METRORail Green Line

[samagon]

So you're telling me my bus drivers name is Jeeves and that smell is Connolly leather not butt-odor?

Luxury and choice? To describe public transit?

Are you mad?

choice is a luxury that we don't have, I'd never know what the bus drivers name is, nor what it smells like cause the bus doesn't run reliably on my street.

Of course I don't know what the name of the driver of the rail car is, cause we're separated by a big piece of glass, which is how I have it in my limo too, I don't want to see the driver, or hear him, or have to breath the same air as him! I just want him to open the door when I'm ready to debark the conveyance after he's spirited me to my destination. which works very well on the rail. Smell, now that's something different.

I'm only mad that in Houston our public transportation is craptacular.

Edited September 6, 2012 by samagon

[Slick Vik]

If your work is sedentary and your friends and family are forgiving of your scheduling challenges, body odor, and lack of passenger and cargo carrying capacity on your part, then I'd say that you have life pretty easy. Maybe "active lifestyle" wasn't the best descriptor on my part. Clearly you're getting a lot of exercise, so that could confuse people. How about "carefree", "luxuriant", "unbothered", "delightfully impractical". Pick your poison. Whatever the case, enjoy it while you can. I hope that you can appreciate that I envy your incredible luck and that you actually are special. The world shouldn't be built for people like you, though, because there are too few of you. It should be built for the masses, and private automobiles enable them.

What percentage of people in the world own an automobile? You sound like a GM plant.

The Paris Metro is excellent, the Tube in London is excellent, but they're not luxurious. I'll consider it luxury when my train car seats 4, smells like an English saddle shop, and accommodates my ever-changing schedule.

New York, Boston, Washington DC, Mexico City, Delhi, the list goes on and on.

[kylejack]

If your work is sedentary and your friends and family are forgiving of your scheduling challenges, body odor, and lack of passenger and cargo carrying capacity on your part, then I'd say that you have life pretty easy. Maybe "active lifestyle" wasn't the best descriptor on my part. Clearly you're getting a lot of exercise, so that could confuse people. How about "carefree", "luxuriant", "unbothered", "delightfully impractical". Pick your poison. Whatever the case, enjoy it while you can. I hope that you can appreciate that I envy your incredible luck and that you actually are special. The world shouldn't be built for people like you, though, because there are too few of you. It should be built for the masses, and private automobiles enable them.

122,000 households like mine in the metropolitan area, 6%. http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Papers/2011/8/18%20transportation%20tomer%20puentes/profiles/26420.pdf

That's just the 0 car households. There's plenty others that would benefit from alternate modes of transit when someone else in the household has the car.

[Slick Vik]

122,000 households like mine in the metropolitan area, 6%. http://www.brookings...files/26420.pdf

That's just the 0 car households. There's plenty others that would benefit from alternate modes of transit when someone else in the household has the car.

Think of what the numbers in an area where there is excellent transit, high tolls, high gas prices, and scarce parking.

[TheNiche]

122,000 households like mine in the metropolitan area, 6%. http://www.brookings...files/26420.pdf

That's just the 0 car households. There's plenty others that would benefit from alternate modes of transit when someone else in the household has the car.

Yeah, I'm betting that you'd fall into their high income bracket. So that means that yours is one of 13,478 high-income households without a car. That's 0.65% of households in the entire MSA, which is considerably larger and more populous than the METRO service area. Consider yourself more middle class? Fine. Throw them in, too, and you're as typical as 1.6% of all households in the MSA.

But that's not all. Let's take it another step. Let's look at downtown to see how special you are. Within downtown, the Census' LEHD program recognizes 151,408 people employed, of which 150,830 commute from outside of downtown. And of the 2,882 employed workers living in downtown, just 578 of them also work there. Your lifestyle (notwithstanding that your friends put up with your B.O., because the Census doesn't quantify how unusual that is) comprises 0.3% of your co-workers and an infinitesimally small fraction of Houston as a whole.

Let's look at the urban core, overall. I defined an area as far east as Spur 5, as far west as Sage Road, as far north as Center Street, and as far south as the South Loop in order to capture every major urban employment center and university in central Houston. There were 554,225 employed workers in this urban core of which only 48,031 also lived in the urban core.

