mfastx

I've long maintained that Westheimer is the most suitable corridor in Houston for rail. Too bad it won't happen in my lifetime.

Amazing. Had no idea how beautiful the original facade was underneath that awful cladding. Classic Houston.

Obviously not surprising. LOL at pointing to weak ridership of the new light rail lines as evidence that the system shouldn't be expanded after essentially being responsible for the 2003 vision never being completed, which crippled potential ridership. Obviously the University line was by far the highest ridership and most rail worthy corridor in Houston after the original Red Line. This plan isn't perfect and it's a bummer that they gave up on rail on the west side of town, where it actually makes sense on some level. But there's lots of good things in the plan and Houston's transit could definitely stand to see major improvements. Unfortunately I probably see something similar happening to this plan as what happened in 2003, only a couple of projects end up happening in the end.

I thought the timeline was sliding because of NIMBYs and lawsuits?

Good to hear. I see the timeline is sliding a bit, hopefully they can actually start construction in 2020, and that it is successful and inspires other projects.

That is unlikely, they will run a schedule similar to LRT. Sure there are plenty of successful BRT lines and it's a fine transit solution. I'm in favor of it as I said. But BRT was better served on the east side lines with lower density and ridership potential. The west side corridors can absolutely support LRT, and it's a shame it won't get built that way because transit ridership would be greater had it been. Yup I'm aware, but was disappointed in Metro not being able to figure out a solution. Also wouldn't that law that Culberson passed still apply to BRT? I thought he prohibited "fixed guide way transit" being constructed on Richmond. Anyway, now that he is out of the picture Metro has no excuse to not try and go for the rail solution as originally intended. Instead they are expanding two lines to Hobby and further north.

I'm largely in agreement with most of your points but there's one thing I need to correct here: BRT is NOT as efficient or as good as LRT. It is significantly cheaper, sure. But on an operational basis, it generates less ridership, has less capacity and costs more per passenger to operate on top of all of that. It's an absolute failure of Metro to never have built the original University Line as LRT. It was promised to us in 2003 and was never built. It is by far the second best corridor for rail in Houston after the original Red Line. Just the University Line itself would have more ridership than the Red Line extension, Green and Purple Lines COMBINED. That was the one important line coming out of the 2003 referendum and they screwed it up. The original plan was to have the University and Uptown lines as rail and the east side lines as BRT. Now, all of that out of the way, despite my disappointment in the above, I would still vote yes on this plan. Reason being is that after 2003 it took nearly 20 years for Metro to develop another expansion plan. These projects won't all be completed until 2040 (assuming all projects get built which is quite doubtful). If this fails, who knows how long it will be until there is another opportunity to improve transit in Houston. While BRT for the west side lines is a disappointment, it is still a significant upgrade over what we have now. Rail to one of the airports is a win as well.

Great street level design, nicely done.

Eh, I think it looks good.

Lookin' spiffy!

Direct result of Culberson being voted out lol. Too little, too late though, too bad this didn't happen 10 years earlier. Richmond is one of the few corridors in Houston that absolutely warrants rail.

Strange to spend all LRT money on the east and north sides of town, when the much denser areas that actually support rail transit are all on the west side. Still, would be a nice improvement. Still waiting on that University rail line promised with the 2003 referendum...

For Westheimer, a subway would be optimal which is what I had in mind. Yes it'd be a lot of money but well worth it in the long run, next 100 years or so. The ridership numbers in the plan are just backwards, putting LRT (or optimally, HRT but I understand that is not realistic at this point) in those higher ridership corridors would bring even more ridership than BRT. The orignal plan on Richmond would work well too, that's wide enough for a surface line.

I'll always support transit improvements of any kind so on principal I do support this plan, but it's truly baffling the decisions they're making on where to put rail vs. BRT corridors. They're doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing, which is focusing rail on more dense corridors with higher ridership potential and BRT on less dense areas. It's truly mystifying and would be a massive misuse of money. What is the use of having TWO lines going to Hobby, take one of those lines and the north line extension and make it an east-west route along Westheimer or Richmond. Just makes too much sense I suppose.

I agree that it looks like it will end up being BRT, but if there's any corridor in Houston that's more appropriate for rail than BRT, it's the western corridors such as Richmond and Westheimer connecting Downtown and Uptown. Not at least trying for rail on these corridors would be a mistake as opting for BRT vs rail would limit transit ridership potential in the area.