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METRO Next - 2040 Vision


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16 minutes ago, wilcal said:

 

Awesome maps, was really considering doing that myself.

 

I really want to think that they'll at least run some service on the weekend, but maybe not. At least some multi-stop service like they run during the day instead of non-stop P&R level of service.

 

 

 

I think they've said they plan all-day and weekend service

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  • 2 weeks later...

New Houston Chronicle article yesterday:

Houston’s long-range transit plan could go to voters without some specifics

Quote

At a board workshop Thursday, officials agreed a proposal to add light rail along Washington Avenue to downtown came in too late for inclusion in the first round of transit projects. Meanwhile, Metropolitan Transit Authority officials said it was premature to make a decision on a preferred extension of train service from the East End to Hobby Airport.

 

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2 hours ago, The Ozone Files said:

 

I don't even understand how it can be legal to ask for millions of dollars/funding without giving at least two or three projects that will get done with the half the money asked for. 

 

It just sounds like the MTA Officials have to fight off people coming at them from every angle, and are taking the path of least resistance out. 

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As long as the ballot item makes it clear what isn't decided yet ("light rail extension to airport" as opposed to "light rail down [corridor] to airport") then I don't see it as a problem.  For most people voting on it, the connection to the airport is the important part, not the exact route.  The exact route will determine how successful it is but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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1 hour ago, cspwal said:

As long as the ballot item makes it clear what isn't decided yet ("light rail extension to airport" as opposed to "light rail down [corridor] to airport") then I don't see it as a problem.  For most people voting on it, the connection to the airport is the important part, not the exact route.  The exact route will determine how successful it is but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I agree, thats fine. But come post-ballot, when it succeeds (because it hopefully will), they better have a plan ready to go. I don't want to see any of these "maybe this route, maybe that route, let's do 30 open to the community meetings." Coming Q4 2025: Hobby Airport Rail!  Sorry, that article and the wishy-washyness of the officials left a bad taste in my mouth.


I've driven by Uptown's development almost everyday for years. I understand a different authority did this, but if Uptown BRT can go up as quickly as it has, and shutdown as massively important a street the way that it has, then MTA has no excuse for being wary about shutting down random parts of broadway or telephone road or monroe or whichever street.

 

As someone who has lived near gulfgate/hobby for significant portions of their life, I can say with 1000% certainty that Rail would transform that area, and people would absolutely use that train. Many of those immigrants can't afford cars, or their cars are shitty, and this would be perfect to take them to and from Gulfgate depending on the route chosen, maybe drop them close to the airport so they can do shopping in South Houston. People will find a way to make public transit work.

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1 hour ago, X.R. said:

 

I agree, thats fine. But come post-ballot, when it succeeds (because it hopefully will), they better have a plan ready to go. I don't want to see any of these "maybe this route, maybe that route, let's do 30 open to the community meetings." Coming Q4 2025: Hobby Airport Rail!  Sorry, that article and the wishy-washyness of the officials left a bad taste in my mouth.


I've driven by Uptown's development almost everyday for years. I understand a different authority did this, but if Uptown BRT can go up as quickly as it has, and shutdown as massively important a street the way that it has, then MTA has no excuse for being wary about shutting down random parts of broadway or telephone road or monroe or whichever street.

 

As someone who has lived near gulfgate/hobby for significant portions of their life, I can say with 1000% certainty that Rail would transform that area, and people would absolutely use that train. Many of those immigrants can't afford cars, or their cars are shitty, and this would be perfect to take them to and from Gulfgate depending on the route chosen, maybe drop them close to the airport so they can do shopping in South Houston. People will find a way to make public transit work.

 

FWIW, they've been planning/working on the Uptown BRT project for more than 6 years.

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On 6/28/2019 at 11:25 AM, X.R. said:

As someone who has lived near gulfgate/hobby for significant portions of their life, I can say with 1000% certainty that Rail would transform that area, and people would absolutely use that train. Many of those immigrants can't afford cars, or their cars are shitty, and this would be perfect to take them to and from Gulfgate depending on the route chosen, maybe drop them close to the airport so they can do shopping in South Houston. People will find a way to make public transit work.