Then let us consider that there are 2,530,059 people employed in the Houston MSA. So out of those, only 22% are employed in the urban core. Only 6% are employed downtown. And someone that works and lives downtown has to be accounted for with scientific notation (!) by the Microsoft Windows calculator, they're so unusual.

No. I don't think that we should be aspiring to reshape our metropolitan area to accommodate someone like you. You're special.

[kylejack]

Yeah, I'm betting that you'd fall into their high income bracket. So that means that yours is one of 13,478 high-income households without a car. That's 0.65% of households in the entire MSA, which is considerably larger and more populous than the METRO service area. Consider yourself more middle class? Fine. Throw them in, too, and you're as typical as 1.6% of all households in the MSA.

I'm confused about why you would want to limit analysis to just high income households. Transit benefits many people, especially low income households. It isn't just the riders, either. Transit options for those who can't afford or don't want cars allows employees to get to work at businesses where motorists want to shop/dine. Businesses can keep costs down if they're not having to pay employees enough to live on as well as the significant costs associated with buying, registering, insuring, and maintaining a car.

But that's not all. Let's take it another step. Let's look at downtown to see how special you are. Within downtown, the Census' LEHD program recognizes 151,408 people employed, of which 150,830 commute from outside of downtown. And of the 2,882 employed workers living in downtown, just 578 of them also work there. Your lifestyle (notwithstanding that your friends put up with your B.O., because the Census doesn't quantify how unusual that is) comprises 0.3% of your co-workers and an infinitesimally small fraction of Houston as a whole.

Which is precisely why transit route density and different modes should continue to be expanded to other neighborhoods. I am very fortunate to live in an area with a lot of buses and a light rail line going through it. A person with only one bus route passing through their area has far fewer options as to how to get around without a car.

[TheNiche]

I'm confused about why you would want to limit analysis to just high income households. Transit benefits many people, especially low income households. It isn't just the riders, either. Transit options for those who can't afford or don't want cars allows employees to get to work at businesses where motorists want to shop/dine. Businesses can keep costs down if they're not having to pay employees enough to live on as well as the significant costs associated with buying, registering, insuring, and maintaining a car.

Which is precisely why transit route density and different modes should continue to be expanded to other neighborhoods. I am very fortunate to live in an area with a lot of buses and a light rail line going through it. A person with only one bus route passing through their area has far fewer options as to how to get around without a car.

I think that the mobility of poor households is best served with buses and particularly private jitney services that can reach further into the nooks and crannies of our city that cannot effectively be served by fixed-guideway transit. A cost-effective alternative would be to subsidize private vehicle ownership by low-income households because reliable transportation is often a key factor preventing them from obtaining and keeping a job.

As for individuals that simply choose to be impractical, I have no particular desire to accommodate their impracticality. Public policy should not subsidize their whimsy, and especially not at the scale that you propose. METRO would be better off financially by buying people like you a Porsche to make you shut up and go away, I think, rather than try to accommodate you.

[Slick Vik]

I think that the mobility of poor households is best served with buses and particularly private jitney services that can reach further into the nooks and crannies of our city that cannot effectively be served by fixed-guideway transit. A cost-effective alternative would be to subsidize private vehicle ownership by low-income households because reliable transportation is often a key factor preventing them from obtaining and keeping a job.

As for individuals that simply choose to be impractical, I have no particular desire to accommodate their impracticality. Public policy should not subsidize their whimsy, and especially not at the scale that you propose. METRO would be better off financially by buying people like you a Porsche to make you shut up and go away, I think, rather than try to accommodate you.

I think you are living in an alternate universe. You've obviously never lived somewhere with an efficient transit system. Buses and jitney are not the answer unless you are in la la land on strong hallucigens.

[kylejack]

I am in favor of buses, jitney services, and rail, so it seems that we're in two thirds agreement.

I also endorse the giving me a Porsche proposal, but I don't think there's much chance of it being implemented.

Edited September 6, 2012 by kylejack

[Slick Vik]

I am in favor of buses, jitney services, and rail, so it seems that we're in two thirds agreement.

I also endorse the giving me a Porsche proposal, but I don't think there's much chance of it being implemented.

Don't forget bus rapid transit.

