cloud713

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Bids-received-for-downtown-post-office-5286134.php

wow, those DART numbers are extreme. (though to be fair, no one ever said this transit system would be profitable.. as i dont even think the NYC system is profitable) but to counter that, what about all the development those rail lines have brought to the area? there was an article recently about how over the last 10 years DART has attracted 7 billion dollars in development along its rail lines. one could say by having an extensive transit system in place, it makes your city more attractive to developers and potential new residents, driving more growth to your city. that 7 billion dollars is more than enough to counteract the 5.65 billion loss over 10 years in the profits vs operating costs. yes jobs are spreading out, but they are doing so along established corridors (for the most part), so rail could theoretically have stops at those job centers (if there are rail lines near/along those corridors, like Westpark, 290/Hempstead, and i10 would be, if they decided to put that planned rail down the middle of 10 that they strengthened the new bridges for). heh.. funny you mention that. i believe ive used "spiderweb" to describe my plan in this very thread. or maybe it was over in the ideal transit plan, but i completely agree. thats what the busses are for that are being taken off the highways with the rail system in place. all those P&R busses could be rerouted to spiderweb out from the rail stations into the surrounding areas, so that people dont have to find their own way or walk long distances, to get from the rail station to their final destination (or from their starting point). and yeah the ease of BRT to LRT conversion is why im fine with building the richmond/westpark (hopefully?) and uptown lines as BRT initially, since culberson is blocking LRT. i dont think HOV lanes should be used for commuter rail. i love the HOV system. i just think commuter rail would take all the busses and more of those commuters out of the HOV lanes, freeing them up for the expanding population increase we are having.. the HOT lane conversions already slowed down many HOV lanes apparently, with all the additional vehicles. it would be the same effect with the population boom, just slower, over a longer period of time. but its still going to happen, and i dont want our HOV system to be rendered useless (if that ever happens, then by all means im down to throw commuter rail lines down every HOV lane in Houston, lol).. and yeah, it would be nice to build rail when its needed, but by 1990 LA was far and away the largest city in the US without rail. just as before 2004 Houston was the largest city without rail.. its just more expensive to acquire the ROW in the future, so im all for acquiring that ROW now to reserve it for when its needed. but as arche pointed out, it takes years to build this type of stuff, so we need to technically start before its actually "needed". otherwise all the heavy traffic and lack of any alternative ways of getting around town is going to hinder our growth as the traffic/area becomes less attractive to potential new residents.

whattttt...... so they DID start construction of the tower in march like they said they would.. and early march too. they arent messing around.

NICE!! i was wondering about OPP and Embassy Suites when i looked through the first post. this model is unbelievable.. and i thought i was getting caught up with my fantasy transit map.. heh.

ah.. Fairfield the community (sorry, i had family driving back from Dallas today in the nasty weather and was thinking of the other Fairfield), i have rail extended out to the outlet mall/neighborhood there in my little fantasy plans. but beyond the Grand Parkway i dont see the point in wasting money to connect any further out. we might as well build a commuter rail to Beaumont (which i dont think we should do) if were going to build one to College Station. its a shorter distance than College Station, and the Beaumont metro is larger than Bryan-CS.