 

You're kidding right? I can't tell if you are being sarcastic?

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26 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

You're kidding right? I can't tell if you are being sarcastic?

 

I'm not...kidding? If they ran it down telephone road to get to hobby, that would be great. Theres a ton of business popping up over there (mostly asian/mexican food and coffee), and the street is pretty wide so it could make room for el tren. 

 

And the Uptown BRT did take six years, which makes me sad. Hopefully, the expansion could go faster since they don't have to deal with the multiple lawsuits, applications for injunctions, and demand letters that Uptown had to beat along the way. I think (?) there is still an open lawsuit for the money a few of those businesses supposedly lost. 

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I see. Let's say you're 1000% certain el tren will transform that area for the better, dare I say it, gentrify the area. How would that help the immigrants who now have the burden of increased rents in their more gentrified neighborhood because of your "tren." 

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14 hours ago, X.R. said:

 

I've thought about gentrification in that area, but I also want to keep this short, so DM if you wanna talk about the area. The spirit of the people who live there should be celebrated: you got newly immigrated people and their kids, mom and dad working multiple jobs to provide a better life than they had all the while instilling a love for family and their heritage. Gulfgate/Hobby/South Houston is my favorite part of Houston, I love it, I grew up there, and to me its what Houston is all about.

 

But the area is transient. The group of people who live there now aren't the same group of people from five years ago even. As soon as the parents make more money, or in my case the kids started to help out, you move out. We aren't the wards that have 50+ years of the same families living there. So whats there to gentrify? And if you're a homeowner in that area, you finally will have access to something you never thought you would/part of the American dream: property that appreciates, and maybe can be sold so you can move to a better neighborhood. The schools objectively are terribad, sometimes you'll wake up to your car on cinderblocks or the car is just gone, and you shouldn't be in the parks after 7pm-ish. Most people who live there know it and will move to Pasadena, Pearland, Clear Lake, etc at first chance. I've realized I can love the area and still understand it has deep issues. I think public transit would help so much with saving money, and finally, finally open that area up to the rest of Houston who I feel largely sees it as just the area they have to drive through to get to Hobby.

 

And what will immigrants do with more white neighbors? What we always do, which is work, survive, and do the best for the families. 

 

 

Interesting. Thank you for your observations. My question was more about rail and increased rents. Also, you make it seem as there is no public transit available now? Do you not count the bus as public transit? What about uber? Taxi's? 

 

Also, personal antidotes aside, the trend in sunbelt cities is that increased rents are causing people, including immigrants to leave urban areas. From yesterday's wall street journal:

 

Quote

After several years of surging urban growth, Apex and suburbs like it now account for 14 of the 15 fastest-growing U.S. cities with populations over 50,000, according to the census. Millennials priced out of popular big cities are flocking to Frisco, Texas, Nolensville, Tenn., Lakewood Ranch, Fla., and Scottdale, Ga.—not exactly household names but among the fastest-growing destinations in the U.S. 

“The back-to-the-city trend has reversed,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, citing last year’s census data.

Millennials, the generation now ages 23 to 38, are no longer as rooted as they were after the economic downturn. Many are belatedly getting married and heading to the suburbs, just as their parents and grandparents did. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-suburbs-swell-again-as-a-new-generation-escapes-the-city-11561992889?mod=hp_lista_pos2

 

Everywhere Metro's light rail has been built, rents have gone up. This may change that area indeed. Wouldn't it be better for the people in that area to get better bus service instead? 

 

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3 hours ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

 

Interesting. Thank you for your observations. My question was more about rail and increased rents. Also, you make it seem as there is no public transit available now? Do you not count the bus as public transit? What about uber? Taxi's? 

 

Also, personal antidotes aside, the trend in sunbelt cities is that increased rents are causing people, including immigrants to leave urban areas. From yesterday's wall street journal:

 

 

Everywhere Metro's light rail has been built, rents have gone up. This may change that area indeed. Wouldn't it be better for the people in that area to get better bus service instead? 

