Stop the Rail Plans!

[ricco67]

Forget vending machines; can we at least enter the 20th century by having Metro invest in restrooms at their transit centers. I'm sure it'd greatly cut down on the smell of piss all over the platforms.

Amen. Many a time I had to do the "I gotta pee" dance when I didn't plan my trip from the TMC properly.

[Trae]

That dance is embarrassing.

[TheNiche]

I guess you're REALLY pissed at NASA's cost overruns, then. Let's shut them down too, while we're at it.

I'd be amenable to that option and others whereby specific programs (even large ones) were dropped altogether.

[N Judah]

We want to encourage, not discourage, rider patronization of surrounding businesses! If you have 10 min. before the train comes you can probably make it to a corner store and back if you're that thirsty.

Edited April 5, 2008 by N Judah

[TheNiche]

We want to encourage, not discourage, rider patronization of surrounding businesses! If you have 10 min. before the train comes you can probably make it to a corner store and back if you're that thirsty.

If you have 10 minutes before the train comes, METRO isn't doing its job.

[VicMan]

If you have 10 minutes before the train comes, METRO isn't doing its job.

I was referring to transfer centers where it would be reasonable to wait 10 minutes for a bus.

Here are "times between" for rail cars: http://www.ridemetro.org/SchedulesMaps/Pdfs/700-redline.pdf

On most times on weekdays the frequency (maximum wait) is under 10 minutes. On weekends frequencies are always over 10 minutes.

Monday through Thursday

* 4:30 AM to 7:30 PM - 6 minutes

* 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM - 12 minutes

* 9:30 PM to 12:45 AM - 18 minutes

Friday

* 4:30 AM to 7:30 PM - 6 minutes

* 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM - 12 minutes

* 9:30 PM to 2:15 AM - 18 minutes

Saturday

* 5:30 AM to 10:00 PM - 15 minutes

* 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM - 12 minutes

* 10:00 PM to 2:15 AM - 18 minutes

Sunday

* 5:30 AM to 10:00 PM - 15 minutes

* 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM - 12 minutes

* 10:00 PM to 12:45 AM - 18 minutes

EDIT: Corrected words

Edited April 6, 2008 by VicMan

[TheNiche]

Allow me to better define what "doing its job" is.

>10 minutes = bad

[woolie]

Someone needs to explain basic statistics to VicMan. If the frequency is 18 minutes, what is the average wait time.

Anyway. I'm in San Francisco right now for a conference. Beautiful weather. Ashame I won't have any time to play before I head back -- the infamous new SF LRT line is just across from our meeting @ UCSF. If you want to have a discussion about cost overruns and lower than expected ridership....

Edited April 6, 2008 by woolie

[N Judah]

I don't think it's unreasonable to wait 10 min. for a bus or train. Instant gratification is a nice idea but I have never seen it successfully applied to the world of commuting.

Edited April 6, 2008 by N Judah

[westguy]

10 minutes is nothing. If you plan on using the bus, you have to leave 1 1/2 hours earlier than you normally would.

[RedScare]

10 minutes is nothing. If you plan on using the bus, you have to leave 1 1/2 hours earlier than you normally would.

Huh?

When I take the bus, the total time door-to-door is within 5 to 10 minutes of the time it takes me to drive downtown, park, and walk to the courthouse. There may be some trips that include transfers that are lengthy, but an extra hour and a half sounds like more than just a little exageration.

[westguy]

Huh?

When I take the bus, the total time door-to-door is within 5 to 10 minutes of the time it takes me to drive downtown, park, and walk to the courthouse. There may be some trips that include transfers that are lengthy, but an extra hour and a half sounds like more than just a little exageration.

For jury duty at the Park & Ride, it was necessary, because of all the stops and the heavy traffic.

[Jax]

When I take the bus, the total time door-to-door is within 5 to 10 minutes of the time it takes me to drive downtown, park, and walk to the courthouse. There may be some trips that include transfers that are lengthy, but an extra hour and a half sounds like more than just a little exageration.

What I've noticed in Houston is that any bus trip that requires transfers is bad news. When I first came here I use to ride the bus frequently (I didn't have a car). A trip with 2 or 3 transfers, each transfer taking 30 minutes really adds up.

