TheNiche

So, pretty much artists' studios wherein art is broadly defined to include any variety of creative professional. Sounds good. Someone should develop some of those. It might work as a component in a redeveloped Central Square Building, but such an endeavor could be put in many different structures. Is this the best structure for such an endeavor, or are we only desperately seeking a means to back-fill an obsolete structure?

I don't want to talk about this on Facebook. Facebook sucks. I'm going to talk about it here.

Tell me more about the necessity of serendipitous connections. And tell me how an individual or a building might contrive them. I do not understand.

I'm just dying to see what other MCM stuff is inside. Maybe I should get Redscare on retainer just in case.... Anyone up for a site visit?

The photo you just linked to of the MCM bannister was one that I took about five years ago. It is the awesomest thing about the entire building, hands down. (I was there with permission, btw. The building isn't worth a breaking and entry charge.)

This would actually be a feature for the co-working space. Also shared common areas for any dorms/apartments.

You know a lot more about dorm life, business incubation, and hip things like that than I do. I only know about this building and real estate development and being a business owner and being a student. I'm not with it at all. So I'll defer to you on what's cool. You obviously know better than I.

Rice chose to put its Grad House off campus and run a shuttle bus. Rice also has a bit of a different model for undergrads because of the college system (think on-campus co-ed fraternities with cafeterias that everybody gets assigned to - no rush). Assuming it hasn't changed since the 90s, the model has always been to assign about 1/4 to 1/3 more students to a college than it can hold at any one time, forcing some students off campus, usually for just one of their years (and some want to be off campus). So, bottom line, as long as Rice keeps that model, no matter how many dorms they build, around 25% of the undergrads will be off campus in any given year. Any new dorms will go to overall student body growth, not increasing the percentage on-campus.

As far as UH goes, no matter how many dorms they build, the majority of students will almost certainly always be off campus.

The Rice Graduate Apartments are within walking distance of the campus and also connected by shuttles, just like many of UH's dorms. This system makes sense to me as a mechanism to balance cost, the student experience, and the potential for growth of both the student body and the academic facilities. Placing dorms miles apart from the campus and in a completely different neighborhood with a completely different character seems nonsensical to me unless they're going for some kind of satellite campus or research annex.

[bite my tongue!]

Sorry, I keep forgetting that you're the expert.

In Austin, there seem to be apartment complexes that specialize in UT students, including matching up roommates in multi-bedroom units and offering leases based on the academic year (I think). This might be something like that too. I wonder if the old Days Inn/Holiday Inn would be a particularly good fit for that model? It wouldn't require as extensive a remodeling if a kitchen weren't required in each unit, instead having a common kitchen on each floor (my dorm at Rice was like this). And most students would be perfectly happy with an efficiency unit the size of a hotel room.

The apartment complexes in Austin that you're talking about--I've secretly-shopped most of them--they're appealing to a small proportion of UT students. Whose numbers are greater. Who reside in a smaller city. Who aren't as geographically dispersed within that smaller city. Who received more scholarships. Who came from higher-earning families. Whose parents gave a damn, worked the system for their kids, and saved for their kids' college funds. Who were by-and-large in the top 10% of their high school graduating class, who bumped peons like myself into second- and third-tier institutions, most of them in their hometown and close to family.

The demographics are different, and so the apartment market dynamics are too. An apartment operator that has a lot of small spaces in Houston's downtown or midtown area should concentrate their efforts on young professionals, recent college graduates. It should operate like an upscale for-profit co-ed frat house...and if they want to get creative, then they might very well should be marketing heavily in Austin, because that's where the UT grad will move into when the UT grad figures out that Austin has a crappy labor market.

Part of the reason for mixing the residential and incubator space is simply that these buildings are far too large to fill with startups in any reasonable time frame. The residential can also create a predictable baseline of rent revenue to support the building, and subsidize the incubator space. I also think there's a great talent match there too if students are chosen for an interest in entrepreneurship and technology. Some will start their own tech startups, of course, but I think most startups are founded by older professionals. They would love to have access to very affordable or equity-compensated talent in the early days when funding is tight - and students (or recent graduates) are a perfect fit for that. Like I said, it could be a very fertile entrepreneurial environment.

Cheap talent can catch the bus.