 

 

You bring up great points. The rent/land value will probably go up, given a few years of the rail being established. I think that the ability for the businesses in that area, most of which are mom and pop and non-franchise stuff, to reap the benefits of potential clients is at least something to consider as a potential positive in comparison to the higher rents. And you are right, there are bus stops there now, but, imagine not having to sit under a bad bus stop's awning but instead being able to walk to a train station with the kids to take them to downtown to a park, or further down towards hobby to see the grandparents. I admit its a selfish desire, and maybe others don't share that opinion. To me, it's a balancing act, the business increase/potential QOL increase vs potential land/rent increase, and one that hopefully comes out in the neighborhood's favor. If we go bus route, which is absolutely a possibility, it has to be well lit, clean, and not run-down. Make people feel safe at 8pm on a Saturday to use it. So give them Uptown BRT type spots, with maybe BRT running the same route, and I think you're on to something. That consistent connection, that same route, is key I would think. Actually, a great idea.

 

Taxis work great, and they take cash; you're right too, you see a ton of them in that area. Ubers/Lyfts are kind of expensive, plus they come with requirements: a phone that can run the app, credit cards for payment, and easy access to email accounts to run your account. I dunno so much about that.

 

Given that other suburbs get so much more attention, how crazy is it that potentially the first suburb to get rail is this one (assuming its voted on, and built). It'll be interesting for sure. And hey, if my millennial brethren can't find houses in "urban" areas, we got some 80k+ houses out here for sale. Theres a giant HEB, and they have market pop-up stuff on Saturdays, a home depot, best buy, whataburger, chinese buffet. Everything everyone wants when they live in other areas. 

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  • 1 month later...

It looks like this is going to be the plan that they are going to move forward with

 

https://www.metronext.org/pdfs/metro-moving-forward.pdf

 

ckkjmq8.png

 

It looks like the Green line will join up with the purple line at Park Place and Revellie, and there will be a new TC at Park Place

 

Something I didn't notice from the new bus network in 2015 is they got rid of the Gulfgate transit center.  It seems none of us noticed, since there isn't a thread like this is of the Heights transit center.

 

This transit center was only 10 years old - I found a thread from when it was being built 

 

It used to have the 5, 36, 88 (side by side map) go to it, but now only the 76 (which goes down Revellie) even goes past there, so I guess the Transit center was useless.  When it was built, it was planned to be a stop for a light rail eventually, but I guess it's not happening no, what with a new Park Place TC

 

The other thing is the New Kingwood park and ride - that seems like it will increase traffic on Kingwood Drive, since instead of 50 people going to a centrally located Park and Ride for each bus, you'll have 50 people drive down Kingwood drive to the park and ride for each bus

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15 minutes ago, X.R. said:

Wow at all those purple BRT lines. They better hope Uptown BRT isn't a dumpster fire of non-use (although, it has done ALOT of how pretty Post Oak is now). 

 

I see the Uptown BRT mainly succeeding as a work commuter option. Terminating at major park and ride stations on I-10 and 59, it provides a traffic free way to get in and out of Uptown, fixing one of the major complaints about the area.

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20 hours ago, cspwal said:

The other thing is the New Kingwood park and ride - that seems like it will increase traffic on Kingwood Drive, since instead of 50 people going to a centrally located Park and Ride for each bus, you'll have 50 people drive down Kingwood drive to the park and ride for each bus

 

Local coverage: http://www.ourtribune.com/headlines/22361-metro-proposes-moving-kingwood-park-and-ride.html

 

It's moronic and no one knows where Metro came up with it. Their basis of wanting to move it is because the current P&R location flooded during Harvey.

 

Wellll, the freaking highway flooded too, so the proposed location somewhere along 59 would be worthless.

 

Also, evidently a good number of people that live in the front portion of Kingwood just drive to the Townsen P&R location. 

 

I think that there is a 0% chance that this happens. 

2 hours ago, cspwal said:

While it is basically by itself, the uptown BRT will just be for commuting.  Once it connects to other BRTs it should be an option for people going to the Galleria

 

I really think that they should combined the I-10 BRT with the Galleria BRT line. That way you can one connection from the red/green/purple lines and other BRT lines ending in downtown (lika IAH) to the Galleria. 

