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mfastx

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Everything posted by mfastx

  1. 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.
  2. mfastx
    Yes they do. One of the board members had the idea of the city fronting the cost for the streets/utilities with METRO only having to pay for the actual rail infrastructure. This would have allowed METRO to begin construction on the University line a lot sooner. Of course everyone hated this idea.
  3. mfastx
    The Red Line cost only $300 million to build. Not sure where the $900 million number came from. That's the amount of federal funds going to the three lines under construction right now I believe. I think the HOV lanes are worth the amount of money METRO has invested in them, but it is somewhat annoying when people from the suburbs complain that METRO is only investing money on building rail inside the loop. As this is simply not true.
  4. mfastx
    Only thing I could find is this article written by Spieler in the late 1990s. In the second picture down you can see the master plan for the 1983 proposal. Of course if it had been approved it would have been subject to change but what a great system that would have been. EDIT: can't really tell if it goes all the way to Katy but there are two lines that extend pretty far westward. What I liked about this proposal is that it had the lines centered west of downtown, which is where the majority of the people are.
  5. mfastx
    Yeah, the master plan I saw wasn't detailed either. And that is a very interesting article. We decided to spend the money on HOV lanes. Makes you wonder what ridership would have been like had we built the rail lines instead.
  6. mfastx
    If you look at the old 1983 heavy rail master plan that was never approved, it had a line going from Katy to downtown, and from there you could transfer to a line going south. Would have taken about 45 minutes. Light rail and commuter rail is much slower.
  7. mfastx
    Wow all of the sudden it's almost topped out lol.
  8. mfastx
    Makes sense. If they don't pay the tax for transit, they shouldn't get transit.
  9. mfastx
    Eh, better than a surface lot. I hope the first floor looks decent.
  10. mfastx
    This. METRO needs more funding if we are serious about improving transit in Houston.
  11. mfastx
    Well I guess all the urban cities in the world are doing it wrong then. If you're going to have something between the street and sidewalk, actually do something with it. Don't put a cheap strip of grass. That doesn't make pedestrians feel any more comfortable that putting it right up against the street.
  12. mfastx
    I think the skybridge is fine. And I'm about as much of the "everything needs to be urban" kind of guy you can get. If it is a nice day, perhaps some will walk across the park as an alternative.
  13. mfastx
    That's interesting. I prefer a nice, wide sidewalk all the way to the street, like this. Kinda wish every sidewalk in Houston were standardized like this, it'd make the city a lot more walkable.
  14. mfastx
    I never understood why they always have to leave that 6 inches of grass between the sidewalk and the street. Looks so weird.
  15. mfastx
    I'm pretty sure I already said this a few posts ago, but this is a huge improvement. Really looks great.
  16. mfastx
    I think it looks pretty cool.. still skeptical as of now, especially if swtsig isn't on board.
  17. mfastx
    I think there are a couple of corridors where commuter rail would work in Houston. But the P&R system already serves many areas well. The biggest improvement that needs to be made is getting around Houston once you get in from the suburbs. And HOV lanes should stay open even if commuter rail is built along the same corridor. DART's "TRE" has an operating cost of $0.60 per passenger mile (according to the NTD), which is a similar number. Although that statistic can be misleading because it does not reflect subsidy per passenger. The same is true for the HOV lanes. It would be nice to have the HOT lanes open late at night and on weekends, and I would favor this happening, even if we have to subsidize it. As long as a respectable amount of people are using it.
  18. mfastx
    Well that depends. An accurate comparison to an HOV system is a commuter rail system. You'll find that operating cost per passenger mile on some commuter rail lines are similarly low. Of course this is solely due to the fact that an HOV or commuter rail system goes for many miles without stopping. Conversely, cost per passenger boarding on many commuter rail systems is quite high. I would imagine this would also be the case for an HOV system.
  19. mfastx
    Rail for sure needs maintenance. Everything needs maintenance. However in the 21st century, many heavy rail systems are built in a way that minimizes necessary maintenance. Of course every 50 or so years you'll have to modernize stuff and add new rolling stock. Good infrastructure just costs a lot. Back on topic, I noticed that this route is very similar to the proposed extensions to the original 1983 rail plan. This plan would have used heavy rail technology similar to Atlanta or DC. Ridership would be very impressive if that had been built IMO.
  20. mfastx
    That is a perfect route for fixed guideway transit. I would prefer heavy rail over monorail thought. Higher speeds (from what I can tell) and higher capacity, with lower operating costs. Cheaper in the long run, but wayyy more expensive up front. Perhaps I need to do more research on monorail however.
  21. mfastx
    Really starting to come along well.
  22. mfastx

    METRORail Green Line

    mfastx replied to a topic in Transit

    They should have done something. This is what the light rail tracks look like in Boston: This is better design IMO.
  23. mfastx
    I hate to admit it but I laughed pretty hard at swtsig's comment. Anyway, the OP's rendering looks pretty good.
  24. mfastx
    I care as well. I honestly wouldn't mind if every parking/vacant lot in downtown went to something "mediocre" like this. Development like this is great and it brings more residents to downtown, making it a more livable and healthy neighborhood.
  25. mfastx
    I didn't know the federal building renovation included such a nice plaza. Really improves the area.
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