When I was at UH and talking with a future business partner about starting a creative business...which we ended up actually getting bank financing and doing (regrettably), our incubator was One's A Meal on West Gray. We just drove there and talked and ate and drank coffee. It wasn't very close to where either of us lived, but it was open 24 hours without being a Denny's and wasn't too expensive. In general, Houston isn't expensive. It's wonderful like that. Poor people own cars and drive them, and they rent what they need because the rent is affordable. Maybe we're so inexpensive that we don't need incubators like they have in Silicon Valley. Maybe we're so engineering-heavy and devoid of coastal venture capital, that we don't want it either...except as some sort of a fashion statement.

[bite my tongue!]

Sorry, I keep forgetting that you're the expert.

Well, anyway. Just a thought...but, you might check into Boxer Property's business model. They basically serve the need for business incubation in Houston such as I perceive it to exist.

If there's any single impediment to the redevelopment or tearing down of this structure, it is the current owner's unwillingness to accept reasonable offers. To his credit, I'd suppose that asshole property owners are par for the course up in Bronxville, NY. Then there's the asbestos and the physical condition; every building system requires major repair. But those things are curable, and in the grand scheme of things this building isn't in as bad a shape as some of the other abandoned highrises.

The biggest obstacle is that the floorplans are bizarre, narrow in some places and deep in others, resulting in a high ratio of common area to rentable area. Views to the east, south, and west are encumbered by massive concrete walls and the building's parking garage. When natural sunlight is at a premium inside of a highrise, then there's limited aesthetic benefit of it even being a highrise.

At one point in time, Morris Architects had gotten very far along in planning to make this their corporate headquarters. They would've modified portions of the structure in ways that cured the incurable. The plans were really something to behold. But again...the building owner was reticent to accept a reasonable offer. Morris leased space in First City Tower instead.

To address the issue of the building's highest and best use, I agree that some kind of specialized use would probably be best. (I'd like to see a second design center, like exists off of Woodway, but with the Cork Club restored on top.) I'm hesitant to endorse the idea of it being dormitories because to the extent that Rice or UH are going to build new dorms, it should be on their campuses. Business incubator space seems like an interesting idea, and if students want to start a business in such a facility, then they should be welcomed to; but the focus should not be on students.

Good to see some positive news on this one, considering that it had gone sideways for over four years.

(God damn...has it been that long? What the hell happened!?)

Those commuters commuting from over 5 miles out are suburban commuters. That goes against what Ross was saying when he asserted that suburban areas that pay the METRO tax get nothing. The P&R system might have the externalities that you listed, but it's primary purpose when built was to transport suburban commuters into Houston employment centers.

METRO's sole purpose is to exploit positive externalities by providing public goods that the private sector is unable to provide at the same level of quality or quantity. The many are only so willing to subsidize the few because the many shall benefit from it. The few are incidental.

Well METRO fronted the cost for the initial HOV lanes, which support whom? All of those people that live in suburban munincipalities who supposedly don't get any benefit from METRO.

Let's not fool ourselves. The time savings offered by HOV/P&R is merely an inducement for people to decide to use that infrastructure. The real benefits of carpooling and P&R buses are that there are fewer vehicles on the road in the inner-city neighborhoods where HOV lanes terminate.

The benefits are not just related to an easing up of inner-city congestion, either. A recent survey by the Downtown Houston Management District revealed that nearly half of downtown employees carpool or take mass transit. (Carpooling and transit use was the highest among downtown employees commuting from further than five miles out, so you cannot attribute this to light rail.) On account of that there are fewer downtown employees that are demanding a parking space, the City can ease up on parking requirements for new downtown development and employers are more likely to locate downtown (or will be willing to pay higher rents, thereby justifying more downtown development) because they don't have to issue as many parking vouchers to their employees.

I think that a state wide transportation agency would be an improvement as well.

No, we already have one and it sucks. I prefer regional control and leadership that is directly accountable to voters.

Would you like to compare Delhi and Mexico City's numbers in terms of new arrivals and tourists against Houston's?

As stated previously, I may as well compare to Lake Jackson. There would be no predictive validity to anything in particular that was being studied.

Great transport works, and people enjoy riding it in opposition to hellish traffic.

"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

^ Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

Two things:

1. By bringing up HCTRA, you give me an idea, I'd like to see the HCTRA and METRO merged. it doesn't make sense to have two separate agencies doing transportation when one would suffice, the 1% sales tax likely wouldn't be necessary at that point, and rather than having two organizations fighting each other (I doubt the HCTRA wants to see government money funding going to a competitor for travels), we'd have one happy family. HCTRA rakes billions and could easily subsidize a very well done infrastructure of public transit.