thanks for the very informative response. it is interesting to know that DART wont have much funding for expansion for the next 20 years (though Houstons not supposed to get more rail funding till 2025, according to that law last year, right?), but they have already built out their planned system, whereas Houston still has over 15 more miles to build before its original 5 line system plan is built out (a plan less than half the size of DART), and considering the Culberson mess with the other 2 lines, and the law we passed a year ago keeping METRO tax money from going to rail until 2025, by the time we get around to building the additional light rail, it will probably cost close to 200 million a mile.. or $3 billion total.. on top of the 2.5 billion or so weve spent for the first 3 lines. almost 6 billion for 40 miles of light rail. if the "initial construction cost estimates" you quoted were the total construction costs to build out DART, not just the balance they still have to pay, then they built a system over twice as large for over a billion dollars cheaper. i agree, i wouldnt of gone with DARTs approach to build where they hope future development will happen along the rail lines, instead of building where the people and the development already are, like METRO did with its first line. but they certainly were able to get it built much cheaper and in the long run will have a larger system with more destination options than our system could ever provide (unless we plan to add 100+ miles of commuter rail).. and btw, im not saying we need all of this commuter rail now, im saying we need to be planning for the future by reserving vacant ROWs and start acquiring additional ROW alongside current corridors [like alongside the Hempstead line, or the future Hardy downtown connector {acquiring ROW through land purchases or eminent domain can be the toughest part of building new rail}], like you are advocating. though i certainly wouldnt mind seeing a commuter rail line or two along certain corridors once METRO finishes the LRT system (of course by the time METRO finishes the university and uptown lines well probably actually need commuter rail). i agree not everyone works downtown, which is why there would be that stop at the extended uptown LRT spur from Northwest TC to Northwest Mall for people who work around Uptown, or for people to transfer over on to get to the University Line, or a particular bus route, to get to other nearby areas like Greenway/Upper Kirby. what makes you say 290 is the only viable corridor? i think Westpark would make a great starter commuter rail line. it would pass within half a mile from Westchase, hit the Hilcroft TC, have a stop at Post Oak/Westpark to transfer to uptown, and have a stop at Greenway/Upper Kirby, before ending at Wheeler Station, just a short LRT ride from downtown/museum district/medical center.. and i assume you meant Prairie View (or Hempstead?), not Fairfield (which is on i45, ~90 mi south of Dallas).. but i wouldnt waste the money double tracking the current Hempstead/Hwy 6 rail line all the way out to Prairie View/Hempstead, and especially not all the way to College Station. that would be 100 miles of commuter rail, compared to 26 miles running it from downtown (Post Office site/UH-D or Hardy yards) to Cypress. the largest population between Cypress and College Station is Hockley, with 23,000 people.. every other town between the two is less than 10,000 people. i just dont think its worth another 74 miles of commuter rail (or at least 740 million, at the conservative 10 million a mile estimate, not counting costs to acquire additional ROW) to connect a metro of less than 250,000 people, when we could use that money to connect larger populations (and destinations that are likely to be commuted to/from) here in Houston. how would a line from Sugarland get to downtown? the METRO study has the line ending at Fannin South station/TC. i guess it could jump over to 288 and run up the median to 59 (and over to Wheeler station?), but once you get to 59 there isnt really any available ROW to run rail into downtown. its about 12.5 miles from 90A/59 to Fannin South station. i think we all agree Houston needs more lanes of highway.. but most of us realize we cannot continue pouring concrete and asphalt until our highways all merge into each other and there is no land left for development/people to live. at some point we are going to have to start seriously considering alternate modes of transportation.

haha, learned something new today. yeah that retail space is pretty small.. i believe the ceiling is as tall as the space is deep. but as far as i know (or assume), Novare hasnt had any problems leasing out that retail space in the other SkyHouses, or else they wouldnt continue designating that space for retail in the new ones..

since i already had a big ass map sketched out i figured i may as well go ahead and add onto it (though my OCD forced me to resketch the center page after all the white out corrections..) heh, so here is the update. (everything is drawn to scale so the roads/corridors shouldnt be too hard to figure out) i added a couple commuter rail lines, (northwest Houston/the tracks that run near 249, and a trenched bypass/connector on the westside to connect the hempstead line to i10, Westpark, and 90A lines/avoid having to go into the city and transfer over on slow light rail), and then rerouted my Hobby line because i didnt like the fact it was taking up the only room for HOV on that portion of 45 (unlike i10 where there could still be 1 HOV lane in each direction, along with rail). it now goes down Mykawa/spur 5 and hits the Eastwood TC/end of the university line, and also hits the end of a slightly extended (half mile at the most) southeast line to where the train tracks cross at Griggs/Long, before continuing down Mykawa and finally over/east on Airport Blvd to Hobby. then a few more streetcars on the west and northwest sides, covering a few other densely populated areas (blue and light blue/grey on the population density map i posted a few posts up) that i had missed.. (the only blue area in the metro not being serviced by this system is in Greenspoint) and i added in streetcars in the Woodlands. (along with the Galveston streetcars, there would also possibly be a streetcar in Webster going down Nasa Parkway, past Nasa and on to Kemah, but thats outside of my map [i didnt continue the map down 45S because it would of gone on another 4 or so sheets of paper until it finally hit Galveston]) heres a close up of the inner city system..

id be interested to see a study where they have compared ridership on a line that was once BRT, but later converted over to LRT, to see if there is a noticeable difference in ridership between the two services. one would think the LRT would have a higher ridership, but it would be interesting to be proven wrong or that theres a negligible difference.

