What is your ideal transit plan for Houston?

[august948]

That's what you think but traffic will get worse if you spread centers out because it puts more people on the roads. If you have one center it makes it easier to create alternatives around it.

 

No, traffic will get better because it is distributed across a much wider geographic area.  Even if there are more people on the roads, which is dubious since people still have to get to work in either case, the trips are likely to be shorter in miles and duration if the traffic is spread out.

 

[Slick Vik]

No, traffic will get better because it is distributed across a much wider geographic area. Even if there are more people on the roads, which is dubious since people still have to get to work in either case, the trips are likely to be shorter in miles and duration if the traffic is spread out.

Have you heard of Los Angeles?

The lack of highways plowing throught the center of European cities has more to do with historical preservation than with anything else. Not an issue here. Apples to oranges once again.

No it's about urban design.

Yes.

No. Houston doesn't need more sprawl.

[IronTiger]

No it's about urban design.

 

European cities weren't so much designed as to basically a clustering of merchants in a walled city made hundreds of years ago. The current Paris design wasn't created until the 1800s, when Hausmann basically ran a bunch of new wide roadways through the city (sound familiar?)

The previous design was a mess of little medieval streets.

[Slick Vik]

European cities weren't so much designed as to basically a clustering of merchants in a walled city made hundreds of years ago. The current Paris design wasn't created until the 1800s, when Hausmann basically ran a bunch of new wide roadways through the city (sound familiar?)

The previous design was a mess of little medieval streets.

Look at the difference on how European cities were rebuilt after world war 2 and how many American cities were built. There's a big difference.

[IronTiger]

Look at the difference on how European cities were rebuilt after world war 2 and how many American cities were built. There's a big difference.

That makes no sense and is no comparison. Apples to oranges? More like apples to durians.

 

EDIT: A durian is a large, spiky fruit with a strong odor. While fairly exotic to the U.S., it can be found in Asian supermarkets. The more you know...

Edited January 27, 2014 by IronTiger

[Ross]

Look at the difference on how European cities were rebuilt after world war 2 and how many American cities were built. There's a big difference.

 

Paris was not rebuilt after WWII, because it wasn't destroyed. Portions of London were rebuilt, but the road plan stayed essentially the same as it had before the war. There was a plan to build orbital roads around London, much like our loop 610, but those plans were canceled, mostly due to cost.

 

Urban design had nothing to do with the lack of freeways through Paris and London.

 

And, speaking of sprawl, London has it it, it's just different than what we have here. I've known people who commuted to London from as far away as Southampton and Swindon.

[David Crossley]

If you look at that map I posted you'll see the top 25 job centers and you'll see that they are not focused on the Central Business District. I think I recall that the CBD has 7% of the jobs. So the spread has already happened and some of those job centers  have more jobs than downtown Miami or San Diego or a bunch of other downtowns. Here it is again

[ig2ba]

That makes no sense and is no comparison. Apples to oranges? More like apples to durians.

 

EDIT: A durian is a large, spiky fruit with a strong odor. While fairly exotic to the U.S., it can be found in Asian supermarkets. The more you know...

 

So then which one is the durian? Parisians?

 

That makes sense - I've heard that comparison before.

[ig2ba]

If you look at that map I posted you'll see the top 25 job centers and you'll see that they are not focused on the Central Business District. I think I recall that the CBD has 7% of the jobs. So the spread has already happened and some of those job centers  have more jobs than downtown Miami or San Diego or a bunch of other downtowns. Here it is againjob-centers-master-2040-transit.jpg

 

David, did the original source mention how many jobs are represented by the smallest purple dots, medium orange dots, and largest red dot? That would be interesting. (Not a complaint about accuracy or anything, just wondering if this information is available.)

 

Also interesting would be differently sized radii depending on the job center size. For instance, the job center at Tidwell and 290 has the same concentric circles that downtown has, but the need to transport in workers is not the same as it is downtown. Therefore, mobility needs in the western part of the loop are more of a concern and a challenge than they are within Tidwell/290, or "crosstown" from Friendswood to League City, etc.

[Slick Vik]

Paris was not rebuilt after WWII, because it wasn't destroyed. Portions of London were rebuilt, but the road plan stayed essentially the same as it had before the war. There was a plan to build orbital roads around London, much like our loop 610, but those plans were canceled, mostly due to cost.

Urban design had nothing to do with the lack of freeways through Paris and London.

And, speaking of sprawl, London has it it, it's just different than what we have here. I've known people who commuted to London from as far away as Southampton and Swindon.

The difference is in London and Paris there are excellent metro systems to help people get around. Also they never built freeways that went through city centers. At worst they go around them. Edited January 27, 2014 by Slick Vik

[IronTiger]

The difference is in London and Paris there are excellent metro systems to help people get around. Also they never built freeways that went through city centers. At worst they go around them.

