mattyt36

Whoa boy … Irony is dead (as is often the case with the transit crowd).

Sammy, thanks for the shout out YET AGAIN, what do I do to deserve such attention?! I’ll put a reminder on my calendar to think of you, too, as this shouldn’t be such a one-way relationship! We all need validation! ❤️

Somehow my reply got deleted, not sure why 🙄, but I did want to congratulate @editor for moving to Las Vegas if that is the case. All the best! Also see: Traffic jams build up in Elon Musk's 'Vegas Loop' tunnels while shuttling around CES attendees | Daily Mail Online Not sure how "just the beginning" can correct for a tunnel width without redundancy and any way to get out. Was Daddy Elon's "Phase 1" a certain tunnel width that he just intended to go back in and dig a bit wider 10 years later? Give me a break.

@mfastx buddy, you're being disingenuous (the above comment is in fact "all out of thin air," as some would say). What I wrote was: Please respond to the above instead of pointing out superficially that Uptown is the second largest employment center in Houston as if that "fast fact" counteracts the substance of the above. What do you specifically disagree with? You're running buses to connect parking lots. It's called the gravity model. This stuff isn't difficult, which I'm sure you know. I have no idea what the above means. But if there is going to be a large bond issue for transit (read: any bond issue needed for light rail), it needs to be approved by voters. Are you saying that the Board members can unilaterally decide to issue additional debt that is secured by property taxes paid by residents of Harris County? If so, you are factually wrong (and thank God you are). Sure, at a certain pricetag. What is the pricetag for what you want think is a substantive and useful rail transit system in Houston? And how confident are you that voters will approve it? No, I am not. Of course transportation is not profitable in and of itself--it is the textbook definition of a derived demand. What I am saying is all of the posters on here bellyaching about underinvestment in transit have zero appreciation as to how it works--why can you not acknolwedge that funds are severely constrained under the current system? The argument is "Transit is good, we need more transit, people don't ride transit because it's not on a steel track, so we need to build more steel track, because that will make more people ride than if it were a bus, and yes, I know that even when we build it it won't have the greatest ridership numbers, but really the problem is that it wasn't built in the exactly perfect way, going to exactly the right places, so let's just build more and maybe we can get there, by the way have you been to Cleveland? Even THEY have a train to the airport." I mean that is seriously the undertone of every conversation about transit. It is the epitome of banality. If you want to build more transit, change the funding system at the state and federal level. That's where the focus should be--this is NOT the fault of local political leaders--in fact we should be absolutely grateful that they don't mortgage the future of the metro area willy nilly because someone rode a train from the Cleveland Airport to their hotel downtown and thought, man, what a fun time, we should do it too! Followed by If you don't see the inherent contradiction between those two statements, then, I don't know what to tell you. I actually agree, we are not in much fundamental disagreement--if money is no object, then sure, build a world class heavy rail (who needs LRT or BRT, really!?) system inside the loop with crosstown light rail lines down every arterial in Harris County! Sign me up! I’ll even buy the board game … Ticket to Ride Harris County Edition! But that won't pay the bonds off.

Well, I guess that settles it. Is anyone saying TOD can't succeed?