- does the highway hub and spoke system not work for getting people to other destinations besides downtown? i havent really seen any commuter rail system plans for Houston besides the fantasy/ideal ones on here, but most of those implement current rail or open corridors with available ROW. many of these transit lines would have stops/connect into the light rail system and other popular areas besides downtown. - i didnt notice anyone assume commuter rail would drive development downtown. especially since it would serve much more than just downtown, and lines like Westpark and 90A couldnt even go to downtown. - i look at Dallas' LRT to be more like commuter rail, in that it extends out to the suburbs, has fewer stops, and its own grade separate ROW throughout much of the lines. those 85 miles carry over 100,000 people. and many of DARTs lines were built through some rather desolate places in hopes to spur development, or else they would surely have a higher ridership. what do you mean they start in the suburbs, where do they go? into the city of course.. there are talks of possibly extending the uptown line to Northwest Mall.. if that happened, there could be a stop there, serving the uptown destinations. then there could be a stop where the rail line from Memorial Park (could be a future connector from the Hempstead line to the Westpark line and then down to the 90A line) hits the Hempstead line, northwest of the TxDot building, before continuing on to the Hardy Yards or Post Office site/UH-D. yes those transfers may add a little bit of time to take another form of transit to your final destination, but this whole commuter rail proposition would be planning for the future. when Houston has 10+ million people in 2040 traffic will be a ****storm and commute times will likely be at least double what they are today.

What's so fragmented when rail can have multiple stops? Downtown doesn't have to be the only stop... There could be one somewhere in the EC, one at the beltway/city center, one at memorial city, one at the transit center at 610/post oak, and then finally downtown.. Commuter rail can go as fast as 125 mph, plus with traffic it's sure to be faster (even only going like 60-80), even with the few stops. And if the rail replaced the HOT lanes on i10, or coexisted, it would provide a more attractive mode of transit than busses, more people would likely use the system. The problem now is they can't get to their destination from the HOV lanes without a car. the busses taken off the highway could be rerouted to spiderweb from the stations, so they would service more local areas around the stops

And I noticed you mentioned in another thread waiting on the bus is generally the longest part of the trip. Commuter rail is timely as it doesn't have to deal with surface street traffic, so you know when to expect the train, and thus are able to factor that into your schedule so you don't have to wait so long.

I agree mass transit generally serves more of the poor people. But taking first time visitors of our city through those decrepit areas seems counter productive to the impression we want to give of our city. Idk, the undesirable areas are a small concern. More importantly taking the light rail into the city from hobby would take 45 minutes or so. As long as some of the shorter flights.. A direct line down 45 and Broadway would be much faster. Or down Mykawa and then over on airport blvd.

Build rail so the transit is on a timely schedule and doesn't have to fight traffic on the streets like busses. Heh

THIS. completely agree with your posts in this thread.. waiting until traffic becomes that bad is extremely ill advised and would have adverse effects on our growth and economy. and like i pointed out, only 3 of the top 8 metros with commuter rail (by ridership) have bigger populations than Houston. even the Baltimore area (26th biggest city in the US, 20th biggest metro) has commuter rail.. huh.. Westheimer would be a great corridor for commuter rail? maybe a subway.. agreed rail could be built on HOV infrastructure. thats how i originally envisioned it years ago.. but i kind of like the HOV system, and it would operate even better with the busses taken out of the equation, so i figured ROW along existing rail lines for some corridors could be acquired instead. though i would put rail down the Katy tollway, leaving one HOT lane in each direction, and unfortunately/possibly take out the HOV on 45 from Broadway to downtown (well, as far as it goes towards downtown at least, and extend the rail to the METRO HQ station) for an express line to Hobby. light rail to Hobby would take quite a while to get into town/make transfers/ect.. plus a LRT extension from Palms TC would go through some undesirable parts of town that you wouldnt want to "showcase" to out of towners as their first impression of our city. thinking about it, its sad they dont leave available ROW or build a rail line alongside the Hardy extension into downtown, because north of 610 there appears to be room for a third line, where there are currently only 2, but south of 610 im afraid they might take up all of the potential ROW with the tollroad. i wish METRO planned long term and set aside more corridors in the past, like the Westpark ROW, for future commuter rail when its needed. because by the time its needed, if we dont have any ROW set aside it will be a ***** and a half to acquire new ROW from whoever/whatever is developed along the corridors.

