Houston's rail netwrok

[Guest Plastic]

After maybe 50 years of arguing Houston is finally gonna get rail. Not one line, I mean a real rail network that will go out to the suburbs. SOme say we don't need it , some say that we do.Waiting inline for the traffic is long. FLying cars haven't been invented and Park&RIdes don't carry as many passengers and go through some lights.

SO is there an alternative? Metro doesn't seem to want to build it seeing it's extremely costly and would only solve a small part of our traffic problem. Ut would take a long time to build and lots of construction headaching. The advantages I see of rail are that it can hold numerous amounts of people in long cars, and it doesn't have o go through traffic. It's also easier on the driver.

SO what other kind of public transportation could we use besides rail. There is this system where this bis acts like a snake. It's a lang bus with multiple cars. It senses curves and turns in the road and twists and winds it's body through the HOVlane.

Accept fpr a few Park&RIdes most of them are along the freeway. So there wouldn't have to be extra ramps built to the Park&RIdes. The only issue is DOwntown. There are lots of lights and a long bus would not only block traffic but takeup a majority of any block. SO there'd have to be ramps DOwntown aswell for it to ride on and perhaps go toa a Grand Central station.

Don't know if any city has implemented it but Metro was considering this plan n 1990. The reaon is it is waay cheaper and yu don't need to create any new infrastructure. If designed right it could probrably drive itself.

[woolie]

My transportation plan for Houston involves three key steps:

1) Leveling most of the city and rebuilding it to look like Amsterdam so everyone can get around on bike

2) Large-scale climate engineering to make it exactly 75 degrees year round

3) Replacing most surface roads with tree lined bicycle paths or two-lane streets.

[Jax]

Plastic, it's "Except" not "Accept". I've noticed that grammar error in several other posts as well.

Is this project actually happening yet? Or are we just discussing it at this point? I didn't realize they were currently building any new light rail or commuter rail.

Edited May 10, 2007 by Jax

[Highway6]

Plastic, it's "Except" not "Accept". I've noticed that grammar error in several other posts as well.

Is this project actually happening yet? Or are we just discussing it at this point? I didn't realize they were currently building any new light rail or commuter rail.

Plastic is the local village idiot.... no offense plastic.... All his posts are like that and despite his grammar and spelling constantly being pointed out to him... he keeps on being 'Plastic'.

To be honest.. now it's his 'thing'.... he probably knows exactly what he's doing and laughs at the rest of us as we react all in a hizzy over his posts. We all expect that kinda of post from him and if he changed and started making his posts logical and readable, the rest of us wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.

As far as the rail projects.. something happened this week as far as funding getting approved or contract getting finalized.. it was in the Chron, i don't remember exactly, but basically, you're right, no construction has started yet, but a big step towards realizing 4 of the lines took place very recently.

[Guest Plastic]

Hey I may make typing errors but I'm so very logical.

[C2H]

We all expect that kinda of post from him and if he changed and started making his posts logical and readable, the rest of us wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.

Sorry plastic but i had to laugh on this one. It was funny!

[Pumapayam]

Hey I may make typing errors but I'm so very logical.

Thank god he put it in the correct forum!

But why do we need another Light/Commuter Rail topic when we have this, this, this, this, this, and this?

[Highway6]

But why do we need another Light/Commuter Rail topic when we have this, this, this, this, this, and this?

Amen!

[wxman]

All that happend was funding was approved on the order of I think 1.? Billion. It is the largest funding ever finalized. Anyhow Houston is not going to solve traffic problems with rail alone. If the city is going to put rail down, they need to bring it to the burbs and both airports. Here are some things I suggest:

Double deck main freeways (I-10, 45, 290). Make the upper deck express ways with limited exits. (This would also help in evacutaions!)

Instead of light rail, put in a monorail or something lifted off the ground that way the construction is faster, you won't have to worry about trains hitting cars or people, and is probably* (I'm not sure) more cost effective. There is no reason why Houston can't do this. Other cities including Seattle, Vegas and Chicago all have elevated people movers.

Houston needs to do more than add one lane to the freeways everytime they expand them. The Houston metro is expected to grow to 7.4 million people by 2050 I believe. (City of Houston website). One lane at a time is not going to accomodate that kind of pop. growth!

[woolie]

Instead of light rail, put in a monorail or something lifted off the ground that way the construction is faster, you won't have to worry about trains hitting cars or people, and is probably* (I'm not sure) more cost effective. There is no reason why Houston can't do this. Other cities including Seattle, Vegas and Chicago all have elevated people movers.

What universe do you live in where a monorail is both more cost effective and more usable?

[editor]

Other cities including Seattle, Vegas and Chicago all have elevated people movers.

Chicago has an elevated people mover? Great! Where do I catch it? I'm tired of taking the stinky circa 1800's CTA El to work.

[desirous]

Chicago has an elevated people mover? Great! Where do I catch it? I'm tired of taking the stinky circa 1800's CTA El to work.

He must be talking about the one at O'Hare. It's the only one that moves faster than a horse.

