livincinco

Intesting point, but I'm not sure it would make financial sense for the airline. Operating a railroad and operating an airline would appear to require completely separate resources and skill sets. That would give Texas Central a distinct advantage because they're able to utilize the engineering, construction, and operational capabilities of their partner. It's also a pretty large capital investment to make into an area where they don't have expertise, when they could potentially utilize that capital towards upgrading their fleet instead.

It could also potentially trigger some antitrust interest from the government as well as I would expect that they would find entry of a new player onto that route more attractive than expansion by United.

So the last time Southwest did it through an aggressive pr campaign.  No sign of that so far so maybe they've decided they can live with it.

 

I don't want to belabor this, my point was simply to not assume that Southwest will not work against this just because they have not yet done so.  I certainly hope that they won't oppose this, but business is about timing and there is no question that Southwest is very well aware of this and is assessing the impact to their business.

 

It's not always the right strategic move to announce your intentions immediately.  Sometimes it's better to wait for the right opportunity.

I don't know what Federal Law you are talking about. But I do know that what actually killed the Texas TGV was the lack of public financing from the state.  There were two teams competing for the franchise.  One team was up front about requiring some level of public subsidy. The other team claimed to not need any public subsidy, won the franchise, and then could not do the job, because, lo and behold, they needed a public subsidy, which was not forthcoming.

 

That's from the attached New York Times article. 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/us/bullet-train-failed-once-but-its-back.html

 

Quote from the article-

Texas T.G.V.’s proposal was especially ambitious. The company envisioned using technology used in France to build a 600-mile network connecting Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio in less than a decade. Company executives predicted they could draw more than nine million riders a year by 2014.

Some 70 percent of the project’s $6 billion price tag was to be financed through tax-exempt private bonds, more than federal law allowed a company to borrow using that type of financing. The venture hinged on the company’s changing federal law to ease the restrictions.

So now this thread will devolve into a series of "one sentence responses"  ....Great!  I can't wait!

 

And lets all agree that Southwest does have a lobby - all the airlines do.  Southwest is the 160th largest company based on Fortunes list of 500.

 

You are correct.  Southwest is the 160th largest with an annual revenue of about $17 billion.  JT Central, the backers of Texas Central, have an annual revenue of approx. $14 billion.

 

I agree that Southwest has a lobby, but they don't have the power to get this killed on their own.  They can certainly make it more difficult for Texas Central to get into business, but it would be a potentially risky move on their part to do so.

 

Remember that when Southwest opposed Texas TGV, they had to be very open and public with their opposition to the point that they even had to publicly hint that they would relocate their corporate office out of state if the project moved forward. 

 

The most important thing to remember though is that Texas TGV actually required a change in Federal Law to allow them to utilize their financing model.  What ultimately killed them was the passive act of not changing that law and potentially Southwest's lobby was part of that lack of action.  To the best of my knowledge, Texas Central doesn't need any action like that to allow them to proceed.

Southwest is a national airline now if they had a issue with this they would've stopped it in its tracks already.

 

Can you please expand on how a company that doesn't even make the Fortune 100 would have stopped a completely private venture "in its tracks"?

Back in the day, taking Southwest from Houston to Austin or San Antonio was a far more viable option than it is now; shoot, even HOU - DAL isn't the no brainer that it used to be unless it's just for one day.  It's also a much larger airline than it was even ten years ago.  I suspect that the Texas Triangle Southwest started with probably isn't as integral a part of its business model these days.

 

Agreed, but I have heard that its a very profitable route for them.  I'm with you, I'd like to think that they won't contest it, but it is certainly a possibility that they will.

From what I've been reading, it sounds like one of the biggest concerns is potential opposition from Southwest Airlines, who's been successful in getting this killed in the past.  Southwest has been neutral on the project in public comments so far, but there is certainly a possibility that they will pull a move at some point in the process.  Texas Central seems to have their act together so they might be able to handle that if it happens.

 

As I think I mentioned before, I think that the biggest thing that this project has going for it is that nothing would make state leadership happier than to be able to stick it to California by getting a privately launched high speed line launched before the government funded California line.  I think that they will try to smooth the way anyway they can to achieve that.

 

The state has been putting a big effort behind recruiting CA companies for years.  Getting this done would give them a huge selling point.

I thought Texas Central Railway said they'd have more info on the planned route between Dallas and Houston by now. Inevitable government study delays? Funding issues? Securing land purchases before announcing station locations?

Hopefully, it's securing land purchases before announcing the route. I would expect that they would want to keep the route under wraps and work to purchase the necessary land through shell companies to keep acquisition costs down.

Any project with multiple contractors is going to have coordination issues. The trick is minimizing the potential problems.

Agreed. However, I think that you'll also agree that METRO's track record in doing so has not been particularly good.

METRO has a horrible track record executing projects. Not sure why people are surprised that this one is poorly executed too.