One thing I am looking forward to with the new Metro Rail lines is a maximum of 6 minutes waiting for a transfer during peak hours. That might make it actually practical to use it when I want to go uptown.

Edited April 6, 2008 by Jax

[RedScare]

For jury duty at the Park & Ride, it was necessary, because of all the stops and the heavy traffic.

So, you're saying that it would have taken you one hour to drive in, but because you took the Park & Ride, it took you two and a half hours? Pardon me for expressing doubt....still....about your trip times.

[VicMan]

Someone needs to explain basic statistics to VicMan. If the frequency is 18 minutes, what is the average wait time.

Anyway. I'm in San Francisco right now for a conference. Beautiful weather. Ashame I won't have any time to play before I head back -- the infamous new SF LRT line is just across from our meeting @ UCSF. If you want to have a discussion about cost overruns and lower than expected ridership....

I got these straight from the METRO website (and provided a source) - The wait time depends on when the rider appears and it depends on exactly which routes are used to transfer. I don't see what needs to be explained to me.

EDIT: I see - By "Wait time" in this case, I meant frequency (or maximum wait time) - this is just a case of me not properly labeling the statistics.

Edited April 6, 2008 by VicMan

[dmoneybangbang]

Allow me to better define what "doing its job" is.

>10 minutes = bad

What are you talking about? These are doing the times where there would be the least amount of riders.

Back to the topic of the costs overrun, I believe it is important that at least the University line and Uptown line remain LRT. I wouldn't be against scrapping the other lines, as long as they put money into the streets and buses that are going into those corridors. Huge costs overruns are happening on almost every proposed LRT expansion in America, so I don't think Metro should get all the blame for this.

[Trae]

The one's who should get the blame are the little business owners who delayed this thing over things like "it said Westpark stupid" and "the Main Street Line isn't even on Main Street!". This stuff would already be under construction.

Edited April 6, 2008 by Trae

[dmoneybangbang]

Also, Metro could whore it's trains out. I remember seeing a picture of a train that was painted like one of those ipod commercials, it looked pretty cool. I doubt the money made from doing that would bring any significant money to Metro, but it all adds up.

[musicman]

The one's who should get the blame are the little business owners who delayed this thing over things like "it said Westpark stupid" and "the Main Street Line isn't even on Main Street!". This stuff would already be under construction.

so METRO who changed the plan repeatedly doesn't get the blame for a delay in construction.

[Trae]

so METRO who changed the plan repeatedly doesn't get the blame for a delay in construction.

METRO changed the plans for those people.

[musicman]

METRO changed the plans for those people.

so the little business owners on richmond caused metro to change other lines to brt?

[Trae]

so the little business owners on richmond caused metro to change other lines to brt?

No, that was John Culberson. METRO had those lines as LRT from the start, and was what voters had voted for. Culberson's stupid self blocked it, so METRO changed to BRT, and then rightfully back to LRT.

[ricco67]

I think this link is quite relevant to this argument.

According to the website, the original tunnel cost 111 Million dollars back in the day.

The project, called Access to the Region

[CDeb]

The DC Metro has a strict zero tolerance policy against eating and drinking on its trains or in the stations. First offense will bring at least a fine, and subsequent offenses will result in an arrest.

[jfre81]

Even at what they're saying it will now cost, building it will have more long-term impact than the Katy Freeway expansion that was just as expensive and involved paving over an old rail line that should have been brought up to snuff for commuter rail. But no...

I was debating on another forum the merits of spending billions on mass transit as opposed to freeways. Apparently there are people who think that freeways "pay for themselves" in the way people seem to expect transit systems to do. They don't. People also seem to think that everyone will always use freeways so they're more justified to pay for. Well I rarely get on I-10, myself, unless I'm heading out of town that way (e.g. San Antonio). From the time I started driving I was finding ways to avoid I-10, before, during and after construction. The Katy Freeway will always suck.

I drive, but I avoid freeways during peak hours when I can. I've learned how to get around this city without sitting in an unnecessary amount of traffic, but we still need alternatives.

With the costs as they are, and continuing to go up while we sit and debate about it, it's indeed time to look at putting it underground if not going the el-train/monorail route. Whatever we do we need to look at the future and not the present or the past which is where all these "ridership estimates" come from. There's no use in trying to project the future based on the status quo, especially not with something that has the potential to revolutionize life in Houston - at least the Inner Loop.

