TheNiche Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 That would be an improvement. We're still in the phase of getting motorists to acknowledge that LRT exists. Wait, so you're saying that it is beneficial that LRT is disrupting auto traffic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 I'm saying that getting people to not crash into the LRT must happen first before it ever becomes necesssary to drum up anti-LRT sentiment based on a more nuanced angle. You don't have to convince anyone that LRT is bad because they already think so from a very visceral, fight-or-flight standpoint. Houston is already that auto-centric. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CALMSP Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 Platforms have to be a certain minimum width; those serving one direction only are narrower than those serving both directions. It depends on how much space is available and/or can be acquired.considering there is not much of a log jam on these stations, there really is no need to make two platforms....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trae Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 considering there is not much of a log jam on these stations, there really is no need to make two platforms.......Space issues. Not hard to understand. This is why on the southern end of the line, the stations are separated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 I'm saying that getting people to not crash into the LRT must happen first before it ever becomes necesssary to drum up anti-LRT sentiment based on a more nuanced angle. You don't have to convince anyone that LRT is bad because they already think so from a very visceral, fight-or-flight standpoint. Houston is already that auto-centric.I don't really understand what you're saying. Please elaborate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 I'm not sure what it is that you don't understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 I'm not sure what it is that you don't understand.My comment to which you initially replied was that if Houston is an auto-centric city, then one would think that the auto-centrists would have a strong preference that LRT be removed from the street. When implemented at grade-level, it replaces lane miles of road that otherwise could've been used by cars, diminishes the ease of access to parking lots and side streets, and causes increased congestion when signal prioritization interferes with attempts at signal timing.When I initially made that statement, it was without consideration to any kind of safety issue, which you brought up and I did not.The debate as to whether we will have light rail is over. There was a vote. What is not over is a discussion as to how it should be implemented. To that end, grade separations are far preferable, and if Houston really is so auto-centric, then auto-centric political forces should demand that additional funding be allocated to LRT so that it is more compatible with auto traffic. I am unclear how your comment is relevant to that.Actually, I think that the political attitude within the City of Houston has shifted to the point that motorists are inconvenienced wherever and whenever a change can be made that gives additional priority to pedestrians or mass transit. The realignment of N. Macgregor is an example, as is the three-block plaza that made Main Street discontinuous, as are many aspects of the Red Line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Alright, well, my overall point is that not everybody has the same criterion for what constitutes auto-centrism. From my perspective, "auto-centrists" were the people who successfully fought LRT in this city for decades. I seriously doubt they'll want to put more money into elevating it. Instead they will spend their time demanding (and receiving) billions for projects that have nothing to do with LRT.As for your last paragraph, I do not think the political attitude is (or will ever be) anywhere near the "wherever and whenever" point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesL Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 The reason Houston is an auto-centric city is because there is no other choice available. You people just aren't giving a real transit a chance and settling for what METRO gives you. If the rail had run along the freeway like it was supposed to, the system could have been much faster, and carried more people.I agree with your first sentence, but your subsequent points are not accurate. You are describing a suburban commuter system, which we already have. METRO's Park & Ride buses, which run in METRO HOV lanes on the freeways, provide fast, frequent service between the suburbs and the major employment centers during peak commuting hours. The system works, so there is no immediate need to replace it.The phases of METRORail that METRO is working on now will provide a different type of service altogether. Namely, the light rail will provide intra-city transit among destinations in the most urbanized areas. Most people will reach this system on foot or by bus, so it has to go where the people and jobs are. No one lives in the median of I-10, so even if that were available for rail transit, it would not be the best choice for METRORail as presently conceived. The technology itself can be used for suburban commuter service, so in the future we may see light rail extensions to the suburbs; however, that is not METRO's aim in these first phases of the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Alright, well, my overall point is that not everybody has the same criterion for what constitutes auto-centrism. From my perspective, "auto-centrists" were the people who successfully fought LRT in this city for decades. I seriously doubt they'll want to put more money into elevating it. Instead they will spend their time demanding (and receiving) billions for projects that have nothing to do with LRT.As for your last paragraph, I do not think the political attitude is (or will ever be) anywhere near the "wherever and whenever" point.So you don't think that these auto-centrists would be interested in allocating more funding towards eliminating conflicts between LRT and auto traffic? It would seem to be in their