Indeed . . . there's a lot of "equity" built up in the large transit systems. In fact, a not insignificant portion of the infrastructure was built by private companies! Yes, much has been said of the pathetic ridership statistics on the DART light rail lines, but the truth of the matter is DART has way more constituent jurisdictions than METRO does--member cities of DART include the cities of Dallas, Addison, Carrollton, Cockrell Hill, Dallas, Farmers Branch, Garland, Glenn Heights, Highland Park (!), Irving, Plano, Richardson, Rowlett, and University Park (!). I believe voter approval for the DART light rail lines dates back to voter approval for the actual inception of the agency in 1983 so . . . guess what? They had to design a rail system that touched every one of the member cities. Thankfully the same dynamics (at least not to that degree) dictated the development of the METRO system. (I disagree with the assessment of city planners, at least in Houston, as having "cushy government jobs." Narrowly focused, pedantic, or entitled, I guess I can see. Any City employee is a "state agent," as they should be, as they are charged with the execution of laws and policies--as written here it sort of implies some sort of cynical libertarian grand conspiracy theory . . . governments are capable of doing good, and do so every day, despite their failures elsewhere. You can say the same thing about pretty much any institution, but I think U.S. history proves the system we have, despite its faults, has proven itself pretty successful in creating an environment in which one has at least some possibility of economic mobility based on merit. In any case, I think the City of Houston planners are about as practical as you can get . . . this project for example, I think is inspired purely by what they're attempting to accomplish. No pie in the sky, just somehow ease the connection between a dense population area and recreational areas: Gulfton to be target of new federal pilot program for reconnecting areas cut off by transportation barriers | Community Impact) Hmmmm, well, there's been one privately financed transit project in the U.S. that I am aware of (the Las Vegas Monorail)--it went bankrupt twice and had some pretty major service interruptions. Railroads were privately financed in the 19th century and made a bunch of people broke in the process. In any case, one must acknowledge the high level of private sector involvement in any public infrastructure development--9 times out of 10, they are the ones doing the planning, design, and engineering and 10 times out of 10 they are doing the construction. Under the direction of the public sector, of course, but let's not pretend this isn't a major profit center for private enterprise, either. I also take issue with the statement that politicians are "risk-averse." Local politicians have very real funding constraints (no one is going to buy debt to build an unfeasible system, or I guess stated better, you're not going to be able to issue debt at affordable rates for an unfeasible system), and we should all be glad that they generally do. (I know the sense is they don't and just p*ss money away, but I think this is cynical and misinformed--to me, it's a miracle it actually works as well as it does.) The truth of the matter is I think it's pretty clear that local transportation is a viable enterprise for the private sector. Roadways work because it is a shared public-private investment. The public builds and maintains the infrastructure, but individuals are responsible for buying the "rolling stock," which is no small capital outlay. So the game should be, as you imply, to reduce development costs by relaxing onerous design requirements and minimizing operating costs (e.g., driverless trains). Much has been written about this, as I'm sure you're aware: Why do roads, rail, and infrastructure cost so much to build in the US? - Vox NB: Elon not the greatest example of success in this regard: Two of Elon Musk’s Terrible Ideas Have Both Flopped in Vegas (curbed.com)

The Red Line serves two enormous and dense employment centers that, while they may have plenty of parking spaces, they aren't cheap to park at. Moreover, ridership is boosted by sporting and other major events and taking Medical Center employees from surface parking to the hospitals. The Silver Line connects two park and rides less than 5 miles away from each other. The ridership depends on suburbanites driving 30 minutes, parking, and waiting for the bus. It shouldn't be a surprise that people choose to just drive the last mile, even if it takes marginally longer (which I'm not entirely sure is the case). Compare the ridership to a normal crosstown bus line. This stuff is not that difficult to understand. You just don't get it, @mfastx, plenty of people (read: voters who have to approve such things by law since they are the ones paying for it) explicitly don't want (or care about) more transit ridership, and even those that do (or are indifferent), don't want it at the associated cost levels. Again, this is not difficult to understand--do you think $1.4 billion in construction costs to serve 7,000 riders per day on the Green and Purple lines is some sort of a winning argument? Surely you understand that any life-cycle cost analysis is going to heavily weight construction costs today versus operating cost savings in the future--that's the whole concept of net present value.

In other words, you run a transit line through an area with a transit-dependent population and ridership is higher. Quelle surprise. There's no point in discussing the second point when you totally omit the order-of-magnitude larger capital costs and the associated annual debt service? If you move into a more energy-efficient house which cuts your electricity bill by 25% but your mortgage more than doubles in the process, do you actually think you're saving money? Shirley, you can't be serious.