[Pumapayam]

What universe do you live in where a monorail is both more cost effective and more usable?

I think he lives in Walt Disney World!

He must be talking about the one at O'Hare. It's the only one that moves faster than a horse.

We'll we have one of those at Intercontinental Airport.

[lockmat]

Chicago's EL is slow?

[Guest Plastic]

I do believe monorail's cheaper.m It takes's less tin\me too build and is elevated.

[editor]

Chicago's EL is slow?

Because of its advanced age (much of it is 100+ years old) and poor condition, something like 10% of the El in Chicago is restricted to 6 MPH. The fastest any El in Chicago goes, even with newish trains on tracks in good condition, is 35 MPH.

Here's a map showing the slow zones and the causes and the percentages.

I do believe monorail's cheaper.m It takes's less tin\me too build and is elevated.

You believe incorrectly. There was recently a huge debate over expanding Seattle's existing monorail. The reason was simply because monorails are expensive to build. The voters approved the expansion anyway because it is a symbol of the city.

If you have information that monorail is cheaper to build, please post a source here. You may also want to present your information to the Seattle city council. They'll be fascinated to see it.

[Subdude]

Instead of light rail, put in a monorail or something lifted off the ground that way the construction is faster, you won't have to worry about trains hitting cars or people, and is probably* (I'm not sure) more cost effective. There is no reason why Houston can't do this. Other cities including Seattle, Vegas and Chicago all have elevated people movers.

Monorail would be roughly twice the cost of surface rail. It requires about the same right of way, plus you have to pay for the support structure, elevators, etc. On top of that, space under monorails would likely become ugly dead zones like under freeways. The one in Seattle is being scaled back, and the one in Vegas is privately financed to haul tourists between casinos. They simply don't make economic sense. Once monorails were considered the wave of the future, now they are the wave of the past.

[H-Town Man]

Because of its advanced age (much of it is 100+ years old) and poor condition, something like 10% of the El in Chicago is restricted to 6 MPH. The fastest any El in Chicago goes, even with newish trains on tracks in good condition, is 35 MPH.

I have trouble believing that. I used to drive next to the trains on the Dan Ryan, and they didn't seem to be going much slower than I was at 65 mph.

[gnu]

I have trouble believing that. I used to drive next to the trains on the Dan Ryan, and they didn't seem to be going much slower than I was at 65 mph.

i think the (red?) line that runs along the Dan Ryan is part of the newer subway system.

[ricco67]

There is also the "Brown" line(I think) that is a new line (to Midway Airport) that was completed within the past few years. The Red Line between O'Hare and Downtown seems to run just fine and at a good clip (still having to figure out what the distances are between stops, however), but I did notice that the run between Downtown and Wrigley field was significantly slower, but I just attributed it to some work being done on the rail.

I found Chicago's system just fine, and I hope Houston's would eventually uses a combination of Light rail and subway/EL in the future.

[editor]

I have trouble believing that. I used to drive next to the trains on the Dan Ryan, and they didn't seem to be going much slower than I was at 65 mph.

You don't have to believe me. Just follow the link I posted earlier. It shows the speeds of the various track sections, including the branch of the Red Line of which you speak.

[editor]

There is also the "Brown" line(I think) that is a new line (to Midway Airport) that was completed within the past few years. The Red Line between O'Hare and Downtown seems to run just fine and at a good clip (still having to figure out what the distances are between stops, however), but I did notice that the run between Downtown and Wrigley field was significantly slower, but I just attributed it to some work being done on the rail.

I found Chicago's system just fine, and I hope Houston's would eventually uses a combination of Light rail and subway/EL in the future.

The Orange Line is the one that runs to Midway Airport. It's the newest section, having celebrated its 10th anniversary last year.

The Blue Line runs between downtown and O'Hare. Since you've visited Chicago there's been a derailment and an investigation and now a lot of reconstruction because the tracks weren't up to snuff. The part of the Blue Line from downtown towards O'Hare for about a mile (between Clark/Lake and Damen) is in single-track operation overnights, so that it takes about 20 minutes to move through that mile of tunnel because you have to wait for two trains coming the other way, then switch to the opposite tracks.

The section of the Red Line that you took between downtown and Wrigley Field is very slow these days because of the billion-dollar reconstruction of the Brown Line. The Brown, Red, and Purple lines share tracks through that corridor, and instead of there being four tracks, there are now only three while the Belmont and Fullerton stations are re-built. That's every day construction. Then there's special construction. For the last two weekends, the underground section of the Red Line has been completely shut down all weekend. Last weekend the Red Line subway ran on the Brown Line elevated tracks. But because of additional construction at the Armitage, Sedgwick, and Chicago Brown Line stations the Red Line trains can't run there, so they just shut the whole thing down.

The only part of the system not currently plagued by construction delays are the Pink, Green, and Orange lines which basically serve the ghetto areas. They have the best trains and the best service. There's a historical reason for that that I won't explain here becuase it would derail this thread even further.