own best interests.For that matter, I seem to recall some survey or another from a couple years back that concluded that a lot of suburbanites favored having more mass transit even if they didn't want to use it. It seemed as though they really liked the idea of building anything that could reduce congestion on the roads they wanted to travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trae Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 I agree with your first sentence, but your subsequent points are not accurate. You are describing a suburban commuter system, which we already have. METRO's Park & Ride buses, which run in METRO HOV lanes on the freeways, provide fast, frequent service between the suburbs and the major employment centers during peak commuting hours. The system works, so there is no immediate need to replace it.The phases of METRORail that METRO is working on now will provide a different type of service altogether. Namely, the light rail will provide intra-city transit among destinations in the most urbanized areas. Most people will reach this system on foot or by bus, so it has to go where the people and jobs are. No one lives in the median of I-10, so even if that were available for rail transit, it would not be the best choice for METRORail as presently conceived. The technology itself can be used for suburban commuter service, so in the future we may see light rail extensions to the suburbs; however, that is not METRO's aim in these first phases of the system.Commuter rail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 That may have been one of suburbanites' motives, but I really don't know.Anyway for my part I am not sure where the emphasis on grade separation is coming from. The BRT alternative, touted way back when by the anti-LRT crowd, was made up of at-grade segregated lanes and priority signalling (ie LRT with buses instead of trains), and that seemed to be good enough for them then. I think they are hoping for massive cost overruns for use as future political leverage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 That may have been one of suburbanites' motives, but I really don't know.Anyway for my part I am not sure where the emphasis on grade separation is coming from. The BRT alternative, touted way back when by the anti-LRT crowd, was made up of at-grade segregated lanes and priority signalling (ie LRT with buses instead of trains), and that seemed to be good enough for them then. I think they are hoping for massive cost overruns for use as future political leverage.I think you're confusing people (like me) that have strong objections to how new mass transit infrastructure is currently being implemented with people that want to do nothing but obstruct mass transit altogether. And even the constituencies that back either of these points of view come at the issue with different motives. I really think you're oversimplifying the politics of the issue.I don't know of anybody that is hoping for cost overruns; people that need reasons to object to new light rail already have plenty of fertile material to draw from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrfootball Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Utterly amazing. Here's the latest story from the Chronicle: "METRO Eager to Put Stimulus Funds to Work" The Headline should be "STIMULUS DOLLARS TO BUILD TOLL ROADS" The Government using Economic Terrorism to take YOUR MONEY to convert YOUR ROADS into toll roads to take MORE OF YOUR MONEY! Somewhere in hell, Karl Marx is grinning like a Cheshire cat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 The Headline should be "STIMULUS DOLLARS TO BUILD TOLL ROADS" Why? They aren't proposing to build any roads. The Government using Economic Terrorism to take YOUR MONEY to convert YOUR ROADS into toll roads to take MORE OF YOUR MONEY! Economic terrorism? Ummm...no. Tory Gattis is correct that policy towards carpool lanes isn't flexible enough, resulting in underutilization of their capacity. A toll-based system does a much better job at more cars off the main lanes but the downside would be the loss of most of the incentive to carpool which means that there is an offsetting effect of there being more cars on the road. If METRO did managed lanes like are being implemented on the Katy Tollway, then there can be all the benefits of HOV lanes without any of the inherent capacity under-utilization problems. Somewhere in hell, Karl Marx is grinning like a Cheshire cat. Why!? We would've just created a market-based system to allocate the use of scarce resources that disproportionately favors the wealthy. What's Marxist about that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 So it's 180M - 70M = 110M left for building 2 LRT lines? Or is the 70M (of the original 410M request) being pared down proportionally? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H-Town Man Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Here's the latest story from the Chronicle: "METRO Eager to Put Stimulus Funds to Work"What a poorly written article. A direct quote:"The managed or HOV toll lanes also are a good idea in Gattis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Utterly amazing.Here's the latest story from the Chronicle: "METRO Eager to Put Stimulus Funds to Work" The Headline should be "STIMULUS DOLLARS TO BUILD TOLL ROADS" The Government using Economic Terrorism to take YOUR MONEY to convert YOUR ROADS into toll roads to take MORE OF YOUR MONEY! Somewhere in hell, Karl Marx is grinning like a Cheshire cat. To the contrary, a toll road offloads much of the maintenance cost for a road off of the taxpayer who might not even use the road and on to the actual users of the road. If a little taxpayer money has to be used for a long-term benefit to the taxpayer of not having to maintain the road, more power to it. I also find our existing toll roads to be some of the best-maintained roads in the Houston area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