So, if I translate, this means what they didn't do was (1) design the stations with longer platform lengths; and (2) didn't design the bridges (how many are there?) to accommodate the weight of the light rail vehicles? I'm not sure why one would want to tear down trees now or construct utility lines for what may not ever happen in the future?

@Some one I never said you did (note I did not say "you," I said "transit promoter"), I used your comment to illustrate a point about one of the many elementary arguments people make about why people don't use transit today but would tomorrow if one just built rail, i.e., "people just need a choice." I've heard this bandied about so often and must say I don't get it. BUT, I confess I am ignorant on the topic. What could METRO have done differently to make it convertible to LRT? What exactly is preventing it from being converted to LRT in the future? Has anything been constructed today in connection with the Silver Line that would make it more cost-prohibitive than before to build LRT in the future?

Everything I wrote is literally directly in response to something someone else wrote. maybe if i did it all in lowercase it would register, sammy. (BTW, I thought you were ignoring me?) Give me a break. The type of development you see along the light rail and mistakenly attribute (well, wholly attribute to it) is the same type of development you are seeing in other major Inner Loop corridors. The Heights has to be one of the most densifying neighborhoods and it doesn't have an inch of light rail. The East End is developing because of its proximity to downtown and the price of land. It's one of those things you learn in elementary school, sammy--correlation does not imply causation. Or, perhaps better stated in your case--just because you write it doesn't make it true. I have not once, ever, made an argument about a freeway causing higher density. All of the arguments have been one of practicality. You can't build something that most people don't want, or stated better, don't want to pay for. Freeways are popular. That's a reality. Put a comprehensive transit system and the associated price tag here to a vote. I can assure you it will never pass. I'm not sure why that is so difficult to understand. How about trying to refute that simple fact? Moreover, there's this pipe dream that if you just put people in traffic they'll somehow all move into the City center to homes they can't afford or otherwise don't want and have their kids go to schools that they deem to be severely underperforming. That is juvenile, Mickey Mouse logic. What is more likely is that businesses and eventually people move OUT. If you want a great transit system, move to DC, NYC, or Chicago and pay the associated price. There you can pretend that these sprawling metro areas don't have freeways and suburbs. Or maybe LA or Dallas . . . ah, wait, I forgot they didn't do it right, right?

Yes, yes, we know, you have an absolutely great track record of predicting these things, after all.

That's at least somewhat spurious, isn't it? I mean, surely there are planning guidelines for which mode is more appropriate given forecast demand. To the extent BRT is determined to have a greater benefit-cost on segments with lower demand and therefore is the mode of choice for that particular segment, have you proven BRT attracts fewer riders or rather that LRT is not cost-effective for lower demand segments? Not to mention, is it really in the best interest of citizens to say, spend multiple times the amount of capital for a project that is ultimately subsidized simply because they have some sort of rail bias? Seems like if similar levels of service can be realized in terms of travel times, the hundreds of millions saved on the front end could be used to offer service in more corridors and run basic PSA campaigns saying "bus is just as good as rail and here's why." You'll still get the same dedicated transit riders you always would--the only people you are losing are middle-upper income people who probably aren't that jazzed about using transit anyway. (I mean the implicit statement, "I'd ride transit in Houston if only we had a real subway like Washington, DC" is just beyond ridiculous. I don't even think the statement should be taken at face value.) In other words, all these people who say they have a rail bias don't seem to be willing to pay the fares associated with ensuring the perceived higher level of service comes even close to breaking even.

Examples? How would it not? I mean, you really haven't shared anything stating otherwise.

Yet they literally follow major freeway corridors, therefore providing the literal "choice" that transit promoters say people supposedly want and will supposedly use in large numbers if given to them. "If only people had a choice . . . ", right? (Incidentally, yet another persistent example of transit promoters saying even when transit is built that it doesn't work because it just wasn't done perfectly, which as far as I can tell basically translates into, "If money were no object and you didn't have to worry about any political considerations, everything would be perfect!" This way of thinking would definitely give me a migraine--not sure how it doesn't give others the same.) Well the referendum had a dollar amount associated with it, right? Are you suggesting METRO should have risked going back to the voters? (That assumes they even had the bonding capacity to begin with--did you consider that?) Examples?

