I envy you. I've been practicing forever and I can't even limit my hangover to one day. I'm getting old.
If I'm not mistaken economists have never been able to support any kind of metrorail system. The Public value is there. But there is no way to make them profitable.
Exaclty, I would so ride the train like everytime I go to downtown. I mean how perfect would it be. You wouldn't have to worry about parking when going to MMP or TC. And heading out to the bars. It would be awesome to have a train that would take you all the way to downtown from outside of dt.
Maybe b/c it's not too political? That and it's turned into more of a discussion about drunks, the paths they take home, and RM Tex's iron liver. Oh, did I mention that neither RM95 or I can see or post in the D&D?
Building this rail was one of the worst decisions Houston ever made. The ridership problems are not limited to night, either. The city's streets were torn up for years as this was built, bankrupting untold number of businesses and inconveniencing literally millions. This train does not address the issue of congestion in Houston. This project represents a huge chunk of transportation expense, yet offers transportation to 1% of the city. The cherry on top is the number of cars this thing has hit. What is it up to? 100? You have to actually make an effort to figure out a way for this thing to be useful. Most of those efforts involve your car. Remind me what traffic issues the train addresses? The disaster of rail is only made worse by the people who complain about making sacrifices to ease congestion. Well guess what, folks? You should have thought about that before you voted for the empty DEATH BOXES that now patrol midtown. UNMITIGATED DISASTER
Bah! I like the choo-choo. It's neat. Seriously, the train sitch ain't over by a long shot. Let them build a few more lines to truly determine how effective it is. Remember, Houston freeways had to get started somewhere. I'm sure back in the 50's, people in Bellaire were complaining about how the Gulf Freeway would solve nothing and how they were a suburb community out in the boonies. Now Bellaire is considered Right in the Heart of Houston. We need more choo-choo legs, people! Build! Build! Build!
Agreed. If Houston had started building light rail when we should have, in the 1970s, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Every day when I drive home from work, someone gets caught inside the arm at the light at OST. Sometimes people pull up into the intersection to let them off the tracks. It occurs to me that its not a very good idea for a train and cars to share the street. It's also no good to kill all crossings and make a multi-mile barrier, bisecting important expensive real estate. If the thing was elevated or had elevated crossings at trouble spots, that'd be preferable. They could really improve things by having a trolley network to take people from the train stations to the George R. Brown or Toyota Center and Minute Maid, or the Theatres. Even something at Hermann Park to take people to the zoo. It's a pretty good walk from the platform to the Toybox. My elderly in-laws just got a place on the tracks at the Warwick, but even when we park there, the train isn't really very convieent to take us anywhere. I'd like to know some good restaurants for them, though. Anyone know anything good for smart, nice, late 60's - 70's people, near a platform?
Just have them take it Downtown and get off at the exit near Texas Ave. There's about 30 restaurants down there.
Cava Bistro is located right at the Preston stop, at Main and Preston. Took my Mom there over the summer. Great French bistro food and a very nice wine list.
Mia Bella, the sister restaurant of Cava Bistro, also has great food (Italian) and is right on Main, near a platform.
St. Pete's Dancing Marlin is right off this same platform too...... it's the Preston Station stop. And a block down Congress from there is Wasabi Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar.