[samagon]

Which is precisely why transit route density and different modes should continue to be expanded to other neighborhoods. I am very fortunate to live in an area with a lot of buses and a light rail line going through it. A person with only one bus route passing through their area has far fewer options as to how to get around without a car.

And when that bus is late, or skips stops, basically is for all intents and purpose of usability is 100% unreliable, it isn't an option.

[kylejack]

And when that bus is late, or skips stops, basically is for all intents and purpose of usability is 100% unreliable, it isn't an option.

Yeah, I had a driver intentionally pass me up one time. There's no way he didn't see me waving at him. Such an asshole considering it was a +25 minute wait for me after that.

[TGM]

The luxury of rail travel.

I challenge you to stop by that area at 6:30am on a Saturday to breathe the air of luxury.

[kylejack]

I challenge you to stop by that area at 6:30am on a Saturday to breathe the air of luxury.

You might see people sitting on the sidewalk, oh dear.

[TheNiche]

I think you are living in an alternate universe. You've obviously never lived somewhere with an efficient transit system. Buses and jitney are not the answer unless you are in la la land on strong hallucigens.

Its easy to forget how many neighborhoods Houston has that are off the beaten track because those are the neighborhoods that we are least prone to experience for ourselves.

Take the Pleasantville neighborhood as an example. You'd hardly knew it existed if I didn't direct you to look it up. There is currently bus service directly into this low-density neighborhood. How would it be best-served in your universe?

Now consider Oak Forest, a sprawling close-in neighborhood that is better-known, higher-profile, and that is served by several bus routes. People know where the bus routes are, and the routes aren't going away or shifting to the next street over because it isn't physically possible. The routes may as well already exist on fixed-guideways for lack of alternatives. The area is very low-density, however, will always be low-density because it is deed-restricted, and is not inhabited by a population that is especially interested in riding transit. How would it be best-served in your universe?

On some level, there has to be a recognition that the economic costs and benefits of light rail in most of Houston simply won't add up. And perhaps, if buses so completely suck as has been suggested over and over, then there either shouldn't be buses at all or the money to be spent on light rail would be better off spent making buses not suck.

[TGM]

New York, Boston, Washington DC, Mexico City, Delhi, the list goes on and on.

None of which are luxurious as they are after all public transit.

lux·u·ry - a material object, service, etc., conducive to sumptuous living, usually a delicacy, elegance, or refinement of living rather than a necessity.

On a crisp fall morning I awake eager to hit the greens. I step into my garage and cast a glance at my DB5, Miura, Ghibli, 3.0CSL, and 600 Pullmen. Finding these to be rather unremarkable my butler grabs my golf bag and I trek 3 blocks to the closest Metro stop to wait for my bus to arrive and open its opulent door to me.

[luciaphile]

Among Jonathan Franzen's recently collected essays in "Farther Away" (the title story refers to the remote island of Masafuera to which he retreats to scatter David Foster Wallace's ashes) the best is called "The Chinese Puffin," after a golf club cover his Portland-dwelling brother has given him. He is not an avid golfer and at first doesn't even realize it is a golf club cover, but becomes attached to it nonetheless. His brother invites him to Oregon to play golf, and Franzen describes self-consciously (well, everything he does is done self-consciously) squeezing past the working-class riders on the Portland Metro (Tri-Met?) with his golf clubs in tow.

This is a shameless plug for Jonathan Franzen, whose nonfiction (not the novels!) I adore; and when he arrives in China the piece becomes very funny, and if you chance to be interested in the welfare of birds very, very sad. It first appeared in the New Yorker, which used to be easy to link to, but now it has a seemingly impregnable paywall.

Sorry. As you were, back to trains.

[Slick Vik]

Its easy to forget how many neighborhoods Houston has that are off the beaten track because those are the neighborhoods that we are least prone to experience for ourselves.

Take the Pleasantville neighborhood as an example. You'd hardly knew it existed if I didn't direct you to look it up. There is currently bus service directly into this low-density neighborhood. How would it be best-served in your universe?

