How Will 5m More Fit In Houston? Freeways?

[VelvetJ]

Max, so it was a mistake to have so much rail where they built it? Also, what were the factors involved in the drop off in ridership? How much rail has opened in the past 2-3 years, and how much is basically set in stone to be added? How high is demand for it in areas that do not currently have it?

It was not my intent to so much put Dallas on the "perfect rail" pedestal as much as I was trying to make a point about the perceptions of rail in two very similar cities.

[westguy]

Dallas does have to chip in for DART, while cities on the northern fringe refuse, using those tax dollars to lure companies away from DT Dallas and into the various business parks. That's pretty much why downtown Dallas suffers, and continues to. (But I do not blame DART for this. A lot of people simply do not have the luxury of owning and maintaining a vehicle while paying these gas prices, so they need public transportation to get to work.)

[The Great Hizzy!]

It's been studied that the building of excessive rail lines in traditionally car dependent metropolitan areas lead to highly inefficient start up lines that don't make a decent accounting of themselves until much later. Not saying that DART has built excessively (I wouldn't know) but systems like the HRT in Miami that was built at 21.5 miles and was projected to carry 100,000 people a day were way off and, in fact, never reached such a figure.

Again, you want FTA to have confidence in your ridership history if you're going to ask them for more money in the future, especially with so many agencies now wanting transit dollars for rail projects.

[kjb434]

Yeah, now with the LRT fad sweeping the countries cities, the FTA dollars have to go to the most viable projects.

The better case you make for yourself, the better chance you'll have to get funded.