2. I bet the only way the tata nano is safer for occupants than a motorcycle is that it protects you from wind/rain, and maybe has a heater for the winter.

1. I'll do you one better. I'd like to see every transit agency, road district, rail district, navigation district, port, and public airport merged under a single umbrella agency for the Houston region. The agency would also be tasked with administering inbound funds from federal, state, and local sources, as well as from users. An even-number of board members would be elected according to geographic districts to ensure adequate community-level representation from throughout the region, and a single at-large board member would break ties. The board would appoint an executive director and directors of each division in order to mitigate organizational cronyism, and H-GAC would be tasked with an external audit of all financial, transportation, and environmental studies, as well as the process for developing their 'Major Thoroughfare & Freeway Plan (MTFP)'.

2. Any car with a wheelbase greater than zero is safer than a motorcycle.

I can give two examples of sprawling cities with great rail systems and high ridership: Mexico City and Delhi, and Delhi's is fairly recent. Saying Houston can't use one is an excuse for those with a political agenda.

Mexico City has 21.2 million people and Delhi has 16.8 million people. You may as well compare them to Lake Jackson as to compare them to Houston. And besides, their population is also much poorer; they do not like it there; they prefer to move here. I can't blame them. I wouldn't want to live there, either.

So you are saying to add more cars to the road. Is global warming not important?

Climate change is impactful, however as a matter of public policy I believe it to be far less important than allowing for global economic development and wealth-creating activities. I say this because developed nations have a population base that plateaus and then begins shrinking. Developed nations with liberalized trade policies instigate fewer wars with other developed nations. Developed nations can afford sustainable lifestyles without literally sacrificing food from their plate. Developed nations have better legal, political, educational, and physical infrastructure, which results in a higher marginal productivity of labor, higher crop yields, more efficient rural land use patterns, and more environmental justice. These factors are critically important because ultimately rural land use patterns will fix or exacerbate any real or perceived CO2 problems. In order to achieve these aims, it is necessary that poor nations be allowed to go through their energy-intensive development phase as a matter of international policy.

What we do with respect to our domestic transportation policy is basically irrelevant by comparison, and it wasn't even that especially important in the scope of our own CO2 output. Driving a car that pollutes less or taking a train is so insignificant that it is mostly just a cathartic exercise. Catharsis is a luxury and should not be subsidized by government.

in my town, I don't think our transit system has to fund roads, but it is responsible for some portion of sidewalk construction, I guess on the assumption that pedestrians could only ever be en route to a bus stop. Here, the intractable point of contention is the "paratransit" door-to-door van service it must offer various groups, which apparently accounts for 20% of its operating budget. Is this not an issue in Houston because of your much bigger scale?

Sidewalk construction makes sense, in the same vein as that HCTRA is required to contribute toward non-tolled roads if those roads help to improve access to its tolled facilities.

METRO has to provide paratransit, too, right along with even rural areas of Texas. Where there isn't a transit agency, they get implemented under one of the regional 'Councils of Government'.

That sounds lovely, if only everyone drove Tata Nanos. As things stand, it seems like asking the poor to accept a very dangerous mission in the service of social engineering. According to P.J. O'Rourke, the Tatas don't do too well versus cows, or other Tatas or even perhaps bicycles, on the Grand Trunk Road (my apologies for the dorky website):

http://casnocha.com/...ourke_on_i.html

I myself recklessly drive a Nissan Versa. (A wrecked rental-fleet Nissan Versa from Carmax! it is definitely not for "Car and Driver"-types, but I love it, and it's not really all that little. It gets about 40 mpg.)

Momentarily moving off to the siding of the train thread -- I don't think it will be Tata Nano Month in Texas any time soon. In India, yes, every month:

In 2005, Indian vehicles released 219 million tons of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

By 2035, that number is projected to increase to 1,467 million tons, due largely to the expanding middle-class and the expected rise of low-cost cars, according to the Asian Development Bank.

If only I could convert things into percentages (Barbie: "Math is hard!") I think that would sound like a lot! But I guess it would just reinforce Americans' irrelevance to something that is irrelevant to you, The Niche.

The above was from an outdated 2008 USA Today article linked to here:

http://www.nationalr...greg-pollowitz#

Sorry the figures aren't current, but what you had written about the Tata Nano had a slight post-Buckley National Review tang to it, so that's where I went looking.

