Slick Vik

The number I've seen used for increased incidents of people who get asthma is 1000 yards and for people who already have asthma 2 miles is the distance for increased attacks.

so shade an area 1000' away from freeways. both with and without feeders. do a count of residences in the shaded areas.

You shouldn't even need to calculate the data to know that the number of residences in that shaded area is higher without feeders.

You're right though, whether you live next to a freeway with no feeder (20 yards from freeway shoulder), or next to a feeder (50 yards from freeway shoulder), or behind a big box store (500 yards from freeway shoulder), you have a higher likelihood of getting asthma, but in the locations with feeders, there are less residences in that area.

So yeah, it sucks if you have to live next to a freeway under any conditions, but feeders provide us all with an overall healthier society.

No, feeders provide for an overall healthier society.

sprawl is in every city that grew up with freeways, not just cities that grew up with freeways that have feeders. Sprawl is not going away. Density will improve in houston as mass transit improves, but sprawl isn't going away. Maybe if every car vanished over night.

Not sure how feeders provide a healthier society. They encourage people to drive, which means more cars, which means more air pollution.

Usually there is, but I agree it's not ideal when housing is close to the freeway. In CA, that is very common. In Houston, it's pretty uncommon. The feeder provides some spacing, and the usual commercial development provides even more in most cases. The most valuable use of land along a feeder is almost always commercial. If residential is there, it's often because of zoning (in places outside of Houston, like Bellaire with 610) or deed restrictions.

It's not just in bellaire. Much of 610 is like that actually in Houston city limits.

The buffer is the combination of feeder lanes plus the commercial development along the feeder, usually a big parking lot combined with a big box store or strip center (or office towers). The residential ends up at least a couple hundred feet from the freeway, which gets outside the worst of the pollution plume.

There isn't always commercial development between houses and the feeder.

I'll second all of that based on my time in OC. I also feel bad for all the houses pressed up close to the freeway in OC and CA in general. Yes, they may have a sound wall, but they're still getting the air pollution. One of my earliest blog posts was on the benefits of frontage roads, and one of the biggest is a commercial noise and pollution buffer zone between freeways and residential areas. That also makes expansions much easier with less opposition. Think about almost all of Houston's big fights over freeway projects, and it's where they go through residential areas (usually without feeders - like the 59 trench and 45N by the Heights). And then frontage roads also enable tons of businesses to get visibility they otherwise couldn't afford and they just make navigation a whole lot easier. Good backup alternative for construction and accident closures as well. They may not be beautiful, but they're incredibly functional.

http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/2005/08/sprawl-and-benefits-of-frontage-roads.html

Do you not think the houses just off 610 don't get air pollution because of 2-3 feeder lanes? The effects of immediate air pollution affect far beyond that. That's a bad argument.

The L.A. highways have barely been updated (sans maintenance issues and other modest improvements) in comparison to the Houston freeway system. I can see that their highways have many lanes, but they tend to have a "overbuilt for the 1960s" look like I-10 just inside the Loop. How many of their freeways have been demolished and rebuilt, like extensive construction projects to the Katy, Southwest, Gulf, or Northwest?

Screen shot 2015-11-10 at 7.44.00 AM.png

Of course, L.A. probably would have greater resistance to any freeway widening being California and all, so maybe rail does seem like the "only option". That doesn't make it actually the only option nor is success guaranteed.

What are we doing to our freeways besides adding more lanes? And many places don't believe in extensive feeder roads so that's no surprise. They probably just can't seize any more land so expansion is no longer an option, and realistically how many lanes can you build before reality hits? Should they double deck, triple deck? What is the limit? That's one of the most car oriented places on earth and they've figured out that they need rail. They're even converting bus ways to rail. It's only a matter of time in Houston until it hits its day of reckoning.

Enh, L.A. is building a large mass transit system, but it still looks to be an extremely expensive venture with dubious ridership (based on mass transit/total transit use of other cities). Besides, Los Angeles never upgraded its freeway system significantly, not like the level that Houston did, so it's unfair to say that L.A. is already maxed out on their freeway system, because they could improve it significantly.