Fear is always a powerful selling tool. The language has become more polished over the years, but the message is pretty much the same.

The question of whether a quantity of oil reserves exist that can be extracted and whether they should be extracted are two completely separate topics. And aren't both completely separate topics to the status of construction of the Exxon campus?

Dude look at any other major city that is known for it's high end luxury upper class people. New York San Francisco whatever, that's how it works. This isn't a debatable topic, that's literally how actual luxury hotels operate. The new supertall in LA follows this same route. It's just how it works. Houston's "luxury" hotels aren't all that special compared to everywhere else and that's just a simple fact.

Comparing luxury hotels from city to city though really isn't an important criteria. High end luxury hotels exist because of market demand in a particular city. If demand doesn't exist in that city, you aren't going to create it by building a luxury hotel.

There are arguable exceptions to that, such as Dubai and Las Vegas, but those are entire cities that were built to appeal to certain demographic, not individual projects.

Current "guilty" pleasure is London Grammar

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6drfp_3823I

Our zoo is terrible

Good to know that we can add the zoo to the long list of things that you hate about Houston.

Rather than closing a major highway for 3 months to determine the impact, I would suggest that it might be less invasive to have traffic engineers study the potential impact and provide a report on the expected results.

I know that's crazy talk, but...

That does sound a bit long-ish. I suppose they are sacrificing speed for cost.

The 3.3 mile East End line is scheduled to cost almost $600 million. They are achieving neither speed or cost.

If it's so well known as a manufacturing methodology, why did I have to re-invent it 30 years later?

And for my next discovery, a little something I call...gravity!

One thing I've come to realize is that when you get rid of a bottle neck in a system, you expose / exacerbate other bottle necks. If this prevents you from fixing a known problem (b/c you know that'll you'll just run into another problem down / upstream), then you in a paralyzed state where nothing gets down.

No doubt that 59/288 interchange needs to be fixed. By fixing the 45/59 interchange, you're actually incentivising the earlier action.

What you're describing is known as the theory of constraints. It's a very well-known manufacturing methodology that identifies why output of a production line does not achieve it's maximum throughput. It applies well to mobility.

Pizaro's is the closest to an actual Neapolitan pizza.

You guys sound so ignorant sometimes.that " SF will always be more popular for tourists because of the hills" crap is just bull.

SF is more popular because of what they have done not because of no stupid hills.

Las Vegas is flat as a pancake and undoubtedly has the most boring setting of any major city in the US BUT IT IS TOP THREE FOR TOURISM and it is above SF.

Orlando is top three too, and it too is flat. Miami and NY are also flat. So is London, Paris and a host of European cities.

Houston with its waterways and trees look far better than Vegas so the look of the area has nothing to do with tourism. Its what you do with it.

 

You've got to be joking.  My comment was that SF has a natural advantage in tourism because it has a very unique setting that most people find extremely beautiful.  Saying that's not a factor is about the same as denying that Miami draws a lot of its tourism from its natural surroundings (oh wait, you said that too).

 

I didn't say it was the only factor, I said it was an advantage.  By the way, I hear that Hawaii's tourist numbers are good because of "what they have done", not the stupid beaches and volcanos.

A lot of People say Houston is ugly. In my opinion Houston was made ugly by its leaders, it doesn't have to be ugly just because their are no hills. I think the Woodlands is a beautiful area. It was beautifully developed and the forest is a big plus. If Houston has a whole had the right leadership from the beginning it would not have to be the endless development, none walkable place that it is.

I wasn't trying to imply that Houston was ugly and I don't think it is. It was to point out that SF has a huge advantage based on its natural setting. The natural environment of Houston does not provide it any advantage related to tourism, it is similar to any number of other Midwestern cities. However, SF has one of the most unique locations/settings in the world. There is nothing that city planning could have done or can do to change that.

I don't agree with your comments about Houston's growth though. The objectives of Houston's leadership were to turn it into a global economic powerhouse, not to make it a "walkable place". That growth was in large part based on offering companies and immigrants low land prices, housing costs, and minimal government intervention. None of those things are conducive to the city that you envision.

If you read up on how Chicago developed, you'll see that Houston is following a very similar pattern. Both cities grew economically first and the "quality of life" came later.

I think most of us are arguing that shorter buildings are better. Did you read?

 

It was a joke and yes, I do find it funny that development of a 39 story residential high rise in downtown has turned into "that's nice, but we would rather have"...

And sf kills us in tourism and perception, which is what this thread is about.

You apparently missed the part of my post where I discussed those things. SF will always kill Houston in tourism and nothing will change that. SF has a natural setting that is matched by only a couple of cities in the world.

Houston is handcuffed in perception by its close ties to the oil industry. A negative that is outweighed by the huge economic benefits that the region gains from that industry. The comparison is pointless.

Y'all sound like a bunch of fishermen. 39 story downtown development? Too small, throw it back...