My understanding is that the Tata Nano actually isn't selling very well in India because its so minimalist. Indian new-car-buyers are as enamored by luxuries as American new-car-buyers, and whereas the low-end of the market is dominated by motorcycles. Where safety is concerned, motorcycles are where I draw the line. I wouldn't want those to be subsidized because their benefits are offset by healthcare costs.

As for pollution issues, the Tata Nano or something like it seems like a good idea for the United States. Our fleet average for light vehicles actually being used on the road is 18 mpg. Anything to improve that is a good thing.

The life expantancy of a LRV is usually pretty long, upwards of 30-40 years. As far as the actual line goes, Boston's Green line has been running for over a century. Sure, tracks need to be replaced every few decades, and every 40-50 years some stations need to be modified. But overall rail lines last pretty long.

Now I would like to see parts of the Red Line submerged in the future (TMC, Downtown segments). But unfortunately I don't see that happening in my lifetime.

Hopefully in the future modifications to the Red Line will happen. Submerging it, allowing for longer trains, maybe even way off in the future even converting it to heavy rail. Who knows.

Oh, well I'm sorry to see that the concept of an economic life expectancy did not take. Besides which...what is the maturity of the bond issues? Have you bothered to ask that question? No, of course not.

But I agree that I would do the University Line a bit differently. But the way I see it, it's currently what's on the table, and I'll support it. Now that it will be delayed until I am an old man, it's possible that some changes in the design will happen before it's eventually constructed (which it hopefully will be).

There's a middle ground. A full 1% tax (no GMP) going towards transit is sufficient. Remember METRO had plenty of funds to build heavy rail in the 80s. If they get that whole 1% it should be enough. Perhaps an additional 1% or .5% for short periods of times at voter discretion to fund large capital projects, like expansion or rennovation.

What exactly is on the table? From the sound of things, regardless of the outcomes regarding GM payments, the University Line will have to be re-planned from the beginning of the process. Anything could happen at any time...but not now...which is just the way I like it.

Do you know the names of the 62K transit users, or does Metro? I don't see how you'd keep others from getting the free car. And why should it be limited to them? Shouldn't it be offered to anyone who wants or needs it, even those that aren't currently on Metro's routes?

It should be a federal program available as an option to anybody below a particular poverty threshold. And then the federal government should remove itself from all but interstate transportation and the breaking up of government-sponsored taxi cab cartels.

It costs $3000 in India. It would cost $7K-$8K here. http://www.egmcartec...d-7000-to-8000/

Granted, that still would make it the cheapest car in America, beating out the Nissan Versa by $3000. But until it actually exists as an option, it's speculative.

But then who is going to pay for the maintenance on all these vehicles, and replacing totaled ones?

Okay, so it would cost as much as the Red Line. That's still plenty fine by me. Either the user pays or they get a maintenance or insurance voucher to cover a portion of the cost. It shouldn't be totally free.

Now that diesel exhaust has been medically and therefore legally determined to be a known carcinogen then it's highly unlikely that any vertical expansion of the PE will pass any DEIS.

This interests me. Cite sources, please.

Right, but expenditure of bond payments are temporary.

Well sure, until the system outlives its economic life expectancy, LRT vehicles have to be replaced, maintenance and repair costs for the fixed assets increase, and the system ultimately becomes so dysfunctional as to merit replacement.

Entropy happens.

Niche, you make a great argument against rail. However, nearly every other major city sees rail as an important mode of public transportationn, alongside BRT and local buses. Do you think that all other cities are wrong to be building and expanding rail? I realize that not every other city is like Houston, but I strongly believe that certain corridors in Houston are ready for rail now. You constantly talk of the Red Line being a "low hanging fruit," and suggest that it's success is only due to the fact that some bus lines were truncated and now feed into it. Do you think that the Red Line shouldn't have been built? Would we be better off without rail at all? Do you think that rail can be effective at all in Houston today?

Nearly every major city underfunded their employee pension funds. Houston was among those, unfortunately. Just because a way of doing things is common does not mean that we should let it slide. If mine is a good argument, then it should be considered on its merits.

The only routes that I see as having been within the realm of consideration are the Red Line and portions of the University Line, and I would've done a lot of things different...probably spending even more money than had been proposed (at some future date, inflation-adjusted) to keep it from being so half-assed. And the story of the Red Line isn't only about bus route truncation. That's part of it. The other part is that it replaced TMC shuttles to outlying parking lots and prompted the elimination of Downtown and Midtown trolleys, and that although the line as a whole is touted as having relatively high-ridership per mile, that it is only because it is so short. If it were compared against high-profile equally-short segments of light rail in other systems, I suspect that it would be a fairly middling route.

