Should I Vote Yes or No on Rail? Houstonians Please Help

The Sam Houston Tollway is profitable. The Hardy Tollroad is not, but the Sam Houston Tollway more than makes up for the difference.

 

i didn't say that it would...i don't think the first phases of light rail will do that...but i think ultimately tied in with some commuter rail (heavier and faster) will make a difference. your point was that a dedicated lane would do just the same...i don't think that's true. rail bias exists. it just does.

 

I also admit some hesitation on this plan in my hometown.

I got snippy (or sizzly?) over the San Francisco bit, because I thought you were suggesting an all-bus system could work here, and I disagree with that. As much as I support BART here, there are significant problems, I'll admit. Some people do the cost-benefit analysis and don't like what they come up with. What most everyone agrees on is that we were better off with the old electric street car system that ran all over the place. Essentially, the auto (and related) industry fought to destroy it. Now we just have that one stupid trolley for Rice-a-roni commercials. (Actually, there are like 5 little separate lines, but still).

Houston is a tough transit nut to crack. I wonder if A-Train's worry is correct, concerning water. Isn't NYC's subway all under the water table also?

 

i think A-Train is right...i believe i've read that a subway in houston would be impossible..

given the problems of flooding in the tunnels during tropical storm allison, you can see how that might be a problem as well!

it's all about monorail!! elevation!!!

 

Just to add my $.02,

I am voting for the Metro light rail plan because

1. There needs to be an alternative way of getting around this city besides car. MORE CONCRETE HAS NOT BEEN THE ANSWER AND WILL NEVER BE THE ONLY ANSWER to improving traffic in this city. Wider freeways and more roads will lead to more flooding, pollution and lower a thing that our city knows very little about called QUALITY OF LIFE.

2. A rail system in this system will create a more vibrant, pedestrian friendly urban core for the city of Houston. Those who have visited cities like Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco or any European city know that an urban experience of taking a train to downtown and walking around, shopping, eating and mixing with people from all over the region can be a healthy, pleasant, exciting, and enjoyable experience.

3. The longer we DELAY (pun intended) and wait to build rail, the more it will cost!

4. Many have said that Rail will not reduce congestion, it's pretty simple to see that if I take the train to work everyday, THERE WILL BE ONE LESS CAR ON THE ROAD AND THEREFORE WILL LEAD TO A DECREASE IN CONGESTION. If you won't ride the train, fine, but I would. That will give you anti-rail folks more room on the highways for your pickups!

 

1. How can a train get you around? It goes on one track, you have to live, work and play on the one track so you may get up or down but you don't get around. Man, I drove from Beltway 8 at Westheimer to the Medical Center in 20 minutes this morning at 8 AM. On the way home I went by Central Market, played 9 holes at Memorial park, way out to Dairy Ashford to my club repair guy, ran by Lowe's and was still home by 3. Do that on your train!

2. Create a vibrant Urban core? I want my green yard where I can't hear my neighbors and they can't hear me. I want drive up convienience. I don't ever want to have to walk anywhere cause it always either 100 degrees or pouring down rain. If you like Boston or San Francisco move there, I don't want to have to deal with those, ever so colorful urban bums, er folks.

3. The longer we delay rail, the longer we have to come up with a better solution. i. e. more efficient personal transportion.

4. If you want to ride the train fine, you pay for it. At 28 billion dollars your trip downtown will cost about $100.

 

What exactly defines "vibrant"? Whenever I hear that word I think of some stupid looking mime with clown makeup giving me weird looks on the street and hopping around on his tip-toes. Maybe that's just me, though.


Gene, excellent analysis. Quality of life to me ecompasses a lot of the points you mentioned. Personal space to me is huge. Walking around in the summer in Houston does not appeal to me. A/C in the car suits me just fine.

 

Big Texxx,

I am not trying to be a wise arse or anything, but you are making it sound like Roads are free. Building roads is very expensive. building highways are much more expensive. also roads require maintenance and none of this is free. If you care to know how expensive check out that thread about old houston road maps. I know you saw it. well using the toolbar up top you can find yourself in current Proposals for road work in the Austin area. If you want to compare costs, please be fair to yourself. Both are expensive, one more than the other. but one does not use space, and wasted space is wasted taxable land. you cannot dismiss my post with a big Nu Hu! my way cost less so everything you posted in an attempt to provide information is wrong.

and a small point of information about taxes. Sure we pay more in taxes, but the ammount directlyrelated to mass transportation is not the entire difference in our tax rates.

SF is voting on keeping a .5% sales tax that maintains the system.

Where I live in NY I pay sales tax of 8.75% we dont even pay for the subway. a great deal of our costs are maintenance of aging infrastructure. I promise you this, as Houston ages and your infrastructure begins to need replacement your taxes will rise as well.

would you rather have pollution??

 

Where did you get $28 billion from?

 

This would make sense but the congestion is coming from the outskirts of the city. I haven't seen any plans for rail being put out towards Katy, Sugarland, Kingwood, Clear Lake, etc. and even if there were lines the cost apparently would be outrageous.

