livincinco

I think that it's relevant to point out that MARTA has had a lot of issues with declining ridership over the last decade and has had to elimiate planned rate increases for 2013 and 2014 because of projected impact on ridership. I attribute a significant amount of those issues to the low percentage of jobs in the CBD, similar to Houston. I really don't see anything that indicates that MARTA has done anything to minimize congestion or sprawl either. The most recent data I could find on percentage of jobs in the CBD were 2010 census numbers that show Atlanta at 7.1% and Houston at 6.9%. By means of comparison, the most successful rail cities are as follows: New York - 22.1% San Francisco - 14.4% Chicago - 11.4% Washington - 13.1% Boston - 10.7% Also, I do think that it's relevant to point out that a large percentage of transit oriented development is subsidized by government incentives similar to what is happening in Houston. A perfect example of this is Atlantic Station which is one of the biggest examples of transit oriented development there. Development at Atlantic Station was heavily dependent on the development of the Atlantic Station Tax Allocation District which provided government incentives to back the TOD that occurred there. Very similar in pattern to the current residential growth that's happening in Downtown Houston. I do tend to think that the impact of fuel prices is not going to be as dramatic as is generally imagined by transit advocates due to increases in government mandated CAFE standards. Don't forget that US standards for 2025 vehicles is 54.5 mpg which is an approx. 60% increase from 2012 standards. It's very reasonable to expect that there will be a continued shift to smaller, fuel-efficient (hybrid) cars during the next 10-15 years which will mitigate the impact of fuel price increases that are going to occur in the same time period.

Having lived in both Houston and the Bay Area, I have to say that the lack of willingness to promote itself is one of the things that I have found refreshing about Houston. In general, my take on the Bay Area was that people were generally very conscious of their image and the perception of others. By comparison, I have found Houston to be much more conscious of actions and results.

The Red Line had an increase of approx. 2,800 average weekday trips in March 2014 v March 2013, I think that's a more accurate number than the approx. 4,000 daily boardings that has been publicized. Probably highly likely that the decrease of approx. 1,200 on the previously existing stops is due to people that shifted their boarding location as new stops became available. The official projection for ridership of the University Line is 32,100 average weekday trips in 2020 and 49,000 average weekday trips in 2030. http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/TX_Houston_University_LRT_Profile_FY_2013_final_pdf.pdf

So what? You just identified seven out of the 52 major metros. You provide no data regarding ridership and cost and this has nothing to do with whether subways are possible in Houston. Just because something is getting built doesn't mean it makes sense.

I think that it's important to point out that LA is financing this project primarily through local sales tax revenue and they are able to do so because they have the highest transportation sales tax in the United States. That tax was passed even though it required a 2/3 majority. Federal and state money is less than 40% of the total that is going to be spent on the subway extension METRO gets approx. 50% of the sales tax rate that is designated for transit in Los Angeles and I question whether there is sufficient support for an increased sales tax in Houston. METRO has squandered a lot of goodwill through their mismanagement of finances in the past. Incidentally, LA didn't support transit until it got far bigger than Houston is today. The first rail line in LA opened in 1993 and the population of LA county was 9.2 million at that time. (By comparison, the current population of Harris County is 4.3 million).

Actually, my response is that they have poor ridership and are losing huge amounts of money. We've reviewed the example of DART multiple times to that end.

That's kind of the rub with "walkable urbanism". Great idea in concept, but generally ends up pricing out the middle and lower class.

I think that we're starting to divert from the topic, but would be happy to discuss on an appropriate thread.

Downtown, Uptown, and TMC are the only locations that I think could have arguably made sense to do underground in Houston, especially if downtown could have been directly connected to the tunnel system. I disagree with you on the others and even the ones I've listed would only make sense in limited areas. I've pointed out several times the coorelation between transit ridership and greater than 10k and 25k/sq mile density and since no one has questioned that, I'm staying with it. Look at density inside the loop with those numbers in mind.

I don't think that whether light rail spurred development was really the question. The question is whether it spurs proportionate development to the cost and that is very much an open question. The downtown residential incentives cost about $15 million to date and I would suggest that they have generated more development than light rail has for considerably less money.

Interesting study if a little out of date. (note - Cape Town's BRT has seen some significant ridership increases since this article was published). I was a little surprised though how difficult it was to find exact information on the extent of the program. It looks like the three trunk lines (and at least some of the feeders) were constructed for $450 million, but I don't know the total amount of mileage that was built.

There is a very high coorelation between transit usage and density. If density is below 10,000/sq mile usage is very low. Usage starts to increase above that point, but doesn't really take off until density gets to 25,000/sq mile. I'm not arguing that there are some pockets of moderate density in there, but large parts of the proposed line are well below those density levels.

Thanks. I missed that METROs fiscal year starts in October. I'll break out the Q2 numbers later.

