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METRO Claims 3rd Victim, Continues to Terrorize Houstonians

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by El_Conquistador, Dec 19, 2003.

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  1. Pipe

    Pipe Member

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    Just cleaning up the gene pool. It's all good. :D
     
    #21 Pipe, Dec 19, 2003
  2. IROC it

    IROC it Member

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    1. T_J is an elitist
    2. He's a dork
    3. He'll never ride public transit.... ewww, yucky people.
    4. He's a dork
    5. He claims "republican" but acts "pharisee"
    6. He claims "intellect" but acts "backwoods authority"
    7. He's a dork
    8. Stick to other funny attempts at bashing the left, because the majority of the right sees nothing wrong with rail... especially so after the DRIVERS OF CARS were in the wrong.


    CONTAINED
     
    #22 IROC it, Dec 19, 2003
  3. flamingmoe

    flamingmoe Member

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    T_J

    it is a true sign that you have no argument when your whole argument boils down to scare tatics

    "Imagine when this train is running all day every day! We're not going to have enough body bags to get these people to the morgue. "

    "These death boxes that we call light rail trains have made the streets of Houston an enrivonment unfit for cars, women or children. The trains careen out of control down one of the busiest streets in town with reckless abandon. If you are in their way, then too bad. You will soon be food for worms."


    You sound like a horse-salesman from the 1800's, oh the horrors of trains!

    How sad it must be to live in such fear of change
     
    #23 flamingmoe, Dec 19, 2003
  4. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    Darn, and I was hoping it was a luxury SUV.

    Must've been too busy scanning the males over at Match.com to be driving around the city.

    :(
     
    #24 Rocketman95, Dec 19, 2003
  5. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    Above post made in jest. I'd never wish bodily harm on someone not named or associated with Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, or any other crazy murderous dictator/madman.
     
    #25 Rocketman95, Dec 19, 2003
  6. surrender

    surrender Member

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    It's the LLRC's fault. You know, the LIBERAL LIGHT RAIL CONSPIRACY
     
    #26 surrender, Dec 19, 2003
  7. Batman Jones

    Batman Jones Member

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    It's not like it's the third time this has happened, but if it happens just two more times, it's time to close the freeways. This is clearly the fault of the freeway and all the fringe radicals who supported it.

    http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2308559

    Driver killed when SUV slams into minivan
    By S.K. BARDWELL
    Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

    A driver was killed early today when an SUV traveling the wrong way on the U.S. 59 Eastex Freeway slammed into another vehicle head-on.

    The accident happened just after 3 a.m. on the freeway near Collingsworth. Officials said the driver of a Ford Explorer got into the closed HOV lanes, then emerged into oncoming traffic on the freeway and struck a minivan.

    The driver of the minivan was killed. The Explorer driver was taken to a nearby hospital and is expected to recover and face charges in the wreck.
     
    #27 Batman Jones, Dec 19, 2003
  8. El_Conquistador

    El_Conquistador King of the D&D, The Legend, #1 Ranking

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    Batman, perhaps you could benefit from course in statistics. Which is the greater danger? A train that hits 3 cars in a small number of trial runs? Or an isolated accident that occurs on Houston's streets which are filled with tens of thousands of cars around the clock? It ain't hard, sweetheart.

    In other news, we find out today that METRO misses *yet another* deadline. According to the article, METRO's transit street program is running 21 MONTHS behind schedule. Flamingmoe, here's that link that you were so eager to see. Yawn.

    Metro declares Main Street work mostly 'complete'
    By LUCAS WALL
    Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
    Construction crews were still working Friday on Main Street in the Museum District despite a deadline earlier this week to finish the Metro project.

    One southbound lane remains closed to traffic and pedestrians face a hard time walking through the area -- sidewalks are missing and others are covered by dirt and piles of old asphalt and rebar. Crews also are installing amenities paid for by the Main Street Coalition and the city of Houston, including bricks in the median.