More than a couple years, from 1990 to 2004. The EFD flights over IAH were sold at the same price as the IAH nonstops, which made them pretty attractive, especially considering parking was free at EFD and FFs could earn additional miles. CO (well, Emerald as the Houston Proud Express) flew DC-9-10s from IAH-HOU earlier in the 1980s. CO resumed IAH-HOU service sometime after the EFD flights, I believe when AA started SAT-HOU-LGA and AUS-HOU-DCA. For a very short time, the UA HOU-IAH flights were flown by 737-700s and continued on to LGA. In any case, Houston does not need a third airport from a capacity perspective, although I can see an airline like Allegiant (read: Avelo) starting EFD. CXO just really restricts your market reach. Draw a 30-mile circle around CXO and a 30-mile circle around EFD and you can see the significant difference in the population of the catchment area--EFD has about 4 times the population and isn't as "proven." TKI (McKinney) is seriously considering building a 4-gate terminal to become Dallas's third airport: McKinney voters to decide on $200M airport bond to lure commercial air service (dallasnews.com) It would require the airport obtaining Part 139 certification to accommodate scheduled passenger service. Of airports in Texas without commercial service today, only AFW (Ft Worth Alliance), DRT (as of last month), EFD, FTW, and LBX (Lake Jackson, I guess due to Dow charters) have Part 139 certification. RJs are on their way out, and airlines are cutting cities left and right due to lack of pilots (this point has never seemed to register with OP, even when it has affected him personally multiple times). Note as well UA doesn't serve HOU, AA and UA don't serve MDW, AA and UA don't serve LGB or OAK. Chicago has talked about building a third airport for years. It's just not cost efficient. It's totally possible that a third airport in the MSA gets service, but it's not going to be for capacity relief. More than likely it will be for cheap flights to Florida and Las Vegas, which could arguably be accommodated at IAH or HOU. That's correct--the City did own land for the proposed westside airport and AFAIK sold it. The City of Atlanta IIRC only sold land it had acquired for a new airport in Paulding County even more recently. Paulding County residents, county settle dispute with deal not to commercialize local airport. (ajc.com)

Well METRO (aka the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County) certainly does, and at the maximum rate allowed by State law, which I assume is what he was referring to. Anything else?

BTW, don't you think the waaaaaayyyyy more interesting "fun fact" here is which World Cup US Host cities don't have rail transit to the venue? Do you think Dallas and Fort Worth are going to be scoring major points for their hour-long train rides from downtown to the DFW when the stadium is in the middle of nowhere?