If we invested the same amount of money that we did on our freeways (billions and billions of dollars, who knows) on public transportation, we'd have much more ridership on public transportation.

So let's say that we had a sales tax of 10% for public transportation, ten times more than at present and possibly an even higher multiple depending on whether the GM payments remained proportional or not. Does transit ridership increase from only 2.3% of commuters because the transit is better or because people are poorer and less able to afford nice things? Is the increase proportional with transit spending (so that it's now 23% of commuters), or are new homebuyers of 'Forest Glen Valley Brook Canyon' still trapped behind the gates of their master-planned community, miles away from a major thoroughfare, reverse commuting to an employer in a non-METRO jurisdiction, who relocated because the employer didn't want its clients to have to pay insane sales taxes?

But freeways also cost money. And so do cars.

Texas drops billions and billions of dollars each year on new freeways, and no one ever gives it a second look. But the very second someone mentions rail, everyone is up in arms about it. The amount of spending for public transit that is spent in this state is ABYSMAL compared to the golden calf that is our never-ending freeway budget.

Freeways and cars are money better spent. It only seems as though they are more expensive because individuals that buy new cars tend to have more money and better credit and make purchases that exceed the necessity of personal mobility in order to accommodate personal preferences for luxury and status. Consequently, car manufacturers make new cars to cater to the wants and desires of new car buyers. The purposefully inefficient newer cars eventually become older, and then poor people have to buy them and put up with them.

Take the Tata Nano as an example of what could be. It costs about $3,000 and gets 56 mpg (per U.S. measurement standards). There's a diesel model in the works with fuel efficiency approaching 100 mpg. I would expect that smaller, uncomplicated, inexpensive cars would have lower insurance and maintenance costs, that lighter vehicles would cause less deterioration to pavement and other infrastructure, and that small ultra-compact vehicles could give rise to codes allowing for more efficient parking lot layouts.

It would only cost $189 million to purchase a Tata Nano for each and every one of the 62,951 people that commutes using public transportation anywhere in the ten-county metropolitan area according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is approximately one half of the cost of the original seven-mile Red Line by itself, allowing people access to tens of thousands of lane miles of road in our region and to work anywhere they please.

The Tata Nano is the best federal program that won't ever be.

Maybe. But over in that downtown freeway roundabout thread you seem to have no problem with letting TxDOT take on such a huge project.

You're imagining things and confusing the issues.

I realize that. But things can be done to better manage future growth. Allowing for and promoting denser core city growth will in turn allow for even more suburban growth. Win-win. And considering the fact that many, many more people live in Paris and New York City than Houston says that plenty of people like living in those cities. Both of those cities have large suburban areas just like Houston.

I guess we just have different tastes. We always end up with the same discussion.

Well yeah...NYC and Paris have a few (hundred) years on us. My point had nothing to do with the size of a city and everything to do with failed policy responses to big city issues, which are issues that ease of access to our suburbs allow us to duck. We won't be able to avoid them forever, but we can right now.

Well now that you've clarified, I see your point. Again it boils down to taste. Many like the fact that they can be productive on their commute, and do not like the stress associated with driving. I am one of those people.

And on your second point, I'd say that the majority of people moving down here are doing so due to economical reasons, and work opportunites. Not because they think Houston is a nice city.

Many people live in River Oaks. Many people work in The Woodlands. It's just that they aren't that many in the grand scheme of things.

I was referring to the actual city of Houston's population. The growth you see is suburban growth, not inner city growth. Considering the fact that we are discussing building an inner-city light rail line(s) that would be located completely within the city of Houston, I'd say that the actual city of Houston's growth is more relevant.

Population growth within the boundaries of the municipality are irrelevant. For one thing, the boundaries change. Houston engaged in a spree of annexations in the early- and mid-90's, adding approximately 100,000 to its population base and culminating in the annexation of Kingwood in 1996. As a consequence of the political outcry that resulted, the City's policies toward annexation have been far less aggressive ever since, concentrating on taking in commercial properties by way of 'Limited Purpose Annexations' to the exclusion of residential areas.