It's a really interesting question and one that would make for a fun discussion. Fully agree that prices will likely continue to increase over time (it's currently comparable to historical price peaks when adjusted for inflation), however given current known supplies, a gradual rise seems more likely than spikes. I agree that continued increases will make other energy sources more attractive as prices continue to rise. (Shell predicts that the last gasoline fueled cars will be produced in about 2070). The key for Houston though is that the petroleum companies are the best positioned to take advantage of the rise of alternate fuels. Whether they are able to do so is a completely different question. MODS - can I suggest that we pull this to a different thread?

METRO has reported their ridership numbers for Q1 and they are reporting that net ridership for METRORail has increased by 6.8% YTD (total, full system comparison). The North Line recorded an average of 4273 weekday boardings, but that was offset by a decrease in ridership of 1680 on the Red Line (possibly existing transit users that changed their boarding station). The result is that the net increase of average daily weekday boardings YTD is 2,593 vs LY. For reference, the parallel bus lines (24 and 56) have seen a combined decrease of 649 average weekday boardings vs. LY (possibly existing transit users that have switched modes.) http://www.ridemetro.org/News/Documents/pdfs/Ridership%20Reports/2014/0314_Ridership_Report_FY14.pdf

The highest recorded throughput volume of an active brt system is 37,700 passengers per hour per direction. The projected ridership of the University Line in 2030 is 49,000 average weekday boardings. http://www.acea.be/uploads/publications/20th_SAG_HR.pdf (pg.16)

There seems to be a lot of discussion about the LA costs of $1 billion/mile. Keep in mind that is a pre-construction estimate,very few government infrastructure projects of this magnitude come in on budget. Expect actuals to run higher.

We're just going to have to respectfully disagree on that. I think a $700 million - $1 billion per mile cost is pretty much in line with the very limited amount of subway construction going on in the US. I also think that you're overestimating the amount of demand on the discussed University corridor. Transit ridership tends to coorelate very heavily to the density of the area near to the stations and the area along the proposed University line really isn't that dense.

That's really the question about subways though isn't it? If we could get $20 billion in capital transit spend, I'd much rather have 200-300 miles of quality BRT than 20-30 miles of subway.

Actually LA's per mile cost is considerably lower than New York's. Just to clarify, I'm all in favor of spending $20 billion on transit in Houston, it would be well spent money for the future. The way that money should be spent is a different question. I don't agree with spending billions to build a single subway line (University Line) in an area that doesn't even have the density to justify it.

I agree with you that townhomes add density, however I'm not sure that gentrification does. There's quite a few older apartment complexes that are getting torn down with upscale apartments/townhomes going up. I don't think that it's a stretch to assume that those older apartments held a lot more people (families) and that many of them are being driven outside the loop due to increased rent.

Agreed that comparison to New York is pointless. NYC has very different challenges that are not applicable to other cities and conversely, solutions that are implemented for New York are not necessarily relevant to the rest of the country. New York City passed the current population of the City of Houston in the 1880's. However, it's also relevant that NYC's population stagnated during the post WWII period and that its 2010 census population was only about 300k people higher than its 1950 population (a net increase of about 5% in 60 years). As a result, the transportation solutions that were put in place pre-1950 are still very relevant today. (Even the 2nd Avenue subway which is currently under construction was planned in the 1920s). By comparison, CoH had a population of 596k in 1950 and was 2.1 million in the 2010 - an over 350% increase in the same time period, but even with that growth, Houston is less than 25% of the population of NYC. I'm not so sure that I agree with the second part of your comment though. CoH is currently 1/4 of the population of NYC on twice the land. Even in 50 years, it won't be close to the population or the density of NYC. If we assume that the population of CoH doubles in the next 50 years and the geographical size of the city remains the same, then the density of CoH becomes about 7,000/sq mile which is comparable to current population densities of cities like Oakland, Minneapolis, and Seattle. That's still only about 1/4 of the density of current day New York. Subways are great for moving large number of people on specific routes and there may be a very limited number of locations that require that in 50 years, but the majority of our needs, even in 50 years, are still most likely to require us to move smaller number of people to a number of different areas.

Not sure why no one has brought up the Midtown Redevelopment Authority. Hard to not give them at least some degree of credit for the development that has occurred.

I'll turn that question right back around at you. How can you possibly look at a multi billion dollar project without considering cost? LA is spending $40 billion to build 28 miles of subways. Don't you think that its important to understand whether that's cost efficient? Would you be ok with Houston spending $40 billion and only completing 10 miles of subway? 5 miles? 2 miles? Are there other and better uses for that money that should be considered?

The building freeways conversation is so tiresome and has been rehashed so many times that I really have no interest in going there again. Your point is completely irrelevant to mine but I'm glad to hear that the future is pre-determined because you said so.