    The Metropolitan Transit Authority has logged the project as "substantially complete" and the contractor, Infrastructure Services, will not be fined for completing minor items and amenities after Tuesday's deadline.

    Metro spokesman Ken Connaughton said the Main Street Coalition, a private group of businesses and civic leaders along the corridor, decided to contribute to the project after it began, and that work was not calculated in the contract's deadline. Also, he said, it's normal for contractors to finish "punch list work," such as removing old asphalt, after the required completion date.

    This segment of Main Street, between U.S. 59 and Binz/Bissonnet, is the only Museum District street included in Metro's Downtown/Midtown Transit Streets Project, a beleaguered effort to reconstruct 14 aging streets in the city center. Metro rebuilt Main in Midtown and downtown as part of its Main Street light rail line, which opens Jan. 1. At U.S. 59, the rail line turns east to Fannin and San Jacinto streets.

    Unlike farther north, where Main was narrowed to one traffic lane each direction to accommodate the rail tracks, the street in the Museum District remains three lanes in each direction. Metro rebuilt the section because several bus routes use it.

    "The road is open and being used for the purpose intended," Connaughton said. "The contract was completed on time and as scheduled. The southbound lanes were then opened. One lane has since been closed because the contractor is doing work in the median and on the side with pavers and amenities paid for by the (Main Street) Coalition."

    Motorists can expect more construction in the area soon with the Texas Department of Transportation's rebuilding of U.S. 59, including a temporary exit to Main when Spur 527 closes in mid-February.

    Metro's transit streets project is running 21 months behind schedule, and the transit authority's contractors have missed the last four deadlines, raising the ire of drivers, pedestrians, and business owners. Milam Street downtown was supposed to be done by Thanksgiving but work is expected to continue into mid-January.
     
    #28 El_Conquistador, Dec 20, 2003
  9. gs1998

    gs1998 Member

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    Well, then, I guess you're glad Bill White got elected so he can get this thing back schedule. ;)
     
    #29 gs1998, Dec 20, 2003
  10. mateo

    mateo Member

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    Come on, the idiot broke the law turning left across Main St. Plus there is this thing called a mirror on most people's driver side doors and inside their windshields...he didnt bother with that either.

    I don't call this proof of a METRORAIL hazard.

    I call it pathetic driving.

    If you have problems with reading street signs, please stay out in the boonies. Downtown may be too complicated for you.
     
    #30 mateo, Dec 20, 2003
  11. DieHard Rocket

    DieHard Rocket Member

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    There are cases to be made against both the rail and the drivers.

    The Rail...bottom line is if the rail weren't there there would be no accidents. I think what the city really should have done is spent a little more money, and built something that went above traffic so that accidents would not be a concern.

    The Drivers...people in Houston are not safe, careful drivers. These accidents could be easily prevented if people would pay attention to signs. However, downtown is an extremely confusing drive. There are also people that are not from the area that do not drive by the rail everyday. They may not even know it's there, so how do you prevent accidents with these people (despite them ignoring signs or lights)?
     
    #31 DieHard Rocket, Dec 20, 2003
  12. Batman Jones

    Batman Jones Member

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    By this logic, if I drive into your house, your house is partly responsible for being in my path and you are partly responsible for building it there.

    This reminds me of the Bill Hicks routine. "Same anti-drug story every time. Young man on acid, thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. 'What a tragedy.' What a dick. If he thought he could fly, why didn't he check it out from the ground first? He's a moron. He's dead. Good. Don't go blaming acid on this guy." Of course, by your logic the street's half at fault in this example. If it hadn't been there, the guy wouldn't have hit it.
     