Interestingly, however, LPA's have allowed the City to collect sales taxes from people that live in northwest Harris County that do not receive the benefit of City of Houston services within their neighborhoods. And of course, all those people are within METRO's service area. So yeah, I wouldn't count them out as being irrelevant. ...it's just that you need to recognize the realities of public finance. The money doesn't grow on trees. It comes from people. There's only so much to go around.

It's hard to explain via an internet board. Basically - when a rail line gets built, it replaces bus lines, no? In Houston's case, it replaced numerous bus lines. Now, all of the buses that used to run on those lines now do not anymore. Where do those buses go? Do they just sit there? Get thrown away? No, METRO can now use them on other routes. And considering the fact that the new light rail line is cheaper to operate than the original bus lines, METRO can use the money they save and operate those buses elsewhere in the system.

When METRO issues construction bonds to finance a capital expenditure, it has to pay them down concurrent with operating expenses. Take these into account alongside the time value of money, and light rail's lower operating costs cease to remain a compelling argument.

No, I don't. I've said this many times, all large construction projects are going to have inefficiencies, and things to criticize. Look at TxDOT. They are known for going way above budget for their construction projects. But apparently for you this isn't a problem. You never question anything when a new freeway is proposed. You don't hold TxDOT and HCTRA to the same standard as METRO. The big picture is whether or not building rail in general is good for the city. There are things to criticize about every large construction project. It's silly to be against constructing something just because of minor issues with construction.

Your memory is poor. I don't like TXDoT. I've said this many times.

I support tolling all existing, replacement, and brand new freeways under HCTRA or private ownership regulated under the umbrella of a regional transportation authority whose board members are elected in a manner similar to how school district board members are currently elected.

And I'm pretty much okay with HCTRA. They're well reputed. If things change, then I'll re-examine my support of them in their current form.

If you'd rather have a suburban city that's fine. I just think that a sustainable urban core to go along with the sprawl is important and more desirable, and large cities around the world demonstrate that. Houston could be a much better city if we make improvements in our public transportation system. I just don't see how sprawling much beyond this point is sustainable. There is no city that demonstrates that simply sprawl without a good core city makes that city a good place to live.

We have a suburban city. Unless you've got a time machine in your back pocket that'll put Humpty Dumpty back together again, we're stuck with the city as it exists in courthouse records. It comprises millions of parcels, most of them deed restricted and under fragmented ownership. We could spend $100 billion on inner-city transit, and it wouldn't change what we are...except that we'd be much poorer.

IMO, a sustainable urban core and suburbs go hand-in-hand. The suburbs act as a relief valve on demand and pricing, keeping the urban core affordable to a wide cross-section of society (unlike Paris), basically anybody that desires to live in it. And we accomplish this without constructing gigantic public housing projects or having to enact price ceilings (unlike New York City).

That's what is great about Houston is that anybody that is willing and able to work can live well, and also according to personal choice. And if we aren't expensive or exclusive enough for someone, then they can move somewhere else. I don't want that kind of person voting in my city.

Cumbersome? A rail or BRT line is more cumbersome than a 20 lane highway? And what evidence do you have that the millions of people that live in cities that fit your description don't want to live there?

Yes, the experience of using public transportation is far more cumbersome than simply driving around however one pleases. It's slower, it requires an accounting for routes, schedules, and weather. And even if it doesn't seem expensive on the face of it, that's only because farebox recovery is so abysmal.

And my evidence that people prefer to live in a city like Houston is that they're moving here, away from there.

Nah, I think that greater efficiency, the ability to attract and carry more riders, and other positive externalities are enough justification for BRT and rail. If you think that only poor people should ride public transportation then I don't know what to say, other than the fact that there are many great cities in this world where poor people aren't the only ones who ride public transport. Try being a little more open-minded.

Try engaging in a little more reading comprehension.

How about census numbers? Houston's population increased only 7% in the last decade, while it increased almost 20% from 1990 to 2000.

Yes, how about actual Census numbers?

2010: 5,964,800 (+1,295,229) (+28%)

2000: 4,669,571 (+938,440) (+25%)

1990: 3,731,131

Our rate of population growth is accelerating, both numerically and in percentage terms.

Wait, what? Operating cost for light rail is cheaper than buses. The operating cost for operating multiple bus lines with low ridership is more than one rail line with higher ridership. Didn't you see the operating cost numbers I posted awhile back? METRO is saving money by having one light rail line on Main Street rather than many parallel redundant bus routes.

