mfastx

Nonsense. That's like saying it cheaper to transport a passenger on the Queen Marry 2 vs my personal motor vessel. Yes it may be cheaper to operate on a passenger per mile basis, but you're ignoring the billion(s) of dollars it cost to design and build the thing. And let me know if it's still cheaper to operate in a few months once the red line is complete.

Actually, I am taking into account the $300 million in capital costs for the original red line. 

Over a period of 10-15 years, the Red line has made up its capital cost in the difference of operating costs per passenger.  Don't forget, with each passing year, millions more boardings are occurring on the train.  Rail lines are there for over 100 years, in the long run it is cheaper. 

Other systems haven't fared so well.  DART's system, for example, hasn't come close to covering it's capital costs with higher efficiency operations.  Not all rail systems are successful like Houston's Red Line. 

And the jury is still out on whether the new rail lines will have enough ridership to keep operating costs per boarding down.  It will likely take a few years like it did for the Red Line for the new lines to reach their highest potential ridership, and another 15-20 years to make up the capital costs. 

I am also in favor of making a better bus system.  But we are going to have to fork over more taxpayer dollars if we are serious about improving our transit system.

Sorry but it doesn't take hundreds of millions of dollars to create a world class bus system in Houston.

 

We "invested" in light rail? I wonder how that investment paid off for all the small business owners along main street, where are they now?

Okay forget about the light rail for a second.  What's your suggestion on creating a world class bus system? 

We'd have to: create grade separations along at-grade rail crossings, so buses aren't held up for 20 minutes by trains. 

There'd have to be indicators at most bus stops indicating when the next bus will arrive.  You'd also have to have separate bus lanes on every route so that buses won't get held up in the same traffic as everyone else.  Also, you'd have to get mostly new buses so they don't break down.  And a LOT more bus shelters.  System-wide, that'd cost more money than you'd think. 

There are plenty of small business owners along main street.  How many businesses went out of business during construction of light rail?  And how many new ones have opened up since?  I can't take your point seriously until you give me raw numbers. 

METRO gets more return on their investment on light rail than they do buses.  It is cheaper to transport a rail rider in Houston than a bus rider.  That is a fact.

I don't know of a transit bus system that does more with less than Houston's bus system. We could have a world class bus system if weren't for the stupid light rail. As to youngers and what they want... I don't really care. They are moving from cities that have failed them, so what do they know about great urban lifestyle or great cities for that matter. There are no simple answers but if I were king of Houston I would get rid of the burdensome building/construction process around north downtown due to the historical district. You would lose some history but, Houston is about looking to the future not looking at the past.

No. 

It would take more money than we've ever invested in light rail to create a "world class" bus system in Houston.

Still less than a 5th of the way there!  lol

moo.

 

edit: ^^why is my m-e-h being changed to moo?

Well it's cool to see they are at least considering it. 

And yeah, this problem is something that every user expereinces haha.  I've seen a lot of "moo's" around here.

Put simply it's the lack of residents.  During business hours downtown is just like any normal downtown. 

The four new residential proposals, plus the numerous hotel proposals wil help add some life to downtown during non business hours.  That will certainly help. 

If I ever live in Houston again, I'd love to live downtown (if I can afford it, lol).  It's moving in the right direction, neighborhood wise and business wise.

Agree with Montrose1100.  While I will always support infrastructure improvements, redoing any freeway (whether it's above or below grade) is going cost billions, easy.  Even more if you submerge. 

It's a really neat concept and that'd be great if it got done, but if we only have "x" amount of dollars, I'd rather it be spent elsewhere.  Such as reconstructing surface roads, and building sidewalks.

So on the flip side, since they spent all of that money upfront, they now have a revenue source, even if it's only $1000/day/HOT lane (http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/1341957105-Commuters-Could-Dodge-Heavy-Houston-Traffic-With-HOT-Lanes.html).

Let me clarify by saying that I think it was certainly a good investment.  Even though the entire P&R system carries only around 30,000 or so a day, many other people benefit.  The HOV/HOT lanes are a great asset ATM. 

I was just disagreeing with the notion that METRO is only spending money inside the loop.

I guess that's what I'm getting at. I wonder what Metro exactly had to chip in for. It it was just the ramps to the P&R lots (like this: https://maps.google.com/?ll=29.974393,-95.421353&spn=0.001743,0.002401&t=h&z=19), but not the ramps to/from the HOV lanes (like this https://maps.google.com/?ll=29.729187,-95.433568&spn=0.001747,0.002401&t=h&z=19 or this https://maps.google.com/?ll=30.01381,-95.428281&spn=0.003502,0.004801&t=h&z=18 or this https://maps.google.com/?ll=29.775227,-95.369053&spn=0.007022,0.009602&t=h&z=17), that figure seems high to me.