Edited April 7, 2008 by BrewsterMcCloud

[urbancowboy]

Even at what they're saying it will now cost, building it will have more long-term impact than the Katy Freeway expansion that was just as expensive and involved paving over an old rail line that should have been brought up to snuff for commuter rail. But no...

I was debating on another forum the merits of spending billions on mass transit as opposed to freeways. Apparently there are people who think that freeways "pay for themselves" in the way people seem to expect transit systems to do. They don't. People also seem to think that everyone will always use freeways so they're more justified to pay for. Well I rarely get on I-10, myself, unless I'm heading out of town that way (e.g. San Antonio). From the time I started driving I was finding ways to avoid I-10, before, during and after construction. The Katy Freeway will always suck.

I drive, but I avoid freeways during peak hours when I can. I've learned how to get around this city without sitting in an unnecessary amount of traffic, but we still need alternatives.

With the costs as they are, and continuing to go up while we sit and debate about it, it's indeed time to look at putting it underground if not going the el-train/monorail route. Whatever we do we need to look at the future and not the present or the past which is where all these "ridership estimates" come from. There's no use in trying to project the future based on the status quo, especially not with something that has the potential to revolutionize life in Houston - at least the Inner Loop.

I tend to agree with this. There is no point in pinching pennies on a transit system. It's funny that the Red Line is even considered rapid transit even though it takes 32 minutes to go 7 miles. I feel that Houston is well on its way (if not already) to become a world-class city. In order to do this there must be a world-class rapid transit system in place, and we have to build a system that can compete with the automobile. I think that if this system is built entirely at grade, it will be slow, and give little incentive to leave your car. I think that one of the biggest blunders the city has made already was not to use the rail corridor that ran along the Katy Freeway for some type of commuter rail service. Even when people make the argument that this city isn't dense enough or people will never leave their cars, I say that just like transit modes, land use is going to have to change drastically as well. I will leave it at that for now.

[houstonmacbro]

I tend to agree with this. There is no point in pinching pennies on a transit system. It's funny that the Red Line is even considered rapid transit even though it takes 32 minutes to go 7 miles. I feel that Houston is well on its way (if not already) to become a world-class city. In order to do this there must be a world-class rapid transit system in place, and we have to build a system that can compete with the automobile. I think that if this system is built entirely at grade, it will be slow, and give little incentive to leave your car. I think that one of the biggest blunders the city has made already was not to use the rail corridor that ran along the Katy Freeway for some type of commuter rail service. Even when people make the argument that this city isn't dense enough or people will never leave their cars, I say that just like transit modes, land use is going to have to change drastically as well. I will leave it at that for now.

Again I say "Just build the damn thing!" Let the lawsuits and gripers do what they must. We're already what .. another 1 year past the announced plans and folks still ain't happy.

[Trae]

The Red Line carries as many people that go through the Grand Parkway through Cinco Ranch on a daily basis. Build the entire inner city rail system by 2012, and ridership levels will be near 170,000+ I think. That is the same as many area freeways today.

Edited April 8, 2008 by Trae

[wernicke]

The longer the delay, the higher the cost.

If IAH is spending 1.3 billion on one terminal, I think we can justify spending a couple billion on a good rail transit system. Especially with oil headed nowhere but up... and up... and up.

[TheNiche]

The Red Line carries as many people that go through the Grand Parkway through Cinco Ranch on a daily basis. Build the entire inner city rail system by 2012, and ridership levels will be near 170,000+ I think. That is the same as many area freeways today.

I can't stand it when comparisons are made between total boardings on the whole Red Line and traffic volume at a particular cross-section of freeway because it is an apples/oranges comparison. The only way to compare use in the way that Red Line boardings are calculated is to count the total number of vehicles that enter a segment of freeway throughout the day and then to multiply that by the average number of passengers per vehicle. This would have to include all traffic entering from the mainlanes in both directions and every single ramp along a particular segment.

If you start thinking of transit and freeway use in ways that are comparable, then you'll quickly come to realize that 170,000+ persons is small potatoes as Houston freeways go.

The longer the delay, the higher the cost.

If IAH is spending 1.3 billion on one terminal, I think we can justify spending a couple billion on a good rail transit system. Especially with oil headed nowhere but up... and up... and up.

You'd make a terrible currency speculator.