Not building freeways has to do more with historic preservation, but you were arguing how it was wrong to have multiple city centers. At any rate, concepts in Europe won't always work here (I can go into a long-winded explanation why Auchan never took off here to begin with, but I'll spare you). I think in terms of mass transit, I'd love to see a light rail that does minimal street running like Dallas' does, but their LRT is too expensive without enough riders.

[august948]

The difference is in London and Paris there are excellent metro systems to help people get around. Also they never built freeways that went through city centers. At worst they go around them.

 

So sprawl is ok with you as long as we have a public transport system?  Good to know.

 

[august948]

That makes no sense and is no comparison. Apples to oranges? More like apples to durians.

 

EDIT: A durian is a large, spiky fruit with a strong odor. While fairly exotic to the U.S., it can be found in Asian supermarkets. The more you know...

 

+1 on the durian comparison.  I happen to have great familiarity with it as my wife likes it and buys them from time to time.

 

[David Crossley]

David, did the original source mention how many jobs are represented by the smallest purple dots, medium orange dots, and largest red dot? That would be interesting. (Not a complaint about accuracy or anything, just wondering if this information is available.)

 

Also interesting would be differently sized radii depending on the job center size. For instance, the job center at Tidwell and 290 has the same concentric circles that downtown has, but the need to transport in workers is not the same as it is downtown. Therefore, mobility needs in the western part of the loop are more of a concern and a challenge than they are within Tidwell/290, or "crosstown" from Friendswood to League City, etc.

Yes, we have that data, and the hierarchy you see in our map just addresses the biggest 4 centers. We've just begin to look at this new data from H-GAC and all this needs a little refining. But the picture is pretty clear.

 

When we look at the green circles, we're interested in how possible it is to live near some good-sized job center. The people who do, and it's quite a few, could gradually have less and less need for cars as their center evolves and we begin to focus our transit service on those people.

[cloud713]

When we look at the green circles, we're interested in how possible it is to live near some good-sized job center. The people who do, and it's quite a few, could gradually have less and less need for cars as their center evolves and we begin to focus our transit service on those people.

Sounds like a plan for streetcars! Heh

[Slick Vik]

So sprawl is ok with you as long as we have a public transport system?  Good to know.

 

 

Would you say London and Paris are as sprawling as Houston?

[Slick Vik]

Not building freeways has to do more with historic preservation, but you were arguing how it was wrong to have multiple city centers. At any rate, concepts in Europe won't always work here (I can go into a long-winded explanation why Auchan never took off here to begin with, but I'll spare you). I think in terms of mass transit, I'd love to see a light rail that does minimal street running like Dallas' does, but their LRT is too expensive without enough riders.

 

Partly but has a lot to do with the way of thinking to. When the US invested in interstates, Europe and Japan and South Korea invested heavily in rail systems, and you can see the results now. US should follow the route of Germany which has the autobahns but also some of the best rail in the world, inter and intracity.

[august948]

Sounds like a plan for streetcars! Heh

 

Might be a little big for streetcars, given that the green dots are 10 miles across.  Still, I wonder if Metro could end up revising it's local routes such that each center becomes it's own local hub, much like downtown is currently for the whole system.  Then you might have some sort of rapid transit between centers instead of the current out and back to downtown we have now.

 

[David Crossley]

Might be a little big for streetcars, given that the green dots are 10 miles across.  Still, I wonder if Metro could end up revising it's local routes such that each center becomes it's own local hub, much like downtown is currently for the whole system.  Then you might have some sort of rapid transit between centers instead of the current out and back to downtown we have now.

 

Don't know about the streetcars (we'd never build the system if it required rail) but the rest of what you suggest is spot on. This is a regional plan, and there need to be local bus routes that provide service within and around the centers (and could connect to other centers as well)

[august948]

Yes, we have that data, and the hierarchy you see in our map just addresses the biggest 4 centers. We've just begin to look at this new data from H-GAC and all this needs a little refining. But the picture is pretty clear.

 

When we look at the green circles, we're interested in how possible it is to live near some good-sized job center. The people who do, and it's quite a few, could gradually have less and less need for cars as their center evolves and we begin to focus our transit service on those people.

 

How are you determing the possibility of living near the job centers (inside the green dots)?  Can you overlay cost of housing and other factors on the map?  It would be interesting to see how that pans out since much of the fringe development is said to be driven by lower cost of housing and better schools.  I wonder how much of that is true and how much is sales fluff.

 

[IronTiger]

Partly but has a lot to do with the way of thinking to. When the US invested in interstates, Europe and Japan and South Korea invested heavily in rail systems, and you can see the results now.

There's no traffic jams in those cities! Oh...wait.

Proportionally, Houston, for as big as it is and for underdeveloped the mass transit is, the highways have done a huge favor in keeping traffic manageable (there was a study released either earlier this year or late last year to that effect). It doesn't necessarily say that highways are the future, but it vindicates the decisions made in the past.