 

EDIT:
I guess I am saying busses are not going to have the same effect that trains had on either NYC SF or it will on Houston.

I am all for bus dedicated lanes as long as you dont see them as the only solution.

as far as getting around compared to getting downtown: great! you understand then. Your car is for personal transportation. People in NY and SF still have cars or really taxis to get AROUND. but its the people like you who live in the burbs that drive to the bart station and are wisked into Oakland of SF to work that the train helps. You guys are of course expected to exercise free will and may never take the train. but for every one of you there is someone who would appreciate not having to hit bumper to bumper traffic. Someone who wished they could commute at 100 MPH. Someone who does not want Houston to continue as the fattest city in the world and doesnt mind walking a few blocks.

The plan for Houston isnt Ideal, but no action is likely worse in this case. a small system is worse than no system, expanding will actually make the system serve a purpose. in time it may become a truely good system.

I know BART has just recently become truely good after connecting to the Airports. before it just served commuters, now it serves travelers.

and in NY our mass transit serves everyone. I dont really see any other city reaching the level NY has, but people actually do get AROUND on the subway. most NYers do not own cars, and most dont even have drivers licenses anymore. Cabs fill in the few times when the train does not.

finally, all of the NYC subway is below water level. Manhattan is made of granite, so digging it was a nightmare, so actually Houston should be easier to build than the Blasting required in NY.

 

I went to a Metro meeting and one of the consultants for the proposed expansion plan said the were considering an underground downtown station for the Southeast/University line. So it is possible and it is on the drawing boards, but will it become a reality....

 

As someone familiar to Houston's traffic (still not as bad as the ATL, which fortunately I only have to fight once a week), I would say that public transportation for the most part is a non-starter for most folks. Why? Freedom to leave for work when you want to and not to have to wait on a train. Freedom to pick up a few things at the grocery store on your way home or like me, your kids from soccer practice. Freedom to not have to sit next to society's great unwashed and listen to my own music in my own private vehicle.

In ATL, our public transportation system is a corrupt, expensive boondoogle that never gets you where you need to go and although they keep adding on to it, our freeways are still packed. My advice? Build more freeways, make 'em double or triple decker, because people are going to drive until they are forced by imperial govt. interference not to drive and onto public transportation.

 

Have any of the people here who do not support rail ever actually lived in a city with some form of rail, be it light rail, subway, heavy rail, etc?????

 

One of the DART stations is underground. The CityPlace station is WAY below ground, as a matter of fact.

The Mockingbird station is below street level, but it's not underground. It's basically in a ditch.

To answer the question of Rockets10, I live in a city with rail, and while I have used it and probably would use it if it went anywhere I needed to go in a regular basis, I don't believe it has eased congestion (and the only study I've seen supports that notion) and I don't think it was worth the tremendous cost, especially since it is so inflexible, and that's for the supposedly very successful DART rail.

It's a neat thing, but given the price and given the results, I would be hard pressed to ever vote for a rail system.

I especially wonder why the emphasis is on getting people in and out of downtown on the DART rail. As far as I know, there's never going to be a time when one could ride the rail from Plano to Lewisville, for example. You'd have to go downtown, switch trains downtown and then go back north to Lewisville.

Heck, even the plan to go to the airport would require a trip downtown and a switch of trains first.

Can you really build a system that's not convenient for anybody but downtown workers (in an area that averages 30% office vacancy rates and higher) and not allow suburbanites (who greatly outnumber those downtown) to not have a convenient way to get from one suburb to another?

 

My last post on the subject because it's up to the voters now.

There is not a traffic problem in Houston with the exception of the four hours a day people insist on all going to and from work in. Take a day off and go drive around. Even the nightmare of pre-construction I-10 West you can go from Loop 610 to Katy in less than half an hour. That's inside your personal cocoon, with your music, your phone, your laptop. Not a half hour waiting in a trainstation just to board, not a half hour walking the final 20 blocks walking to your final destination. We are a personal transportation town, financed by it, designed around it and prospering because of it. We should embrace that and try to be a better Houston; not want to be New York.

What should we do to fix our autocentric problems? We should continue to improve our highway system. The rebuilt US 59 is an example of a good start. In 1987 that was the nightmare freeway, now it flows well in it's improved areas. We should encourage flex-time work schedules to better distribute out traffic loads through out the day. We should encourage more efficient use of our precious fossil fuels to extend their life and reduce their pollution like smaller lighter cars with technologically better engines. Houston should be the leader in expanding personal freedoms for the future not a follower in the paradigms of dependency from the past.

 

It is really wierd. What do most Republicans have against mass transit?

It is a government spending thing? But roads cost tax dollars, too. Iis it a desire for urban sprawl. I saw where Perry Homes was just about the biggest Republican contirubutor in Texas. Is it a desire to burn more oil? I just don't get it.

 

You're getting warmer...that's the main reason, if not the only one, why Michael Stevens is leading the anti-rail fight.

 

Glynch, as a die-hard conservative, I believe that the government should't be in the business of providing transportation to its citizens and instead should be more focused on building roads.