus302 (edited January 23, 2001).]
Something else: I readily admit that I have never taken a Metro bus here in Houston. I always figured I'd rather sit in traffic in my own car than on a crowded bus. Then a buddy of mine came to Houston for the first time to get his passport renewed. He came into town on a Greyhound to the downtown station, walked to the offices to get his passport taken care of, and then hopped on a Metro bus during rush-hour (keep in mind her had never been to Houston before) and was at my house way out in NW Houston in about 30-40 minutes. I was damn impressed. I think a rail system would only speed up public transportation (as well as cutting down on traffic and pollution). There is already a healthy % of the population who use the bus system. I fail to see how anyone could possibly be opposed to this. ------------------ "Salt Lake City, Utah. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany." --Olaju-Won Kenobi, to young jedi Steve (Fran)'chiseWalker
What's interesting is that fliers promoting buses back in the 40's in this town (when they finally ripped up the last of the rail lines) they talked about how great they were in comparison to rail lines. Rail is completely inflexible and is a money loser in every city it exists. $1.50 per trip sounds great..but I can go an entire week commuting in my wife's Honda civic for about $12.00...and if you still have to own a car (which in a city like Houston, you always will) you still have to pay insurance and car payments....making rail uneconomical. I thought I'd take park and ride downtown to work when I interned at the First Court of Appeals a few summers back...little did I know that it would cost me more to ride the bus than to drive my own car! I'm not totally anti-rail. I just haven't seen a proposal that would work for Houston. Houston is the least dense of the big cities in the country. People do not live close together which makes connecting people and places on straight rail lines impossible. And how many of us really want to stand in our suits in the 100 degree summer heat waiting for a train to take us to our next meeting sweating like pigs? Metro itself claims that this plan will do little to eleviate congestion. This is amplified when you consider that it runs on the surface amongst car traffic...it literally interferes with traffic and has been the product of countless injury accidents in other cities. There are so many issues with rail that it's hard to even condense it to a little message board space like this. But to this point, it is not economical for the user or the city, and it rail is not a good alternative for cities with low population density. ------------------
Houston has needed fast, reliable mass transit for a long, long time. The busses just aren't enough. Many plans have been proposed and shot down but how many of us can really claim to know all the pros and cons of those proposals? I don't know if light rail is the best answer - every solution will be flawed in some way. We depend on our elected officials to find the most effective solution and implement it. Why they haven't been able to do that after all these years is really beyond me. I don't know much about this particular plan either but I do feel like we need to start somewhere. If this route doesn't address our biggest needs but eventually leads to city-wide rail... Let me use an example... Denver built light rail from the south side along existing rail lines (which I think is better than over existing roads or the HOV lanes) and snaked it thru downtown. At first glance it doesn't look like a long enough line to make a difference but it did get used quite a bit. I used it. I would park for free at a lot well outside of downtown and take the train downtown for a ball game. It was cheap and convenient. I would do the same here to avoid traffic and high parking costs at Enron Field or the new arena or the Alley Theatre, etc. Light rail has worked so well there, they're already expanding it to the 'burbs where I think it can make a much bigger difference. I think I can safely say that if rail ran from Sugar Land to downtown right now... I'd be taking it to work just about every day! ------------------
Max: I agree that this particular line won't decrease congestion but the overall plan is expected to do so. I agree with you that it is cheaper to drive in many instances but I think we are entering a new era of transportation. As pollution-related illnesses increase (studies have shown that companies in the top 10 most polluted cities lose billions in revenues each year because of employee sick days due to respiratory infections directly correlating to high ozone days), we have to look for alternatives. Eventually, we won't have any choice. If you look at the lawsuits brought by companies in Houston against the TNRCC's recommended smog plan, you can see that the end result is a stripping of our federal highway budget. If that happens, imagine the billions in road work that won't get done. We think the roads are bad now... The bottom line is that the endless cycle of pouring concrete and bus transportation is failing and with an estimated 50 to 75 percent rise in Houston's population over the next 8 years, we be better start looking for options or we are going to be buried in gridlock that is FAR worse than what we have now. ------------------ Me fail English? That's unpossible.
Actually, since the percentage growth of rail ridership in Dallas is growing at a rate slower than the totla population growth in Dallas (especially along the rail line, which runs and is being built-out to some of the fastest growing areas of the city and suburbs), the percentage of rail passengers is actually shrinking as a percentage of the population. ------------------ Houston Sports Board The Anti-Bud Adams Page