Now consider Oak Forest, a sprawling close-in neighborhood that is better-known, higher-profile, and that is served by several bus routes. People know where the bus routes are, and the routes aren't going away or shifting to the next street over because it isn't physically possible. The routes may as well already exist on fixed-guideways for lack of alternatives. The area is very low-density, however, will always be low-density because it is deed-restricted, and is not inhabited by a population that is especially interested in riding transit. How would it be best-served in your universe?

On some level, there has to be a recognition that the economic costs and benefits of light rail in most of Houston simply won't add up. And perhaps, if buses so completely suck as has been suggested over and over, then there either shouldn't be buses at all or the money to be spent on light rail would be better off spent making buses not suck.

Buses can never not suck, but they should be feeders of a rail system, like the rest of the world figured out decades ago.

[TheNiche]

Buses can never not suck, but they should be feeders of a rail system, like the rest of the world figured out decades ago.

The rest of the world appears to have a debt crisis. I think it was just a fad.

But hey, if you can concede that even something that sucks has a place in a system then you've shown a willingness to compromise. And I can work with that. It's a slippery slope, so before you know it, I'll have you reading Ayn Rand novels and voting for Ron Paul.

[TGM]

It's a slippery slope, so before you know it, I'll have you reading Ayn Rand novels and voting for Ron Paul.

Yeah, but if you quiz him on her he'll tell you she writes books about trains.

Edited September 7, 2012 by TGM

[Slick Vik]

The rest of the world appears to have a debt crisis. I think it was just a fad.

But hey, if you can concede that even something that sucks has a place in a system then you've shown a willingness to compromise. And I can work with that. It's a slippery slope, so before you know it, I'll have you reading Ayn Rand novels and voting for Ron Paul.

Buses have a place in a transit system. They should come every 5-10 minutes 18 hours a day and cover the entire metro area. But they should feed into a good heavy rail and bus rapid transit system. But in comparison to both of those modes they are loud noisy and cause lots of pollution. The only advantage is they can go to closer to homes.

[samagon]

None of which are luxurious as they are after all public transit.

lux·u·ry - a material object, service, etc., conducive to sumptuous living, usually a delicacy, elegance, or refinement of living rather than a necessity.

On a crisp fall morning I awake eager to hit the greens. I step into my garage and cast a glance at my DB5, Miura, Ghibli, 3.0CSL, and 600 Pullmen. Finding these to be rather unremarkable my butler grabs my golf bag and I trek 3 blocks to the closest Metro stop to wait for my bus to arrive and open its opulent door to me.

Obviously you know nothing about being rich, everyone knows that you leave a set of clubs at each country club at which you maintain a membership, so you don't have to carry them on the bus with you. On top of which, your driver would drive you to the closest bus stop.

Buses have a place in a transit system. They should come every 5-10 minutes 18 hours a day and cover the entire metro area. But they should feed into a good heavy rail and bus rapid transit system. But in comparison to both of those modes they are loud noisy and cause lots of pollution. The only advantage is they can go to closer to homes.

exactly, Pleasantville should have a few buses (or just one) that circulate around to all the neighborhoods in the area and have a final destination of the rail station (or at least the park and ride location), where they can board and take it into the city.

Edited September 7, 2012 by samagon

[Slick Vik]

exactly, Pleasantville should have a few buses (or just one) that circulate around to all the neighborhoods in the area and have a final destination of the rail station (or at least the park and ride location), where they can board and take it into the city.

This is the ideal system

[TGM]

Obviously you know nothing about being rich, everyone knows that you leave a set of clubs at each country club at which you maintain a membership, so you don't have to carry them on the bus with you. On top of which, your driver would drive you to the closest bus stop.

The last time Jeeves left my clubs at Gus Wortham (public course) they ended up being used by the homeless to tenderize their squirrel meat.

[TheNiche]

Buses have a place in a transit system. They should come every 5-10 minutes 18 hours a day and cover the entire metro area. But they should feed into a good heavy rail and bus rapid transit system. But in comparison to both of those modes they are loud noisy and cause lots of pollution. The only advantage is they can go to closer to homes.

Yes, and that is a supreme advantage in a low-density city with effectively no geographic or political barriers to development and an unusually high proportion of blue collar employment.

Unless your precious light rail can take you back into geologic time and cause some volcanism to mold the Houston area into the lush mountain valley that the Allen brothers advertised, and perhaps also raise up Galveston by some natural circumstance so that it might have fulfilled its destiny as the 'Manhattan of the Southwest', then I'm afraid that you are squarely out of luck on this issue.