Have you been to LA? Their freeways have been like our recent Katy freeway expansion for a long time, but still gridlock almost 24/7. They have no choice but to invest in rail at this point. And they're doing it as fast as possible. In fact there's an upcoming referendum to accelerate construction of new rail lines even more.

It'll eventually be redone when the density and transit use demands it, albeit it will be extremely costly.

Labor is a big reason, and land acquisition. But with oil dropping the latter price is decreasing

Settle down there Slick, the Westpark ROW is a wide piece of land. The original deal, if I recall correctly, was that METRO bought the original railroad and stripped it out to Eagle Lake in 2001 (most of it, at least). In my opinion, that was a mistake as they should've kept the Eagle Lake/Wallis segment to lease to freight operators and/or mothball most of the remaining parts for a potential rail line. METRO and HCTRA ended up splitting the ROW, which is why Westpark Tollway is so narrow and there's a large strip of ROW in between Westpark Tollway and everything else so that METRO could build some sort of rail-based transit later. This carries over into around Kirby, then narrows again.

In *theory* HOT lanes could be built on the Westpark Tollway while still leaving ample space for two-way rail (and maybe even a bike path too). Of course, building a (presumably elevated) HOT lane there opens up its own problems, such as the HOT lanes previously interfacing at Edloe, now that interfacing would be above Edloe and Westpark Road, which would force Westpark Road there to be grade-separated while the HOT lane access descends to earth to have a stoplight at Edloe, which would replace the elevated system currently over 59.

If the HOT lanes were redirected, then lanes could be opened up...which would be merged again as it approached the sunken area.

Being a cynic I see HOT lanes in west park an excuse to take away land for rail and open up another main lane on 59 as well

Settle down there Slick, the Westpark ROW is a wide piece of land. The original deal, if I recall correctly, was that METRO bought the original railroad and stripped it out to Eagle Lake in 2001 (most of it, at least). In my opinion, that was a mistake as they should've kept the Eagle Lake/Wallis segment to lease to freight operators and/or mothball most of the remaining parts for a potential rail line. METRO and HCTRA ended up splitting the ROW, which is why Westpark Tollway is so narrow and there's a large strip of ROW in between Westpark Tollway and everything else so that METRO could build some sort of rail-based transit later. This carries over into around Kirby, then narrows again.

In *theory* HOT lanes could be built on the Westpark Tollway while still leaving ample space for two-way rail (and maybe even a bike path too). Of course, building a (presumably elevated) HOT lane there opens up its own problems, such as the HOT lanes previously interfacing at Edloe, now that interfacing would be above Edloe and Westpark Road, which would force Westpark Road there to be grade-separated while the HOT lane access descends to earth to have a stoplight at Edloe, which would replace the elevated system currently over 59.

If the HOT lanes were redirected, then lanes could be opened up...which would be merged again as it approached the sunken area.

Being a cynic I see HOT lanes in west park an excuse to take away land for rail and open up another main lane on 59 as well

Popular opinion will also change more rapidly as traffic becomes more and more unbearable under the current transportation system.

Los Angeles is evidence of this

HOV with 2 lanes is a good, progressive step forward. Too many times there are accidents which snarl the lane. On top of that on average that particular lane doesn't reach its claimed speed even without incidents. This improves overall traffic flow.

As far as taking west park right of way for a freeway project NO NO NO. That is meant for a future rail line, freeway expansion is taking place all over the city and its absurd that its supporters totally ignore any potential benefits of good alternative modes of transportation. Leave that alone.

As far as congesting feeder lanes to keep the main lanes moving, it's about priorities. Evidently TXDOT wants to keep the freeway moving at the expense of the feeder. But I don't see bad frontage road traffic during off peak periods for the most part so that seems like an illegitimate fear.

Not a single incident of transgender bathroom assault in any city that's passed an ordinance, 220 and counting

More layoffs expected this quarter from noble energy and schlumberger and statoil and shell

I think in this context, it means on and off ramps, as that fits the analogy.

Even if it is a flawed statistic, it is known that more people=more efficient rail, but the way it stands in the South and West (maybe except the Bay Area), the job centers and density what they are means that rail will be generally inefficient. (If you came to the conclusion of "forcing density" to make rail work, congratulations, you've basically re-affirmed anti-rail's worst fears and polarized the issue further)

LA is pretty dense, and it's quickly expanding its rail system and possibly converting bus lanes to rail as well.