@Amlaham several things: 1) You are indeed correct on State/County funding being key to any major expansion of transit infrastructure. 2) In theory, absolutely you can reprogram State transportation funding away from highways and towards transit like commuter rail. However, doing so would require legislative action. So, with this in mind, how likely do you see the current State legislature voting to do such a thing? 3) The County's main source of revenues are property and sales taxes. Any additional County contribution towards transit would be subject to a bond referendum that would require voters to agree to increase property taxes to pay for such infrastructure. For the type of comprehensive system that people typically think about when they get all dreamy about these things (e.g., the immensely expensive "must-have" rail to the airport, which passengers DO NOT use widely in the U.S., with few exceptions), we're talking multiple billions of dollars in investment and probably a minimum of two decades' worth of construction. Do you see Harris County voters volunteering to increase their property taxes to cover the multiple billions of dollars of investment in addition to the probably additional multiple millions of dollars for operating expenses? The typical answer to the above is something to the effect of "other cities do it, so why can't we?" The answer to that is that most of these places have legacy transit systems that they didn't rip up and they continued to fund along with highways. North Texas has invested multiple billions into a rail system that seems to fit the criteria some on here are looking for, yet they have freeways that look little different from ours, and their ridership statistics per mile are dismal. We literally can drive four hours up the road and see a real-world example of how what we think will work just doesn't. Few seem to acknowledge that we have a pretty robust and reliable commuter bus system with decent headways. Moreover, these systems can typically be improved at a fraction of the cost. Which leads to a couple of other points: 1) Let's say there is a plan out there to build a comprehensive transit system and it is put to a vote. 2) Would your perspective change at all if the vote failed, which it almost certainly will when people see what it will do to their property tax bill? Especially considering such a system won't directly benefit most of the people voting? Sure, such a system could be a coup for Inner Loop neighborhoods where less than 1/10 of the MSA population lives, but to think you could have any meaningful coverage outside of there is a pipe dream. And, sure, people in cars would benefit in theory from less vehicular traffic (although all transit boosters seem to universally acknowledge that if there is a square foot of concrete, it will be eventually occupied by a car, so I'm not sure how this theory really works, either, to be honest), but I'm sorry, voters just aren't that nuanced. I suspect the answer to the question posed in (2) is your perspective would not change, which, at the end of the day, basically means that you want to impose your will on voters because you "know better." Do you think voters would really take that attitude sitting down? It seems to me the best and really only option for major investments in transit is for the State to increase funding. And, I just don't see that happening. I personally wouldn't be against it, but, yeah, anyone who thinks that is going to happen anytime soon is just living in La La Land considering the current composition of State government. The lesson, though, should be that instead of blaming the County or the City for not doing something (seriously, neither can afford it--it's as simple as that), I think your efforts should be consolidated on achieving major reforms to State government. Finally the comparison to toll roads is just totally unfair. HCTRA literally can issue millions of dollars of bonds secured solely by the tolls paid by users. There is no way in hell METRO (or any transit agency) could issue bonds to fund a project secured solely by fare revenues because no transit agency comes anywhere close to breaking even. Believe me, if they could, they would. I used to think in a similar way, we just need trains, and people will ride them and then Houston will become a "real city." It's just such horrible logic. Well, stated better, wholly illogical, at least under the current system. I love not having to use a car as much as the next guy, but I'm increasingly convinced that your typical transit promoter is simply just another person with a hobby (liked playing with trains as a kid, likes to travel to Europe without a car, etc.) happy to impose their hobby on others (I get why some anti-transiters call light rail "toy trains"), no matter how impractical--they have become irrationally convinced that you can just lay tracks down and it will somehow fix everything. It's very juvenile, in a way. Most enthusiasts don't even have the first clue as to how the funding works, and, more often than not, end up blaming the wrong people. How is it the County's fault if the voters don't want to jack up their property tax bill for someone else's hobby and inferiority complexes about not being a "world city" (whatever that means) because you don't have a train to the airport? If Harris County jacks up property taxes, it's not particularly difficult to move to Montgomery or Fort Bend, two counties that really haven't shown much interest in all in transit. Is it the County's or the City's fault that the State does not provide near the level of funding that other states do? Can't you see these challenges as the absolute "dealbreakers" they are?

Outstanding! Looks like a concept for a new performing arts venue and three residential or hotel towers. I wonder what the low rise is in the east-most residential facing the new venue? Maybe some sort of mixed use pavilion?

Do you have any thoughts on how such improvements would be funded?

Has it really always been planned as pedestrian-only? I guess now that I think about it, the renderings have all been that way.

NB to the disingenuous detractors . . . when the cost increases 20%+ due to the delay, that is NOT a cost overrun.

When it comes to the proposed highway projects in the region, I really don't think this one is a poster child for the induced demand argument.

God bless them indeed. Personally responsible for Discovery Green, BBP, and Emancipation Park, in addition to everything else they have done. Houston is so lucky to have such a great and non-flashy tradition of philanthropy.