[TheNiche]

exactly, Pleasantville should have a few buses (or just one) that circulate around to all the neighborhoods in the area and have a final destination of the rail station (or at least the park and ride location), where they can board and take it into the city.

Yes, into the city...because Pleasantville isn't inside the city...and its vital that Pleasantville have transit so that these lower-middle class blue-collar workers can access a place with only one fifth of the region's jobs, of which they're unqualified for most. Oh, but never mind that. Raise their taxes, give them access by way of a geographically inconvenient transfer onto light rail, and then give yourself a pat on the back for making our city more "global".

If you want to help them live better, legalize jitneys and subsidize private automobile ownership, then curtail METRO services to their neighborhood.

[Slick Vik]

Yes, into the city...because Pleasantville isn't inside the city...and its vital that Pleasantville have transit so that these lower-middle class blue-collar workers can access a place with only one fifth of the region's jobs, of which they're unqualified for most. Oh, but never mind that. Raise their taxes, give them access by way of a geographically inconvenient transfer onto light rail, and then give yourself a pat on the back for making our city more "global".

If you want to help them live better, legalize jitneys and subsidize private automobile ownership, then curtail METRO services to their neighborhood.

Lay off the crack pipe niche. Light rail is good for a certain corridor but I'm more an advocate for heavy rail. This idea Houston is better than, um, every other major sized city on earth sounds absurd. We are headed for permanent gridlock if something isn't done.

[TheNiche]

Lay off the crack pipe niche. Light rail is good for a certain corridor but I'm more an advocate for heavy rail.

How would heavy rail help Pleasantville? On account of that Pleasantville is close-in (not even outside the loop), that heavy rail stops may not be convenient to it and might require that a bus actually back-track away from the city to reach one, and that a transfer to a mode that doesn't provide as frequent a service, I think that it'd probably be cheaper and more convenient just to bus them directly into town...if that's where they're headed in the first place.

Heavy rail only replaces P&R on managed lanes with something that is less flexible and inappropriate for a polycentric city. And moreover, by servicing the far-out suburbs, it actually provides additional impetus for suburban sprawl and private automobile ownership and use (because most people will drive to P&R lots). I know, I know...you want buses to connect everywhere. But consider the way that subdivisions have been laid out. The streets aren't laid out to accommodate someone's mile-long walk to a bus stop along streets without sidewalks and they aren't ever going to be. What's there is there, and it's still what is getting built.

We are headed for permanent gridlock if something isn't done.

That's right, as we become a really big city, we have to deal with really big city problems. Gridlock is among them, and there isn't anything we can do to avoid it. A mass transit system shall be as necessary just like sewers are necessary. But for now...we're only a moderately large city. We should build and cross the transit bridge when we get to it.

[samagon]

Yes, into the city...because Pleasantville isn't inside the city...and its vital that Pleasantville have transit so that these lower-middle class blue-collar workers can access a place with only one fifth of the region's jobs, of which they're unqualified for most. Oh, but never mind that. Raise their taxes, give them access by way of a geographically inconvenient transfer onto light rail, and then give yourself a pat on the back for making our city more "global".

If you want to help them live better, legalize jitneys and subsidize private automobile ownership, then curtail METRO services to their neighborhood.

Where do most of the people who live in pleasantville work? I'm guessing they work as longshoremen, or in a refinery along 225. In an ideal system, they could hop a local bus that would include the ship channel, or overlap another circulator that did get them to the ship channel. For those that work out along 225, they might have to take the rail into town, where they would hop another one back out down 225 and get off close to their refinery.

I know Houston isn't constricted as some places in Europe, but I think if you took a trip out to Munich and partook of their mass transit for getting to and from each brewery, cause that's what you should do when you visit Munich (and maybe take in the BMW museum, it's pretty awesome), you'd get a feel for how a complete system really works (so long as you don't go when they're on strike).

Edited September 7, 2012 by samagon

[TGM]

I think nothing short of Haussmann's Renovation of Paris will please the Thomas the train crowd. And why not when they hold the belief that their public transport plans trump private property rights.