That's an excellent answer to a question that wasn't asked. Try again.

That's a good point. And that's why I'm advocating for more funding towards public transportation. I am also a strong advocate towards more funding for surface roads.

Doesn't seem like it from where I'm sitting.

What about removing the Pierce and routing all traffic along the east side of downtown on a widened 59?

From a land aquisition standpoint, all you have to do is buy all the blocks between Chartres and St. Emanuel and have a super wide/double deck/sunken freeway to handle the throughput. Much cheaper than trying to buy high-rises and you could probably make a few bucks selling the half blocks along where the Pierce is now.

Just my $0.02

The distance between the I-10/I-45 split and the I-45/US 59/SH 288 interchange is 2.3 miles along I-45 or 3.8 miles along I-10 and US 59. Adding to the land requirements for such a large and complex freeway such as you propose, there aren't currently very many ramps along the east side of downtown, so adding those from such a complex freeway would probably require more than just a single block of width in many places. And in fact, because there are so few east-west streets in east downtown that aren't truncated by Toyota Center, the GRB convention center, or Minute Maid Park, the ramps would pretty much have to be for Leeland/Bell, Capitol/Rusk, and Congress/Franlkin (each of these being one-way pairs). Polk and Texas would both be messy connections due to bidirectionality on one and the full width of light rail crossing the other. There are a whole slew of buildings that would bite the dust for ramps, including all three buildings from Lofts at the Ballpark.

I'd imagine that land costs would probably weight out pretty close to the same figure, going east or west. Where the value of buildings are concerned, Lofts at the Ballpark is probably far more valuable than 2016 Main, considering how low the condo prices are (on account of the extremely high maintenance fees because the building is in such poor shape). The only thing that's at all valuable along the Pierce Elevated is the St. Joseph Professional Building.

However, if you're talking about a single super-wide/double deck/sunken freeway that's large enough to handle all of today's capacity as well as to remain functional for a few decades, then we're talking about a really big and complicated road. I'd think that the hard costs would eclipse the land acquisition costs...and you have to build this expensive road 65% further along the eastern route than you would if you came up along the west side of downtown. Then consider that of what's left of I-45, you'd probably want to keep a portion of it in place to serve a purpose similar to Spur 527, as a rapid accessway to the western side of downtown but from the north. So that also has to be reconstructed and costs additional money, and you don't get to reclaim that land.

And after all is said and done, the eastern path is a longer commute in terms of distance for most people, so that's just one more downside.

We'll see. Construction management for the most part falls under the construction company METRO has hired. You could say bad things about any transit agency. I just don't think that that's a good enough reason to not construct something.

Hiring a contractor is not a fire-and-forget exercise. Somebody has to manage the manager. I speak from experience. You don't think that developers just hire a construction guy and then sit back and relax for 18 months, do you!?

Well in the last decade that hasn't been the case. I read an interesting article about how construction costs are so much higher here than anywhere else in the developed world. They get more for their money in other countries.

That's because we had been running up a trade deficit under a weak dollar policy. We bought consumer goods in exchange for raw materials (and financially services) so that net exporting nations could go through a resource-intensive process of building up their economy. And yes, it really is just that simple. Not to worry, there's a reason that they call it a balance of trade. In the long run, the current accounts balance averages to zero.

That type of growth isn't sustainable though. If no freeway had been built growth most likely would not have continue, at least at the pace it is today.

Sixty years of traffic congestion would seem to indicate that employers tend to move their operations to suburban edge cities when access to the central city is suboptimal. As also evidenced by that period of time, building more roads and better roads is the solution of first resort and is highly effective at sustaining a growth rate.

There is a point beyond which more and better roads cannot keep pace with demand, and there are some corridors along which we are beginning to be challenged by that limitation. This is one reason that at a certain population threshold, the rate of growth of a city begins to stagnate even as it has accrued so many highly-desirable 'big city' amenities. Transit is expensive and cumbersome. It becomes a great place to visit in which you wouldn't want to live.

How many times have you rode METRORail? And how many rail systems have you been on worldwide? That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard you say, lol.

I'm not saying that only hipsters ride rail, just that hipsters are the only justification for upgrading bus-based transit to rail-based transit because the proletariat was already riding buses in the first place. The hipsters are what's left over to be induced.

You need a source to prove that good public transportation makes a city a better place to live? You do know that there is a reason that housing costs are so low in Houston, right?

