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mfastx

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Everything posted by mfastx

  1. mfastx
    A certain amount of freeways/high capacity arterial roads is definitely necessary in any large city for obvious reasons. That being said, it's certainly possible to have a desirable, perfectly functioning city with less freeway miles per capita than Houston. We have certainly invested more in our freeways than many other large cities.
  2. mfastx
    That seems rather silly. Why not just extend the tunnel by a few feet and then you can put roadway shoulders. How come tunneled freeways work in other cities? Bummer, but sadly I knew there was no way TxDOT would consider the tunnel option anyway.
  3. mfastx
    Good job, good effort. LOL looks pretty cool though.
  4. mfastx
    Wow, that is gorgeous.
  5. mfastx

    United Airlines

    mfastx replied to brain's topic in Planes

    Why post on Facebook, when you can post on the original social network?
  6. mfastx
    Wow that is a fantastic looking building.
  7. mfastx
    I think the building is fine. It's better than what was there before, and it's a hell of a lot better than a vacant/parking lot. There's plenty of other lots in downtown for trophy towers. Sometimes some classic infill is nice.
  8. mfastx
    It's really tough for METRO to allocate their investments for this reason, everyone wants the big projects to be in their area, but thus far there are more potential transit riders (and better return on investment) on projects closer in. Transit ridership really thins out once you get outside in the suburbs, since there's no reason to use transit out there, unless you work downtown, which most people don't.
  9. mfastx
    That would suck for METRO, considering there's over a billion dollars in sunk cost in the HOV lanes out to the other municipalities.
  10. mfastx

    METRORail North Line

    mfastx replied to Trae's topic in Transit

    I watched an interview with one of the board members and he said that they would be restructuring the bus lines around the rail line to make them more perpendicular as opposed to parallel to the rail line, so it would be a little tough to measure ridership decline in neighboring bus routes. Although I will say that, according to METRO, around 20,000 of the daily boardings on the Red Line are "new transit riders." I have no idea where that number comes from or how METRO arrived to that conclusion, so I'd take it with a grain of salt.
  11. mfastx
    Which is why rail lines are usually built in core areas of the city where it will not be necessary to move the line at all. This permanence can actually be a positive in some instances as developers know that an area served by a rail line will continue to be served by that line in the foreseeable future.
  12. mfastx
    It isn't that much cheaper actually. Flexibility is a moot point, HOV lanes are as fixed as rail lines. And in most cases, rail carries riders more efficiently than bus. That being said, we've spent so much on the HOV system that tearing it down would be disingenuous. I'd rather spend money on a few key rail lines to connect employment centers, so that commuters can get from their P&R stop to their final destination more quickly.
  13. mfastx

    METRORail North Line

    mfastx replied to Trae's topic in Transit

    I too am anxious to see the APTA report for the line. We may have to wait around a year or so for ridership to reach full short-term potential (the original line took about a year to reach ~35,000 boardings. Some of the ridership comes from new transit riders who didn't ride the bus before. Then you have a lot of ridership from people who rode similar (parallel) bus routes before the rail line opened. Basically what the rail line does is transport many bus route's worth of people and consolidating them into one line. This allows for greater efficiency long-term and also allows METRO to deploy hundreds of buses elsewhere in the fleet to bolster other lines.
  14. mfastx
    I know for a fact that the referendum that created the GM payments was also for the construction of a rail line. So 1988 was one. I personally liked board member Christof Spieler's plan, which was to issue bonds to start construction of the university line while allowing the GM payments to continue. If the voters voted "no," then GM payments would cease and monies would be put into an escrow fund for future use. This makes sense because GM payments and rail are tied together. The original referendum included rail, the whole point of the GM payments was to please the surrounding areas who whined about monies being spent on rail inside the loop.
  15. mfastx

    METRORail North Line

    mfastx replied to Trae's topic in Transit

    It would be better if it were elevated the entire length, and if the downtown segments were underground. Still support and thankful for what we have though.
  16. mfastx
    I am aware of how the GM payments came about and how most people in the region feel about them. What I said still stands however. The voters have also voted in favor of rail on three separate occasions, yet only a fraction of it has actually been or will be built in the near future.
  17. mfastx
    Roads are essential, but they should be funded through other avenues than public transportation tax dollars. Yes, technically roads are public transportation, but the METRO tax was created to operate a bus system and construct/operate a rail system. Because of the GM payments, METRO is now having to operate a transit system on less money than most other agencies in large cities. And the surrounding areas are already getting something for their tax dollars in the HOV lanes/P&R buses. They weren't cheap.
  18. mfastx

    METRORail North Line

    mfastx replied to Trae's topic in Transit

    Good to hear. This line will serve houston well for many, many years. Great addition.
  19. mfastx
    I agree. No visual impact, and no stops for the train in between stations.
  20. mfastx
    Not sure, but I think most would rather have the pics in a reduced size in the original post.
  21. mfastx
    Wow this is a surprisingly cool building.
  22. mfastx
    Yeah those shots are great. Really make the glass look good.
  23. mfastx
    Light rail is not 19th century technology, lol. Not even close.
  24. mfastx
    Agreed. METRO is already giving 25% or more of it's revenue towards street improvements. It is pretty silly that they would have to pay for street improvements related to light rail in addition to that. Especially since with our without light rail, those street improvements would have had to happen eventually anyway.
  25. mfastx
    Agreed. METRO is already giving 25% or more of it's revenue towards street improvements. It is pretty silly that they would have to pay for street improvements related to light rail in addition to that. Especially since with our without light rail, those street improvements would have had to happen eventually anyway.
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