Never on Time

[Materene]

Honestly this has gone on for so long it isn't even news. I left Houston in 82 and lived briefly in Conroe before eventually finding myself buying a small place in Louisiana. Then I left and spent 11 years in Nevada up in high desert. Finally I came home with hopes of spending my final days at home in my beloved Houston. It wasn't long before I decided that my home wasn't the one I left in 82 and I didn't like what it had turned into. Still I was going to stick it out and stay but then things changed suddenly with the death of two close friends whom I had lived with since my return, both were gone within 3 months. I came back to Louisiana and now going into my 3rd year this time around.

I don't think I can remember a time growing up in Houston that there wasn't some big highway project going on, the 45 to Galveston has never been finished, it just gets to the bridge and they turn around and start back the way they just came. I watched the second Bridge being built and hated to see that old draw bridge go, one night in particular my Pop and my Uncle and myself were going to Galveston to visit his Brother, the traffic was routed two ways on one side of the new bridge and some woman somehow got on the wrong lane and met us head on at the very top, my Pop was quick to act and kept us from being killed, the woman was so shook up my Uncle had to get out and turn her car around for her. Now that bridge is gone and a new one has replaced it, because I understand there was no way to evacuate that many people from the Galveston side and all points east and west coming out through there. I have no idea if this is true or not but that was the reasoning in building this last one.

While I was reading some of these post I thought to myself Houston really had no visionaries in the 40's or 50's, it was just completely incomprehensible to the leaders that some day we might have this population and traffic headache such as there is now. Then I remember the 50's and we always were driving out the old south main and going to Playland Park or some place further southwest.

The City had a chance to buy a monorail system in the 50's and a special use before you buy was built there on the south main, I remember a train line just behind it also, don't think it is there now, anyway I have two pictures taken of the ceremonies that was posted somewhere on the net. This was truly one time when the city leadership dropped the ball on all levels, not because it was high technology but rather it was a chance to have an already existing infrastructure with right of ways that would have surely become a very big system. They turned down the rail system and it sat there for years and years , I don't know when exactly it was dismantled but it was really something to see if you were 8 years old. Talk about making mistakes!

[mfastx]

Houston voters turned down a chance to build heavy rail in the early 80s. Yes, the first line was a "bondoggle" and only went from downtown to the northside, but we should have built it anyway. Why? The system would have been expanded to the galleria, and 59 would not be as congested today had it been built. We really dropped the ball on that one. Who knows how many heavy rail lines we would have today had we built that starter line? Who knows how many more hundreds of thousands of people would have rode METRO today had we built heavy rail?

I have hope, though, that eventually we will figure it out.

Edited October 18, 2010 by mfastx

[editor]

Infrastructure is expensive. That's just the nature of the beast. That's why it's important to build things BEFORE they're needed, rather than waiting until it's too late and the price has doubled.

There are groups that benefit from certain types of projects being delayed. They like to scare voters by telling them "we can't afford it." But somehow leaving out the other half of the equation, which is "Pay a particular price now, or pay double 10 years down the road."

Another way of looking at it is "Pay twice as much when it's too late, or pay half price today."

[GovernorAggie]

I have hope, though, that eventually we will figure it out.

While I tend to be on the optimistic side of things, the Houstonian in me says to give up that hope. Invest it in something else. The best transit options that we can hope for here for the next 50-100 years will be bus and *maybe* additional light rail. And we'll definitely pay Cadillac prices for a Yugo product.

[TheNiche]

Infrastructure is expensive. That's just the nature of the beast. That's why it's important to build things BEFORE they're needed, rather than waiting until it's too late and the price has doubled.

There are groups that benefit from certain types of projects being delayed. They like to scare voters by telling them "we can't afford it." But somehow leaving out the other half of the equation, which is "Pay a particular price now, or pay double 10 years down the road."

Another way of looking at it is "Pay twice as much when it's too late, or pay half price today."

The truth is, like anything else, construction prices fluctuate but tend not to do anything crazy in the long term.

If construction prices were thought to only ever go up, then there would be an unlimited amount of capital pouring into raw materials, trade schools would be utterly swamped with new students and would be cranking out new framers, welders, electricians, and plumbers, and there would be numerous large new construction and engineering companies issuing IPOs to cash in on Wall Street money; shortly thereafter, construction prices would go bust.

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Here's the brief history of construction pricing, going about as far back as you might care to remember...but providing for a less superficial analysis: For a number of years, the unsustainable level of construction activity (made possible by asset bubbles and creative finance) was exerting unusually high pressures on construction prices, but that's over...which is why producer price indexes have been reflecting a decline in construction costs over the last 18 months, even as the money supply has been expanding at double-digit rates.

You're probably going to look at that table and think to yourself, "yes, but construction costs have still risen by 23.5% since 2004!". (2004 was the first year that the data begain being measured.) Well, yeah, but factor out 2004-to-2010 inflation, and it's only a 6.8% increase over the course of about six years in the context of a period of immense trade imbalances even as the Dollar weakened. All I can say is, thank goodness for global(!) productivity growth, because otherwise we'd be so completely screwed on constructing anything in the near future.

The Fed's aggressive adoption of a weak dollar policy will probably exacerbate the problem with respect to construction costs (particularly the materials cost component) in the short term, but may act to stabilize real prices in the long term if QE2 can help with the trade balance. And again, global productivity growth seems reasonably assured and is very much our friend!

The cost of acquiring right of way is another matter altogether. Urban land prices are depressed at the moment, but will tend to consistently rise in a city that will have a need to expand the capacity of their transportation system. And that's a solid justification for long-range planning, identifying corridors, purchasing easements strategically, and enforcing appropriate setbacks. Good planning means keeping one's future options open; it does not necessitate attempting to accommodate future growth by constructing technologies that will be considered obsolete by the time that their presence becomes physically and economically necessary.