And my last point was common sense. If a rail line replaces numerous bus routes, do those buses magically disappear? No, of course not. They are free to bolster other routes or replace older buses.

No, I need a source to prove your absurd statement that Houston's growth is slowing down.

I also need a source to prove that displaced bus routes translate to more buses and increased frequency on other routes. This seems unlikely if operating costs for the light rail have to come out of a budget that would've otherwise allowed for more buses. There's only so much money to go around. I'd expect that sacrifices would have to be made because drivers won't work for free.

To all of your other comments, I mostly just want for you to acknowledge the effect of an economic opportunity cost. It's great to have options, but it is also good to have less public debt or lower taxes or better roads...or something altogether different, like more parks. There's lots of stuff worth doing, but only so much to do it with.

Lol, problem is, when I rode on their system, it was an absolute majority of people who lived in munich going about their business. The bmw museum is right next to one of the bmw manufacturing facilities. When we got to the bmw museum we got there at shift change, and the people streaming out of the plant and straight to the subway was staggering.

I suspect that if I rode light rail in the TMC area during a shift change, the "absolute majority" of the people that I would see riding it would be people that live in Houston that are going about their business...and most of them probably going to get their cars from a parking lot so that they can drive home, even though I won't watch them doing that. Sample bias in the context of an anecdote proves nothing and is unimpressive. Quantify.

Not to get too political, but if our government (national) saw fit to only need half as many aircraft carriers, they could use the money saved to give the whole country one hell of a good infrastructure, but no, we _need_ 11 aircraft carriers, and all the support ships that go along with them. Hell, we could probably afford butlers on each train.

But why would we want transit butlers? Why should the federal government even want commuter transit that doesn't cross any state lines? I'd like to rejigger our carrier fleet so that it is smaller and so that it launches only remotely-operated drones, sell the existing fleet to Saudi Arabia or China, and then pay down the national debt and reduce the tax burden, returning money to individuals so that individuals (or those individuals' local governments, if that provides room for local tax increases) have greater flexibility to use money in a manner that is best suited to the particulars of their own lives in their own towns.

The hope is that METRO can build these lines now, and management can improve later.

Construction requires proper management. If you're in the real estate biz and you haven't figured that out, then I would advise that you keep a fat savings account in an industry that is as unrelated to real estate and construction as possible.

If I were a betting man, I'd say that as time goes on, due to political climates and cost, it will most likely be even more difficult to build lines later. I think that's why you see people wanting to get these lines built ASAP.

Another pro-rail point is that rail replaces a number of bus routes, therefore freeing up extra buses that METRO can deploy elsewhere in the system. Allowing for higher frequencies on certain routes.

In the long term, the most rapidly growing cost items will have to do with land price appreciation. That is an issue that can be addressed at present by identifying routes, establishing easements, and paying for those easements sooner than later, then never again.

Hard costs should be expected to stay the same over the long term or perhaps even decrease in real terms because the productivity of labor in our economy tends to increase.

Sure, you could say that we should just build lines when we need it. But we might never need it. Growth could stunt due to poor city infrastructure.

There are plenty of instances where growth outpaces Houston's infrastructure, yet continues unabated nevertheless. My favorite example is Telephone Road prior to the existence of the Gulf Freeway, Houston's first freeway. It was extraordinarily congested, but people kept on buying cars, buying suburban housing, and commuting along Telephone Road.

Do you realize that even today, there are parts of Bear Creek that require 30 to 45 minutes of commuting just to reach the Katy Freeway? Astoundingly, it didn't keep people from moving there. Nothing has changed.

If there is a population that is at risk for being alienated by a lack of fixed-guideway rail-based transit, they are affluent hipsters. And that's fine by me. They weren't especially likely to appreciate Houston in the first place. They can suck it. We have poor comparative advantage for hipsters and should focus on luring nerdy engineers and the like.

Building good public transit infrastructure to go along with our good highway infrastructure will allow the city to grow more and make it a more desirable place to live. I'm not saying that we could end up like Detroit or anything if we don't build public transit, but our growth is already slowing down.

I doubt it. Show me how. Show me why. Quantify your analysis and cite sources, the way I do.

Another pro-rail point is that rail replaces a number of bus routes, therefore freeing up extra buses that METRO can deploy elsewhere in the system. Allowing for higher frequencies on certain routes.

I sincerely doubt this, as well. Show me how. Show me why. Quantify your analysis and cite sources, the way I do.