mfastx

Now's that's where I disagree with you.  Many posters on here immediately make the connection that inside the loop is "urban" and outside the loop is "suburbs" and it's really not true.  If you're looking at the kind of 25-30 year forward plan that a transit network requires, you have to consider many areas inside the beltway as part of the urban area of Houston.

There are certainly dense areas outside of the loop, but I made that point to demonstrate that light rail is only effective when implemented with shorter lines.  I used inside the loop as an example of the typical length of a light rail line before you start to see diminishing returns.  It's just an area where I think light rail could work, as opposed to outside the loop where there are dense areas, but they are much further apart. 

For example, connecting employment centers is easier inside the loop.  Downtown, TMC, Uptown (not technically inside the loop but still located directly on the loop), and Greenway are all relatively close to one another.  The employment centers that are further out, such as Energy Corridor, Westchase, the Woodlands, etc. are much further apart and therefore harder to connect with transit.

Makes sense.  I agree that far too many of the transit plans that are presented are a traditional hub and spoke model which I just don't think is well suited to Houston.  IMO, the end measurement is door to door time and if rail can be competitive in the door to door transit time for people, than they're willing to use it.  If it can't, then you're probably not going to get high ridership.

 

To your point, I don't think that people mind transfers as long as they're reasonably linear, however if you're asking people to go from the west side to downtown to then transfer back to uptown.  That's going to be a tough battle to fight.

This is very important.  And it exposes the limitations of light rail as a regional solution.  Light rail can work very well in shorter areas, say for example the inner loop only, but when you try to extend it to the suburbs, ridership falls dramatically.  And you see the same thing with the local bus system.  You'll notice that ridership on bus routes fall the further they go out.  At relatively slow speeds people are not going to get out of their cars.  If a large amount of suburban areas are going to be well connected by transit, it most likely won't be through light rail. 

At this point, it isn't really a problem.  The suburban areas outside the loop are sparse enough that transit is not really a key issue.  Inside the loop is a lot closer to it being an issue IMO.

I wish more people could admit to this, because I suspect that most intuitively agree with it. I think too often it's relatively inconsequential arguments about LRT/BRT or whether bikes are allowed. Or if it is mentioned, it's only mentioned at the extreme ends of the spectrum - LRT with no grade separation (e.g., the Southeast Line) vs. a subway which is entirely underground from Sugar Land to downtown.

 

Even if we go with an LRT option - that is, 35 mph max speed, stops every 1/2 mile to mile, 2 cars max - I would love to see a few more strategic intersections where it does not interfere with the existing auto traffic. My preferences would be, with special consideration to already congested intersections:

• Below grade at Westheimer and Post Oak (heck, maybe the whole Galleria area)
• Below grade at Buffalo Speedway, Kirby, and Shepherd
• Below grade at Texas Avenue/U.S. 59

 

I would be willing to defer each rail line 3-4 additional years to give Metro (or whomever) time to get additional funding to make this happen. Why build something quickly if it's not beneficial or even potentially harmful to existing mobility?

Yeah that would certainly be optimal.  Unfortunately it looks like it'll be awhile before METRO can get enough funding for the current version of the University Line, much less a more grade-seperated version.  And the local politics are going to be tough to get by, people are not going to like the cost to go up any more than it already is.  Hopefully in about 10 years METRO will be in a better position to improve the University line and get enough backing to build the damn thing already.  The connection from Uptown to Downtown is an extremely low hanging fruit that seems like a no-brainer.

That's really a logical fallacy. You can't assume that if you spend 5 billion on heavy rail and 5 billion on highways that you're going to end up with the same number of riders on both. 

 

The problem with making the comparison between heavy rail and the Katy freeway is that it's based on an assumption that the majority of people that use the Katy Freeway during rush hour are going to downtown and I'm not sure that's a safe assumption to make.  I think that there's probably a large number of people that use the Katy Freeway to go to the Energy Corridor, Westchase, Uptown, Greenway Plaza, etc.  Those people are considerably less likely to use heavy rail than people that commute to downtown.

 

That's the problem with the Washington comparison as well.  Washington is heavily centralized - Houston, despite the wishes of many on this board, is not.  Traditional rail is most effective in a heavily centralized area.

The basic thing I'm trying to say is that the Katy Freeway has so many riders because we have invested so much money into it, making it many lanes wide and adding a tollway in the middle.  It's reasonable to conclude that if we invested similar amounts of money on our freeways (Katy freeway is just one freeway, there are so many others in Houston and we are talking about tens of billions of dollars invested in all of them) on public transportation, then there would be a lot more transit riders.  It doesn't have to be rail investment, but the original point I made was that you cannot expect hundreds of thousands of people to take one rail line that cost about a billion dollars.  It takes a lot more investment to get that kind of ridership.

And BTW, yes there are many employment centers but ideally you'd have them all connected by fast transit.  I am not suggesting to build many rail lines that converge downtown, but rather to buld a few strategically placed rail lines that gets commuters to all of the major employment centers.  As long as it's fast, commuters won't mind transfers.

IMO it's also unreasonable to conclude that the line is inneffective because it has fewer riders than the a major freeway paralleling it, as we have invested a lot more into the parallel freeway. Which was why I made the point to begin with.

And ig2ba, you make some great points and I agree with you.  A rail system in Houston would obviously look much different than in DC, in DC all the rail lines converge in the central city, in Houston you would have different lines converging on different employment centers. 