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1 hour ago, cspwal said:

Hopefully they will keep that open as an option on both ends - I could see having a route that goes just from Wheeler to NW transit Ctr  and back

 

That would be amazing and I don't see why it wouldn't be doable. No transfer and then hov on I-10 to quickly get between Downtown and Uptown. And there aren't really any fast options between Uptown and the Med center/museum district right now. This proposal would make it one transfer, hov-ing on 59 and then LRT. Add some metro police to Wheeler station and it's golden.

 

EDIT: Actually, the I-10 route should be it's own lane, not shared with HOV, right? So if they do this, then it's literally a traffic free option between Downtown and Uptown.

Edited by paul2834
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7 minutes ago, paul2834 said:

 

That would be amazing and I don't see why it wouldn't be doable. No transfer and then hov on I-10 to quickly get between Downtown and Uptown. And there aren't really any fast options between Uptown and the Med center/museum district right now. This proposal would make it one transfer, hov-ing on 59 and then LRT. Add some metro police to Wheeler station and it's golden.

 

That would honestly be amazing. If I could trade the 20 mins (no traffic) to get to Uptown from Med/Museum District and then the 10 mins to find parking (but still worrying about not drinking) for 35-40 mins of transit I would vote for that in a heart beat. For weekends, I could see the Galleria just being absurdly full if that happened. The nice thing is that those who live on Blalock and further down towards Memorial Mall now have the reverse; what used to be a 30-40 min drive for them to the museums or Hermann Park with sometimes painful parking situations all of a sudden has a relatively simple transit option. 

 

Also, if you link everything from the Wheeler station to Uptown, now all those downtown Hotels have a way to get to Uptown too. This almost makes too much sense for Houston. 

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What they could do is have the Uptown BRT line go from NW transit center to Wheeler with a frequency of every 8 minutes, and then the longer line marked blue on the map have a frequency of every 8 minutes, which would give really high frequency service through the inner loop - a BRT coming every 4 minutes that takes you to Montrose, Greenway, Upper Kirby, etc.  I'd imagine two seperate lines (gold and blue):

Gold Line

Eastbound to Wheeler TC

Westbound to Northwest TC

 

Blue Line

Eastbound to Tidwell TC

Westbound to Westchase TC

 

If they still want to do the line from Bellaire to uptown (the little gold stick on the map) it would have to be a separate line, but you could use that to keep the frequency up on Post Oak Blvd

 

The great thing is that once you make the busways and the stations, you can change all this relatively easily

E2qZiuQ.jpg

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8 hours ago, wilcal said:

I really think that they should combined the I-10 BRT with the Galleria BRT line. That way you can one connection from the red/green/purple lines and other BRT lines ending in downtown (lika IAH) to the Galleria. 

 

They will be connected. The Uptown BRT line will go through the Northwest Transit Center and then run east towards downtown along an elevated busway that METRO and TxDOT are designing right now.

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2 hours ago, cougarpad said:

Don't forget about connecting the Washington and Uptown BRTs to the highspeed rail station at the old Northwest Mall. TCHR is reporting that they are on pace to break ground in the next year. 

 

Riiiiiiiight. I'll believe that when I see it. That date has been pushed back so many times. 

 

Will a full connection make sense, or would it be better to have it as a stub with it's own bus or two? Basically, how much extra time would it take if you were doing Galleria to Downtown.

 

I'm not against the idea unless it's less than 8-10 minutes. 

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10 hours ago, wilcal said:

 

Riiiiiiiight. I'll believe that when I see it. That date has been pushed back so many times. 

 

Will a full connection make sense, or would it be better to have it as a stub with its own bus or two? Basically, how much extra time would it take if you were doing Galleria to Downtown.

 

I'm not against the idea unless it's less than 8-10 minutes. 

The proposed high-speed rail station is supposed to be only a couple of blocks from the Northwest Transit Center. The Uptown BRT would only need to be lengthened a short distance north. The schematics that I have seen for this new Metro plan have the BRT accommodating for this.

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