Also rail has been fairly successful in Seattle, Portland, and San Diego. Also other cities are expanding: Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Denver, in addition to the aforementioned Bay Area and Seattle.

There's a reason all these sun belt cities are expanding. But keep thinking you're smart and everyone else is stupid.

To me, rail in the South (and even West Coast) is like a bar in a supermarket that serves beer and wine by the glass. It's certainly only found in nice grocery stores (like Whole Foods though I think some regular HEB stores do it too) and I often wish there was one in my supermarket, but it's less important than other features, like having decent produce or a clean store. I'd be much less happy with it if it involved raising the prices in the store substantially, cutting selection, or otherwise compromising everything else, because I know it's not a necessity when grocery shopping.

And once again Slick, you've undermined your own theory in your goalpost-changing arguments as to how rail is always the answer (I find it frankly amazing that you pretty much are the personification of what philosophically anti-rail opponents think pro-rail people are like). You stated that "rail has to be in the right corridors", citing the abandoned railroad right of ways in Dallas. While I'm not sure if that's the actual reason (I would say that because of spread-out job centers, using a "spider web" from downtown is less effective than it should be), it undermines the argument of putting rail down the center of 288 (and I believe you did say something against rail paralleling 59).

But again, I'm not necessarily condemning the idea of tollroads or rail down 288 either way, I just don't like the idea that "we need rail", because as it stands, rail statistically won't help much in easing congestion (sorry), and it's not conducive to what public transit even stands for (transportation for the less advantaged).

What are you saying? Look at all the traffic that comes 288 into the medical center and downtown every day. If there was a fast rail service it would take cars off the road. And that's why certain politicians that are backed by special interest groups are hellbent against rail. Having as many cars as possible is in the best interest of car companies, oil companies, construction companies, concrete companies, and others. Notice the never ending freeway construction? It's been going on for more than fifty years. Would rail clear congestion probably not but it would have an effect for sure. This is what I'm saying if people are already traveling these routes putting a good rail system makes sense for a lot of people, not just low income. In fact saying public transit is for low income only is an excuse to make a crappy public transit system. Once it crosses over into the mainstream makes it a success to me.

And for all this talk about downtown being irrelevant as a job center why every day is traffic coming into downtown bad in the morning and bad in the evening? Evidently it's still very important in reality.

And your grocery store analogy is just nonsensical rambling.

I may just be poking the bear, so to speak, but while toll roads do in fact pay for themselves and more, they don't pay the car payments, and the vehicle maintenance, and the auto insurance, and the tanks of gas, and the registration fees, and the parking, and.... you get the idea--the numerous costs the taxpayer must bear themselves if they wish to use the toll road.

Comparing highways to railways without considering the various costs of the vehicle to use the pathway of choice, is the same as comparing renting versus buying a house without taking into account taxes and HOA fees.

How about doing a comparison of trip cost instead of "per mile" and consider vehicle expense to the citizenry as well?

This is a great point. About 100 years ago cars were considered a foolish investment because reliable public transit was so much cheaper. That's why in cities like Houston the oil/concrete/construction/car lobbies do anything in their power to keep things in their favor, because financially speaking for much of the population, purchasing and maintaining a car is not a good use of money. It's a never ending pit.

In the same thread, you "railed" about highway expansion projects, citing induced demand and how it just fills back up again. I've come to accept to accept this fact, but yet you support an idea of "No one uses our railroads, lets keep pouring money into it until something happens". How is this a better idea?

When did I say nobody uses our railroads? I think they should be built in the right corridors and not just on abandoned right of way. Of course if you build them where there's no demand nobody will ride. But a lot of time it's about getting free government money.

Delhi appears to be using 19 TBM's for tunneling, and cut and cover for stations.

I am not against rail per se, just against rail done stupidly.

I think it's more about economics than stupidity.

No, they aren't. The Lusail project will be cut and cover, the rest will be bored tunnels according to the project website

http://www.qr.com.qa/English/Projects/Pages/Tunnelling.aspx

Lusail is not a populated area, so cut and cover isn't disruptive.