 

If Metro had to pay for a large portion of the HOV lanes and other elaborate connections like the downtown HOV lane monster, I believe the figure you cite, but wonder if Metro is effectively subsidizing drivers, albeit HOV drivers.

METRO built all of that, because that's where they run their buses.  Every HOV ramp is used by a bus route. 

They benefit suburban commuters as well, and that's why there was enough will to spend the money to build them.  Suburban areas are getting plenty of return for their tax dollars.

That strikes me as pretty high. I was under the impression that they mostly leveraged existing HOV lanes and that the parking lots were fairly cheap. Did Metro have to pay a portion of those T ramps from the HOV to the P&R lots?

 

Do you have a source for this figure?

Christof Spieler who is member of the METRO board has said this in numerous interviews. 

It is a very elaborate system with many flyovers.  I'm not surprised at the figure at all honestly.

Those are very righteous and idealistic statements, but they don't reflect the reality of Houston.  Houston isn't segmented quite as cleanly as you would like it to be.  The city of Houston consists of approx 2.2 million people and only 450k of them live inside the loop.  That's excluding the approx 4 million people that live outside of Houston that understandably are not in METROs scope.  

 

METRO is still responsible for providing service to those individuals and responsible transit planning needs to allow for that.  Conversation on this forum is generally focused around the "enlightened" souls that live inside the loop and the lost souls that live in the suburbs while ignoring the segment between the loop and the beltway.  

 

The discussion needs to include how METRO services those areas as well because its not acceptable for METRO to entirely focus their budget on the inner loop. 

METRO has spent plenty of money for outside the loop residents.  The fact is that building rail lines is more feasible inside the loop due to their being a proportionally higher potential ridership base. 

The P&R system is something that METRO has invested over a billion dollars into. 

To this point, METRO has been getting a better return on their investment on "inside the loop" projects. 

So I guess LTAWACS is back

No man. Precipitation is water and it rains even when its below 100% humidity.

Thanks.  I was told when I was younger that 100% humidity meant rain. 

Hmmm well wouldn't 100% humidity mean water?  So the city was underwater?  heh

Detroit already has a rail system- the People Mover is pretty cool

LOL, that thing is a joke, not sure how or why that thing got built. 

Is this tower likely?

Put simply, no.

Not implying that at all.  What I'm implying is that there doesn't seem to be a strong coorelation between the amount of light rail and downtown office occupancy rates.  Dallas invested heavily in light rail and that does not appear to have increased the number of businesses that choose to locate downtown.  

 

There are certainly other factors at play, but it definitely isn't what I expected. 

I will say that Dallas is getting an increasingly vibrant street level scene downtown and in the surrounding areas though.  So while the office buildings might not be occupied with major firms, there's plenty of business in the area from a retail standpoint. Not sure what their investment in light rail has to do with it, if anything, but it certainly doesn't hurt. 

In regards to the OP, the proposed light rail line in Detroit will most likely spark some sort of rejuvenation along the corridor over the next few decades, making the area a more desirable place to live. 

However Detroit's problems are much bigger than poor quality of life on one major street, lol.  There are lots of cities with poor public transportation that are doing fine.  The posted article is pretty laughable IMO. 

It is a great idea for sure.  Would cost billions, but I'm in favor.  If done right, it'd do wonders for the area and would spark some development.

Iraq was useless. Afghanistan was needed, but has gone on for too long. Not having those wars might have helped reduce the deficits, but I still can't see any reason for the Federal government to pass out money to build a local rail line. Especially when it's all borrowed money.

Most economists agree that domestic infrastructure spending has good effects on the local economy.  In this case, the half a billion or so federal funds that would go towards the line is a drop in the bucket of the national budget. 

Like it or not, there's always going to be a certain amount of money earmarked for local transportation projects.  It'd be great if Houston received the benefit of those funds. 

It's dubious to me that investing in light rail in Dallas is a cause of high vacancy rates. 

Houston is investing in three lines to go downtown and their vacancy rate isn't rising.

Well this is good news to those of us hopeful that federal funding wouldn't be blocked for rail. 

Culberson needs to understand that the Richmond alignment was always a possibility when voters approved the line.