    #32 Batman Jones, Dec 20, 2003
  13. MadMax

    MadMax Member

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    there was a story that ran in the Chronicle not too long before the referendum that talked about the huge increase in accidents along transportation corridors that added light rail....the argument was made that there were a ton of advantages to building an elevated rail system, in some form or fashion...not the least of those advantages was relative to safety concerns.

    but had we done that, there would be a huge contingent on this board and throughout the city lamenting the costs of that sort of infrastructure investment....some of the same people crying foul now about safety
     
    #33 MadMax, Dec 21, 2003
  14. El_Conquistador

    El_Conquistador King of the D&D, The Legend, #1 Ranking

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    A fourth accident occurred last night. The string of terror continues. Metro continues to shoulder none of the blame, by saying it was the fault of the driver (again). Four collisions on the trial runs alone?! Ridiculous.

    Metro train involved in 4th collision
    Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
    Another motorist collided with one of the Metropolitan Transit Authority's light rail cars Saturday, but no injuries were reported in the accident, authorities said.

    The collision occurred in the Medical Center at Fannin and John Freeman, when a woman driving a Ford Explorer made an illegal left turn in front of the rail car at 12:18 p.m., said Metro spokesman Ken Connaughton. The vehicle was damaged, but the woman and her 11-year-old daughter were not injured, he said.

    It was the fourth such incident since Metro began conducting test runs of its light rail cars on the tracks.

    All four collisions -- including Saturday's -- were attributed to errors made by the drivers of the vehicles and each driver was ticketed, Connaughton said. The rail car was on a test run Saturday, meaning no passengers were on the train at the time, he said.

    "It does concern us, and we only hope that it calls attention to the fact that these trains are part of our community now, and we need to be attentive to them," he said.
     
    #34 El_Conquistador, Dec 21, 2003
  15. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    Trader_Saint doesn't understand the word illegal. This has been the fault of idiotic drivers, not the train.

    OBEY THE STREET SIGNS
     
    #35 Rocketman95, Dec 21, 2003
  16. Major

    Major Member

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    To solve the problem of terrorizing Houstonians, rail accidents, and tearing up of downtown streets, I propose the removal of cars from downtown. This helps to protect the downtown rail system from incompetent drivers and will allow any and all who wish to travel downtown to have easy rail access. The removal of cars also provides valuable space for the rail system to be expanded to handle the increased volume of passengers.

    Since drivers are apparently incapable of seeing oncoming trains, I think the drivers need to go. In addition, secondary benefits for this include environmental improvements and the elimination of the ridiculous expense of city subsidization of transportation costs - now, everything will be paid for by the users. I would hope this would make conservatives such as T_J very excited, as it would reduce taxes and cut wasteful government spending in the long run.
     
    #36 Major, Dec 21, 2003
  17. Major

    Major Member

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    You'll also notice that these two accidents were caused by larger vehicles - a pickup and an SUV. If the previous idea is to radical, perhaps a starting point would be to remove SUV's and pickups from downtown. It is quite clear from the evidence presented in this thread that these SUV/pickup drivers are terrorizing our new rail system.
     
    #37 Major, Dec 21, 2003
  18. Smokey

    Smokey Member

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    The first accident ever involved a Channel 2 reporter.

    She was like "I've made that left turn for many years. The street signs are confusing."

    Looks like Channel 2 is hiring reporters without high school diplomas or GED's.

    What part of NO LEFT TURN is difficult to understand?
     
    #38 Smokey, Dec 21, 2003
  19. HAYJON02

    HAYJON02 Member

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    and in related news, trader jorge continues to terrorize clutch bbs.

    devil's advocate is amusing...for a while. make better arguements. im young and impressionable and you're not making a good case for your political affiliation.

    trains are dangerous if you don't look out for them. they will hit you. am i missing something? thats what I learned on pbs 15 years ago
     
    #39 HAYJON02, Dec 21, 2003
  20. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    So, I'm guessing when suspects break the law by resisting arrest, it's the cop's fault when they shoot them or beat them, right Trader_Saint?
     
    #40 Rocketman95, Dec 21, 2003
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