METRO meeting June 18 regarding halting of transit expansion

Actually all that is incorrect. Do some research on the cost of each. Educate yourself.

 

The argument that Houston is a 'car town' is silly. All cities, and esp a city like Houston with no zoning, is in a constant state of flux. 10 years ago Houston is unrecognizable to today. 10 years from now Houston will again look very different. The question is do we want start providing residents some options.

For example, Conroe was in the country before and the Woodlands was barely worth mentioning. I think Houston has expanded as far as it can. People can only commute so far. Right now, many people commute over 90 minutes each way. There is a limit to what is practical and not many people will be commuting 2 hours each way ...or 3 hours. What is that limit? I think we have come real close to that limit.

I want to restate, however, the OP's point. Metro isn't debating rail. They are debating if we should be diverting tax dollars to other cities.

 

You are never going to retro-adapt 500 square miles and 4 million people of sprawl to something meaningfully served by mass transit. Houston became a major city because the availability of cheap, climate controlled, personal transportation and the energy industry that made it possible.

You can serve the higher concentration 'work centers, Downtown, Mid-town and The Galleria but you're still only talking less than 25% of the total population. So the current distribution of the tax money looks reasonable.

And their are ways a City, County or State can effect the kinds of industry development I am talking about through enterprise funds, tax abatement and policy. What if say, the County and State agreed to wave toll road fees for electric cars? And, gave a 25 year tax abatement to any company that would build an electric commuter car in Texas (Volkstesla). We could give 'clean air' tax credits to companies that replace dirty coal generation with cleaner natural gas.

But nobody is taking the street car from their suburban homes to work at the port, the refineries, the energy corridor, or oil field supply campuses that a make this city run. Most of us live out here in the suburbs, in the 800,000 single family homes ($11 billion dollar's worth) that already exist. And, we are the ones's paying the taxes that Metro collects.

 

Why don't you back you argument with numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_light_rail_systems_by_ridership#cite_note-APTA-0


We have the second highest boarding per mile in the entire country.

We have the 14th most boarding in the entire country despite having one of the smallest light rail systems in the country.

If we build it people will use it. Even Dallas has a decent rail system and they are a lot like us. I feel I have been to a lot of the nicer cities in the world and they all have a subway or a rail. Heck Munich has like three different systems and you can literally travel all the way from downtown to suburbs via train.

Buses seem to always be late. They are 3-5x less efficient than trains. I use the bus and train occasionally to go to rockets games and usually there are more people on the rail.
http://traveltips.usatoday.com/greener-travel-bus-train-15676.html

 

What stops Houston from having a transit system that equals, say, Chicago/NY/SF or other big cities?

 

This is such a philosophical gap to bridge.

Reactive vs. proactive decision making.

 

The PnR is successful, but it only runs during rush hour. If there was rail, it would carry rush hour and all other traffic (like going into town for a Rockets or Texans game). Buses, in the long term, are just as costly as rail will he initially. Those buses used for the PnR are nice, Greyhound type buses. Not normal urban area buses.

 

DFW has a decent rail system as far as miles go, but their ridership stinks. But Houston and DFW are built completely different, so they aren't a good example. Houston is built denser and things are more centralized, which is why the first rail line ridership is so high. The University Line would double the ridership itself. Metro needs to connect the Inner Loop first and then bring in commuter rail from the suburbs. US 290 expansion was suppose to include commuter rail. I'm not sure anymore. There should be rail to the airports, too. That is one thing that is good about DFW's rail. Love Field is connected and in a few years, DFW Airport will be also. So hassle free if you lived in say, Uptown, and took the University Line to the Red Line, and then the Red Line to IAH and be dropped off at the terminal, without having to deal with traffic or parking.

 

in order for rail to be successful:
1. needs to go over busy intersections. you can't have rail share left turn lanes with idiotic drivers

2. be fast. no one wants to be jam packed on a rail while saving no time. i would rather sit in my car in traffic.

i say take away the stupid HOV lanes and run high speed rails through there.

 

Start by connecting IAH to downtown. Then build out from there.

 

1. ground water - no subways

2. density - there is none since the development pattern occurred without the influence of any existing system.

3. history - having not started mass transit early in the city's history means we have not made investments in it over time to spread the costs over more years (like 100 years)

4. weather - not conducive to the pedestrian component required to reach final destinations

5. incentive - the city was built on oil and gas revenue, civic leadership wanted automobiles to be the desired mode of travel. If I can afford the time and costs of personal transportation why would I give up the extra comfort and convenience ?

6. greed - a good and reasonable system was killed at it's conception phase by developers that wanted to control it for their own profit*

* my opinion

 

terrible idea

wouldn't solve any traffic problems, other than being convenient for some business travelers

waste of money

many priorities would stand in front of that one

 

I've seen park and rides. Don't ride them however as I live in the inner city.

I am a regular METRO rider.

 

HA! You're hilarious, buddy. Check out this thread I started on another forum. It's you who needs to educate yourself.

http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/...age__hl__+operating++cost++buses++light++rail

 

It's a shame that Houston won't give Bus Rapid transit a chance. It costs less to build than rail, but offers most of the same benefits. I've used it in other cities and it's great.

 

You got completely obliterated in that thread. You are trying to make an argument that rail is cheaper without considering fixed costs? WOW that amateurish. Sorry, but you looked very ignorant in that thread.

Sorry to ask, but are you a young youth? High school or younger? You are missing very obvious points of logic and argumentation that suggests you just may not have the experience to know what you're talking about.

 

I read bigtexxx's posts in Eric Cartman's voice.

 

nobody has ever said you would retrofit the entire city. Rail is about promoting urban development and giving people a choice who don't want to move the suburbia.

If we proactively promote responsible development, 10 years then things change. Look at the Woodlands.

How many people move to a new place to live in a city like this in a 10 year span? Whole population shifts occur. Most recently, see Sharpstown or Woodlands or midtown. In just a few years the demographics radically changed. That change NEVER stops.

if you want to move out 1 hour away. Fine, that is your choice. But if you do so, you likely are only served by 1 freeway. The closer you move, the more freeway/road option you have to choose your route to work. I live in 610 and if there is traffic, I literally have 3 or 4 freeways I can chose to reroute. If you move far away, you trade convenience for a slower pace. That is true anywhere in the world including Chicago, Boston, Frisco, etc.

You can serve the higher concentration 'work centers, Downtown, Mid-town and The Galleria but you're still only talking less than 25% of the total population. So the current distribution of the tax money looks reasonable.

The largest % of jobs are downtown, med center, greenway plaza and galleria ...all within about a 5 mile radius. If you choose to live far away ...that is your CHOICE. ...and at anytime, you can chose to move.

 

The Woodlands is actually a case study for suburban planning. It is designed as a predominately single family development. For the first 20 years it was almost strictly commuter driven. The plan was to reserve the office and commercial tracts until it gained the critical mass to yield high prices for the frontage on 45. When George Mitchell came to Ian McHarg to consider a new town development, the first thing he told him was he needed freeway access.

So your plan is to tax the suburbs, to pay for development in town, lowering the property values of the suburbs? As a Landscape Architect and Land Planner, I can tell you the preferred housing solution for most Americans is the single family home. Urban densities bring more stresses not less.

If you want promote urban development that's fine by me. Borrow the money and assess the adjacent property. Collect from the users as the land is sold and developed. But the millions of us happy out here in the grass and trees would like our taxes spent on our mobility please.

 

Noooooo! My internet worlds are colliding!