I'd love to see more light rail, but I'd also love to see new highways.

[Slick Vik]

There's no traffic jams in those cities! Oh...wait.

Proportionally, Houston, for as big as it is and for underdeveloped the mass transit is, the highways have done a huge favor in keeping traffic manageable (there was a study released either earlier this year or late last year to that effect). It doesn't necessarily say that highways are the future, but it vindicates the decisions made in the past.

I'd love to see more light rail, but I'd also love to see new highways.

 

Building highways with little to no mass transit isn't the right solution.

Edited January 27, 2014 by Slick Vik

[IronTiger]

Building highways with little to no mass transit isn't the right solution.

Mass transit also involves buses: there's P&R and I've never been on Houston streets for very long without being caught behind a bus at some point. Of course, with the buses, we open a whole new can of worms--buses provide a rough ride since a lot of the four lane roads are concrete roads built in the 1970s with a bunch of potholes.

[Ross]

Partly but has a lot to do with the way of thinking to. When the US invested in interstates, Europe and Japan and South Korea invested heavily in rail systems, and you can see the results now. US should follow the route of Germany which has the autobahns but also some of the best rail in the world, inter and intracity.

 

Germany is also small, about half the size of Texas, and more densely populated, 3 times the population of Texas. Most of the rail lines have existed for decades. That makes it totally diferent than Texas, whihc is pretty sparsely populated and large. We also prefer to drive, since we usually need a car at our destination. Most of the places I go in Texas will never have mass transit, because it's not feasible in towns with 3000 population.

 

Japan and South Korea are also very densely populated, which helps make rail economic. They also have geographic limitations that make road building problematic.

 

[august948]

Building highways with little to no mass transit isn't the right solution.

 

Good thing that we've got highways AND Metro, then, isn't it?

 

Edited January 28, 2014 by august948

[august948]

Don't know about the streetcars (we'd never build the system if it required rail) but the rest of what you suggest is spot on. This is a regional plan, and there need to be local bus routes that provide service within and around the centers (and could connect to other centers as well)

 

Next question: what do you think the odds are that we'll get a multiple-center oriented transit plan from Metro?  I know they're reworking things now, but what little I've heard is just revisions to the existing layout.  Going multiple-center would be a paradigm shift for them.

 

I'm still rooting for at least multiple destinations from the P&R system.  That would get us somewhat started on the concept of connecting centers with non-stop service.

 

[Slick Vik]

Good thing that we've got highways AND Metro, then, isn't it?

Metro is not sufficient it's a drop in the bucket at best

[Slick Vik]

Germany is also small, about half the size of Texas, and more densely populated, 3 times the population of Texas. Most of the rail lines have existed for decades. That makes it totally diferent than Texas, whihc is pretty sparsely populated and large. We also prefer to drive, since we usually need a car at our destination. Most of the places I go in Texas will never have mass transit, because it's not feasible in towns with 3000 population.

Japan and South Korea are also very densely populated, which helps make rail economic. They also have geographic limitations that make road building problematic.

We prefer to drive because we aren't given any feasible alternative. Build mass transit in a corridor where it's needed and watch what happens.

[IronTiger]

We prefer to drive because we aren't given any feasible alternative. Build mass transit in a corridor where it's needed and watch what happens.

Unfortunately, as U.S. cities in the northeast show, driving is still preferred far and above. There's an extensive light rail network in Dallas: I could get from Plano to downtown, but are the highways clogged? Yes.

What a lot of light rail advocates don't realize is that when you ride on mass transit, you eliminate options: you can't stop at a restaurant, store (grocery or otherwise) or otherwise on the way home, or make any other side trips (dry cleaning, etc.)

A "feasible alternative" to driving could probably be rocket jet-packs that you could fly to work, but the technology isn't there yet.

[David Crossley]

There are several things that need to be clear before having a lot more discussion about Houston transit:

1. We might not see any more rail here for a decade or more, and maybe never. So we have to move on to Plan B, like it or not.

2. There is discussion within Metro of center to center transit service and has been for at least a decade.

3. The common refrain that people won't live anywhere except out at the fringe because of housing costs and schools ignores the fact that, as the map shows, 88% of all the people in the 13-country region already live in that purple area surrounding the jobs, and that about half or more of all the top schools are inside the City of Houston.

4. This is not a contest to see which mode wins, at some point requiring the loser to close up shop. If the majority of people will continue to drive it's only because people who live close to jobs or people who use transit make it possible for others to use the freeways and streets. See Texas Transportation Institute's annual Mobility Report.

5. Kimley-Horn's Sam Lott, who is an expert modeler, is saying we are approaching a time when all the streets and roads in the region look like rush hour freeway traffic all day long and the system is headed toward failure. 

6. Having an ideological  bias against transit or for highways means you're not in the main discussion, which has to focused on reality and what's possible.