completely agreed. though maybe if they felt too much other office space was being developed they would go with a residential approach and keep the fins/newly repurposed balconies? heh.. ive always dreamed of them keeping the mid century modern design and converting it to residential.

thats interesting.. where did you hear that?

i agree about the DART mistake. but why dont you see us building commuter rail after university and uptown lines? that seems like there wouldnt be a better time.. the inner city system would finally be built out as envisioned (granted, IMO we need streetcars in some populated/dense areas to extend the "last mile" reach of the light rail).

i count at least 8 (unless you arent counting NJ and NY as separate.. you did say metro i guess). top 8.. (keep in mind 5 of the 8 are metros with lower populations than Houston) NYC Chicago (NYC again.. different rail operator) NJ Boston Philly San Fran/San Jose LA Baltimore the one i find most impressive is Caltran in San Francisco/San Jose.. 77 miles of track, moves over 47,000 people a day.

i agree for the most part. and let me be clear.. i dont think we actually need commuter rail down all of the corridors i mentioned. i was just saying theoretically with the amount of money weve spent on light rail, we could of built commuter rail (at 10 million a mile, which was pointed out to be a flawed assumption) to all of those places. i would however not mind seeing commuter rail down Westpark (and a couple of the other routes), to take busses off that narrow/congested tollroad, and put that expanse of ROW along the south side of Westpark to use. it would be the easiest commuter rail to implement (unless we were able to convince a railroad company to somehow integrate commuter rail into their cargo schedules, though most of those lines are at capacity as someone mentioned.. maybe the 90A line?) i disagree however that there arent enough potential transit riders that far out. Houston has almost 4 million people living outside the city. if they were able to reroute the busses that were taken off the roads by rail, to spiderweb outward from each station to serve the local areas so that people were within "walking distance" of the busses, and thus the train stations, it may help boost numbers. also its a pretty common notion that trains are more appealing than busses. not to mention the whole "reverse white flight" phenomenon thats predicted to happen in the coming decades as the inner cities gentrify and home values go up, forcing the poor out to the suburbs.

where did you find the park and ride number? that seems pretty low. especially considering how much higher the total bus ridership is.

Great points.. You'll have to forgive my wild ramblings. I've been sketching out a fantasy transit map recently and have been implementing different modes of transportation. When I did some research on the costs I was stunned at how cheap commuter rail is. You're right, a lot of the lines would need additional ROW for commuter rail, and/or possibly need to be trenched, which would be a good deal more than 10 million a mile but the Westpark corridor up to Montrose wouldn't need new ROW. I hope METRO is serious about the 90A proposal. It's kind of sad we don't have a single mile of commuter rail..

who owns the plot of land just north of Palmer Episcopal Church, between Main and Fannin, just north of TMC? a residential highrise in that location would be ideal IMO if it isnt planned to be another hospital.. easy access for both doctors and professors. or rich Rice students i suppose. and great views of Rice and Hermann Park.

why doesnt Houston have commuter rail? it only costs ~10 million a mile, vs 100 or so million for light rail. we have spent over 2 billion on light rail over the last decade.. with that amount of money we could have built over TWO HUNDRED miles of commuter rail.. that would be enough track milage to build rail to Conroe (Hardy), Galveston (Highway 3), Highway 6 (288), Rosenberg (90A), Kingwood (Hirsch/494), Willowbrook/1960 (the rail line that eventually parallels 249), Cypress (290/Hempstead), Katy, and down Westpark.. i understand the importance of having a core/base system (light rail), but now that we have (almost) 3 lines built out (and in a couple years an uptown BRT line), we have something to work with/transfer to when the commuters get into the city, so i think its time to start looking at building some of these commuter rail lines. traffic is bad and only going to get worse as millions more people move to the area.. at what point do we finally say enough is enough, its time for an alternative?

speaking of large tracts of land.. whats up with the property on the beltway between Westheimer and Richmond? Meadowglen Ln runs right through it.. the property with a 4 story apartment complex in the middle of the lot but other then that it has been sitting undeveloped (albeit with roads on the property). sorry to get off topic, i didnt want to start a new thread just to ask about it.