Here's a story about one of the 21 boring machines being damaged by tunnel flooding http://dohanews.co/doha-metro-boring-machine-damaged-in-unexpected-tunnel-flood/

Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore. I can keep going. It may be disruptive but I would rather have a rail line built with cut and cover then nothing at all. Also boring is prohibitively more expensive.

Regardless you're against rail so it's just another excuse from you.

Auckland built 3.4km of rail, with about a third cut and cover, the rest bored. That's not much rail. Vancouvers mayor promised no more cut and cover, do I'm guessing it was not a popular construction method there.

Qatar's metro rail projects are all using cut and cover

Compare the taxpayer cost per person-mile moved - it's no contest. Recent Chronicle story said the new Tomball tollway is attracting twice the usage they predicted - freeways are popular, even tolled ones (which pay for themselves, unlike any rail project).

Freeways are a huge loser financially, per person mile moved is a clever statistic at best. Also when for almost 100 years the thought of decent alternative transit has been shut down in this city what do you expect? People are almost pressured into driving because it's what the power brokers made convenient. But it's only a matter of time before there's a reckoning like LA and people in power figure out they have to invest in more rail. There are only so many widening projects left, and even once they complete the freeway is just as full as it was before, totally pointless projects.

Well, Slick, you either proved my point or missed it entirely, but no, L.A. with its expanding rail system is not immune to this problem either. But then, to be fair, I realized that I didn't post the article, which shows, no, pouring billions of dollars of rail isn't going to work.

Link (hope it works, if not, try Googling for it)

I didn't miss the point, if you knew anything about LA's lines you would know that there is heavy expansion in progress, more than any other city in North America. It's a major undertaking and will have big effects when complete.

Highways are not going to be the answer in all cases (especially long term), but I'm getting really sick of this dogmatic "we must build rail like East Coast cities or we are failures" mentality. There was a recent article in the Houston Chronicle ("Kotkin, Cox: Light rail in the Sun Belt is a poor fit") that just seemed to prove an ugly fact--unless you're a Eastern seaboard, old-line "legacy" city, rail doesn't seem to work. Even Portland, San Diego, and L.A. have actually seen transit numbers decrease since rail was implemented.

Just because Gattis doesn't subscribe the popular urban theories du jour (like New Urbanism) doesn't mean he doesn't try to think of innovative solutions or that he's wrong.

Actually LA is investing heavily in rail and actually wants to accelerate projects, learning from mistakes of not investing earlier.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-train-to-lax-metro-sales-tax-20151007-story.html

Pretty much every major city in the world is investing in some kind of expansion/improvement rail project so there is something to be said for rail mass transit. This includes many sun belt cities.

I know I've heard they own the land. I guess when someone offers them a good enough deal, they'll take it. Until then, probably not, and where would they go that makes as much sense as where they are (from a connectivity to transit sense)? Sure, people in midtown may be afraid of the clients of greyhound, but that's not going to be enough to compel them to move.

Just ignore them and move on. A lot of people are just scared of blacks and Mexicans. Like quivering scared. It boggles my mind.

Which "important" cities are currently doing cut and cover? There's a reason London hasn't done cut and cover for over 100 years. It's very disruptive. Deep tunnels are a better choice.

Vancouver did it recently. Auckland New Zealand also

None of the London lines run through bedrock, it's mostly through clay type soils. The tunneling techniques used place the tunnel segments as the boring machine moves forward. Early tunnels used cast iron or steel segments, while newer lines use concrete. The cut and cover lines in London were built from the 1860's to the 1890's (approximately), and could not be built today due to the huge disruption of surface streets and structures.

If Houston were to build an underground, it would have to be reasonably deep, and carefully mapped to avoid the myriad of water and oil wells that exist here. Cut and cover tunnels would be hugely disruptive and expensive, and probably unacceptable to the majority of the population. Imagine Westheimer being closed for several years. I have no idea if train tunnels would have to respect surface property owners rights.

Lol cut and cover has and is being used in cities much more important than Houston. Westheimer is not champs elysees calm down.