And I also agree that grade-seperated transit is optimal.   While I am in support of the University line as proposed, I would much rather it have more grade seperations than the current proposition.

Just to be clear, are you suggesting that if we were to spend 5 billion on rail, of any sort, that just as many people would be moved over the route on a daily basis as are moved over the Katy freeway?

Potentially, yes.  For example, Washington DC invested about as much (or an equivilent to that much back in the 70s) on many heavy rail lines.  And now they have over 800,000 boardings a day.  It's certainly possible if built in the right areas. 

The congestion is much improved since they widened the Katy Freeway.  Far more people use that on a daily basis than would use a lrt down richmond.  Widening well-used freeways is such a no-brainer that it doesn't require a vote.

Well, you must also remember that we have spent many times the amount that Richmond rail would cost on the Katy freeway, including multiple reconstructions.  So it makes sense that something that we invest upwards of 4 or 5 billion dollars is going to have more riders. 

If we build 5 billion dollars worth of heavy rail, then as many people would use that too. 

Downtown for sure. 

 

1) Because a 102 story tower would absolutely dwarf the rest of Uptown, including the Transco

 

2) Because of downtown's street grid and access to better public transit. A 102 story tower anywhere in Uptown would be a cluster (& of traffic. Seriously, imagine a 1,400 foot office tower with thousands of employees and nearly everyone of them driving in and out of a garage facility and pouring out onto Uptown roads. 

Agree 100%.  Uptown's traffic is already bad enough as it is. 

I was reading a blog post about downtown developments and had come across this part of the post.

 

 

Will someone shed light on this?

 

http://texasleftist.blogspot.com/2013/07/downtown-houstons-construction-boom.htmlhttp://texasleftist.blogspot.com/2013/07/downtown-houstons-construction-boom.html

102? 

Gained a lot of respect for Poe.  I'm glad he's recognizing that the benefits of the line would far outwieigh the short term negatives. 

Culberson is very short sighted.  I'm quite shocked honestly that as someone who is concerned about finances, he wants the line to be built in a lower ridership area.  Which makes no sense because why would someone who says that we don't have the money to build it want to build something that would require a higher subsidy per rider? 

Anyway, all of this seems in vein because I doubt the University line is being built anytime within the next 10-15 years, unfortunately.

alright, now that the International Tower rendering has leaked this REALLY needs to be updated. all these new towers are getting me excited.

When a city loses as much population as Detroit did, it's no wonder why they went bankrupt.  I think a more appropriate analysis is why did Detroit lose half of it's population, rather than why it went bankrupt. 

Agree with the sentiments that roads are necessary. 

However I do not think the "rail does not make profit" argument is valid either, because public transit is arguably a necessity in major cities, and buses do not pay for themselves either. 

It's really an uneccessary and silly argument anyway. 

Nice, looking forward to the "creative and original" facade. 

Gee, that seems like it could be a pretty confusing right turn onto Boundary from Main.  What's going to stop people from just driving on the tracks? 

Anyway, that area now somewhat reminds me of LA, with the new concrete street and nice sidewalks lol.

Those would be great improvements to the corridor.  What people need to understand is that this doesn't mean that rail is going to be constructed.  The future possibility is there but this is just to improve the street in general as it is a major street.  Light rail construction is so far off it will probably not happen as proposed. 

Great vid, thanks a lot for braving the weather and providing these updates! 

It's going to be weird to see drivers driving on the tracks downtown.  Hopefully there won't be many accidents.

Was hoping swtsig would throw us a hint there lol.  But yeah it was originally in Downtown and got moved. 

And I appreciate lockmat posting these rumors.  Fun to follow and adds entertainment. 

Well, perhaps it wasn't so much of an accident on her part. 

HOUSTON – A bicyclist was killed in a collision with a light rail train in downtown Houston early Monday morning, a spokesman for METRO confirmed.

The incident happened on Main Street at Walker Street shortly after 8 a.m.

Police at the scene said the cyclist, a woman, ended up under the train. Part of her broken bicycle came to rest on a nearby sidewalk.

It wasn’t known what caused the crash.

Link

Tragic accident.  You really need to be aware around the tracks.

Pretty silly piece. 

Would a rail line have helped revitalized areas immediately surrounding it over a period of a few decades?  Perhaps.  But yeah, pretty silly to suggest the demise of a whole city because they don't have rail.  San Antonio doesn't have rail and it's doing okay.  Even though it's kind of a bland city, lol.

I don't see how that would be ideal given the cost. A perfect compromise would be to submerge rail at a handful of key intersections. 

I was only suggesting to submerge it when it got to Hobby Airport, not the whole way.  But grade separations (whether elevated or submerged) over most intersections would be nice. 

What would be ideal is for the light rail to go underground completely as to not disrupt surface automobile infrastructure. 

You could have the rail station underneath the baggage claim at Hobby.

You're not looking close enough. The curb cuts are in place, and the sidewalk stubs are poured. However, the sidewalks along the street are not poured yet, presumably to be poured when the buildings are built.

You're right, my bad. I was kidding anyway, I didn't even expect this place to have good sidewalks lol.

Nice sidewalks... NOT

When "swtsig" says it, I'll believe it! 

I highly doubt a 102 story building would be only 800 feet. 

Seems fishy.