It might be, but it's not really an apples to apples comparison because regardless of whether you have rail or not, you still end up with highways so it almost becomes a sunk cost. You can argue that you might not have widened the Katy Freeway, but it's pretty hard to argue that you don't build the Katy Freeway. The same is true of I-45, US-59, and the loop. It's also hard to include the toll roads in those comparisons because they tend to pay for themselves.

Even in the most optimistic scenario where HSR ran from Houston to Austin, it might reduce maintenance costs and alleviate the need for the road, but you still build a highway.

Oh I agree totally.  For sure highways are necessary, but there are many cities much larger than Houston with less highway lane miles.  We've certainly invested a lot in our highways, especially when you look at it from a "per capita" perspective. 

livincinco, I'm sorry you live out in the burbs. Once the three lines are complete. Everybody in Houston are going to be pro rail. If Metro did a referendum with rail to go down Westheimer to the Beltway, to the airports with maybe 90 miles of LRT for 5 billion dollars. It would not have passed. Since we had wonderful Delay in office. We had to go back and vote for 7.5 mile LRT rail down Main St. Now we have Culberson in office. When they widen the Kathy freeway they proposed a rail line in the middle of the freeway. But of course they built a tollway.

Alan Kiepper knew what he was doing when he proposed the 1983 heavy rail plan.  While the first line didn't accomplish much and was overpriced (due to downtown portion being in a subway) the full proposed system was quite comprehensive and would have had lots of ridership today.  Oh well.

From what I've seen the cost of building heavy rail conservatively runs at $200mil/mile.  $5 billion gets you 25 miles.  I'm not sure what 25 mile network do you think would get 500k riders day.

 

For reference, assuming the $200mil/mile cost, you've proposed the following:

 

Katy-Downtown-Hobby-Galveston - 79 miles - $15.8 billion

Alief-Downtown-IAH-The Woodlands - 63 miles -$12.6 billion

Cypress - Downtown (assuming the Galveston is on common track with the Katy line) - 27 miles - $5.4 billion

 

The proposed system is $33.8 billion assumes that there are no cost overruns.  Chances of there being no cost overruns are extremely low.  A final price tag of $45 - $50 billion is probably more likely.

 

I'm not trying to be difficult, just trying to be realistic.

A heavy rail plan serving the whole metro area would probably not be quite that expensive due to much of it being above ground in sparse areas, but yeah it'd be a s**t ton of money. 

It would also be interesting to look at the total amount of money we've spent on highways throughout the whole metro area.  This figure would include original 1950s construction and go all the way to today, including reconstructions and maintenance, adjusted for inflation.  I'd imagine it'd be a similarly high number. 

But yeah, good infrastructure costs a lot, that's for sure. 

Does anyone know what the plans are for the portion of the block not covered by the tower? 

Wasn't able to see anything from the renderings.  Hopefully it won't be surface parking smh.

I've got concerns about the effectiveness of light rail in a city like Houston, but I'm going to put those aside for the purposes of this discussion. My concern is that connecting employment centers with employment centers is nice, but you really have to connect people with employment centers to be effective. If you look at the below Houston density map, it doesn't look like the proposed plans really do that. The highest density areas in Houston are outside the loop and I don't understand why a transit plan shouldn't include those areas.

One of the big challenges for transit in Houston is the size of the city. People constantly bemoan that rail is voted down, but the problem is that the rail plans presented don't do anything to impact the vast majority of the people that are voting on it. Only 25% of the cities population lives inside the loop, so you've got approx 75% of voters that are not going to be impacted by these plans. Present a comprehensive plan that positively impacts a higher percentage of the cities population and it will have a much higher probability of success.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Houstonpopulationdensity.PNG

I certainly understand the concern.  Firstly, let me say that while *only* 25% of Houston residents live inside the loop, that is still a very significant amount of people.  The current line has been well utilized, especially considering the layout of our city.  If built, the University Line would be well utilized as well. 

Outside the loop, the Houston area is so spread out that it's very hard to come up with a comprehensive plan to connect everything.  IMO a very effective way is to have heavy rail (top speeds of 80 mph or so) go from certain suburban areas into the inner loop.  You then can have numerous bus lines that serve areas where the rail doesn't go, which tie into the rail.  This rail would be similar to what you'd see in DC.  Obviously, every line wouldn't go downtown, and I wouldn't build quite as many lines as there are in DC, but it would certainly generate more ridership than we have today.

But it's basically impossible to serve outer loop areas effectively with transit, without transfers or higher speed transit.  There's just too much area to cover, and too many places that people want to go.