totheskies Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 To the contrary, a toll road offloads much of the maintenance cost for a road off of the taxpayer who might not even use the road and on to the actual users of the road. If a little taxpayer money has to be used for a long-term benefit to the taxpayer of not having to maintain the road, more power to it. I also find our existing toll roads to be some of the best-maintained roads in the Houston area.Agreed... try "best-maintained in the state of Texas" though. HOT lanes are an excellent idea. I personally spend less than $5/year on toll roads, so I probably won't be using them. But it's already been shown that toll roads (especially in our area) pay for themselves, and give the state and county revenue for other projects. The HOT lanes plan is even better b/c it gives single drivers a faster way to get to their destination, while easing the traffic load for everyone who doesn't take them. Nothing wrong with commuter rail, but I think that the current system of Park-and-Rides works well for Houston. However I wish we would go to the next logical step and have bus-exclusive lanes. Within the city, light rail is much more needed. There's so many destinations that will become more convenient once the LRT is in place. We've already proven this through the Red line's ridership. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Interesting. Isolated in the midst of a larger article about HOT lanes, was this snippet:Metro is slated to receive $92 million in stimulus funds.Wilson said that he learned last week in discussions with Federal Transit Administration officials that the monies cannot be spent on the North and Southeast light rail lines, as Metro had planned, because those projects have not received the FTA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H-Town Man Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Interesting. Isolated in the midst of a larger article about HOT lanes, was this snippet:METRO used to say that the FTA would provide matching federal funds for light rail projects. Then they stopped seeking assistance for the East End and Uptown routes. Last month it was going to be $180 million. Then it was $92 million. And now there's no federal assistance. Meanwhile the original cost estimates have tripled.Where did you read that there's no federal assistance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicman Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 METRO used to say that the FTA would provide matching federal funds for light rail projects. Then they stopped seeking assistance for the East End and Uptown routes. Last month it was going to be $180 million. Then it was $92 million. And now there's no federal assistance. Meanwhile the original cost estimates have tripled.good catch....IMO the HOT lanes are an afterthought. the ones on the gulf freeway are crowded in the mornings to the point of not running at an optimal speed already. trying to put more vehicles on 45 (290 also) really won't provide any relief to commuters.Where did you read that there's no federal assistance?the quote he had is directly from the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesL Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 I'm pretty sure what it means is that the Full Funding Agreement isn't yet approved so these lines aren't stimulus funding candidates. It's disappointing, but money from the FTA should still be forthcoming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H-Town Man Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 the quote he had is directly from the article.Wilson said that he learned last week in discussions with Federal Transit Administration officials that the monies cannot be spent on the North and Southeast light rail lines, as Metro had planned, because those projects have not received the FTA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 It doesn't say that Metro is receiving no federal assistance. It says "the monies cannot be spent on the North and Southeast light rail lines" because they haven't received "final funding approval." So perhaps the money can just be used on the East End line, which is the first one Metro plans to work on anyway? Or perhaps the monies can be used on those lines once Metro receives final funding approval.Either way, it's very different from Metro getting "no federal assistance" as Niche said.METRO has not even bothered to submit the East End line for federal approval at all, in any way shape or form. They did submit the HOT plans for federal review.The federal government does not write blank checks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illusionescape Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 METRO has not even bothered to submit the East End line for federal approval at all, in any way shape or form. They did submit the HOT plans for federal review.The federal government does not write blank checks.METRO stated that they are paying for the Uptown and East End lines out of pocket. Federal funding is used for the remaining lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 METRO stated that they are paying for the Uptown and East End lines out of pocket. Federal funding is used for the remaining lines.I know. That's what I've been saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 I know. That's what I've been saying.So what's your point? The plan all along (and I believe the feds agreed to this plan) was for Metro to seek full funding on certain lines and zero funding on others, rather than 50/50 funding on all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 So what's your point? The plan all along (and I believe the feds agreed to this plan) was for Metro to seek full funding on certain lines and zero funding on others, rather than 50/50 funding on all.The point is self-evident. METRO had planned for more federal funding and lower capital costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 The point is self-evident. METRO had planned for more federal funding and lower capital costs.Wow, that's quite the spin. The fact is, Metro still plans on Federal funds. they didn't get any special allocations from Stimulus funds that they can use for the rail plans, but they still are in the process for federal transit funds. The article that kicked this off said nothing whatever to the contrary. You completely mischaracterized what the article said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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