METRO Next - 2040 Vision

[yaga]

Metro unveiled their Preliminary Long Term Vision for Projects through 2040 on Thursday July, 2018 at the MetroNext Board Workshop. 

 

Perliminary Long Term Vision (discussed at the 17:30 mark) - Pretty much a pipe dream and estimated to Cost $35 Billion

- 100 miles of Light Rail (to both IAH and Hobby, Inner Katy Line to High Speed Rail Station at Northwest Mall)

- 90 Miles of BRT 

 

Forward Plan A (discussed at the 1:03:00 mark) is the more optimistic plan with the Metro receiving higher funding levels

- 12 miles of Light Rail (Red & Purple Extensions to Hobby; Red line extension to Tidwell)

- 34 miles of BRT (University Line, Inner Katy, Uptown Extension)

 

Forward Plan B (discussed at the 1:22:00 mark) is the pessimistic plan with Metro receiving lower funding levels

 - 1 mile of Light Rail (Red line extension to Tidwell)

 - 11 miles of BRT (Inner Katy, Uptown Extension)

 

 

Video

http://ridemetro.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=5&clip_id=1651

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2018 by yaga

[Houston19514]

Cool.  Thanks for posting.

[cspwal]

17 hours ago, yaga said:

Forward Plan A (discussed at the 1:03:00 mark) is the more optimistic plan with the Metro receiving higher funding levels

- 12 miles of Light Rail (Red & Purple Extensions to Hobby; Red line extension to Tidwell)

- 34 miles of BRT (University Line, Inner Katy, Uptown Extension)

 Rail to Hobby? We need to make this happen

[mfastx]

I like the idea of connecting the airports by rail, but I am a little disappointed at how much light rail they're proposing in what they call "dense" areas.  The actual "dense" areas have no rail going to them at all (basically the entire west side of Houston).  For the one rail line going towards the west side, having it in the middle of I-10 will also limit ridership.  

 

But BRT can work as well so hopefully something gets done on the west side.  I just think it's backwards, BRT is better served on the east side areas with fewer population. 

[Angostura]

Sorry, Metro, but density is upstream of transit, and density is out of your control. 

 

Maybe lobby CoH to eliminate parking minimums and building setbacks, reduce RoW widths, encourage road diets, and tax surface parking. Then build light rail where density can make it viable. At current per-mile costs, it's important to reduce the number of miles by only serving areas of sufficient density.

 

 

(Also, a 20-mph light rail line to IAH strikes me as an especially dumb way to provide this service.)

[cspwal]

The thinking is probably that building out BRT will be less disruptive in the dense areas, and once it's built they could slowly convert some to rail lines as ridership demands.

 

Hopefully a light rail to IAH would have a higher average speed - but that would require many fewer stops on the extension line, as well as grade separation to get it up to 66 mph safely

[LBC2HTX]

Light rail to IAH doesn't make any sense. What are they going to do, extend the rail up Airline (which isn't at all dense) all the way through Greenspoint? While that MIGHT benefit the low-income neighborhoods in that path, it doesn't make any sense to anyone trying to get to IAH... too many stops and not fast enough. 

 

If they want to do it right, they should either

1) no additional stops after the planned tidwell extension, and send the train up the Hardy Toll Road ROW at higher speeds; or

2) since they are extending Hardy TR to downtown, create a new commuter rail along the ROW with a straight shot to IAH with 2 or 3 stops along the way. If needed, put in a new light rail line taking you to the commuter terminus. 

 

Additionally, is there no mention in their plan to push forward with the Blue/Gold lines? Are these "visions" in addition to those?

Edited August 1, 2018 by LBC2HTX

[Houston19514]

The map clearly shows the red-line extension following I-45 and shows stations at the new Tidwell Transit Center, Shepherd, and Greenspoint.  But there is not much point spending time discussing the routing, station placement or theoretical speed at which light rail trains would run on their way to Bush Airport.  There is very little likelihood of a scenario unfolding that would provide light rail to Bush Airport in this planning period (through 2040).

Edited August 1, 2018 by Houston19514

[LBC2HTX]

2 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

There is not much point spending time discussing the theoretical speed at which light rail trains would run on their way to Bush Airport.  There is very little likelihood of a scenario unfolding that would provide light rail to Bush Airport in this planning period (through 2040).

Which is exactly why they should've at least expended their visionary efforts on rail lines that actually makes $s and sense. 

[Houston19514]

19 minutes ago, LBC2HTX said:

Which is exactly why they should've at least expended their visionary efforts on rail lines that actually makes $s and sense. 

 

Maybe you should watch the board meeting video so you can understand the process. (The focus going forward is on the "Moving Forward" plans; neither of which includes light rail to Bush Airport.)

Edited August 1, 2018 by Houston19514

[cspwal]

They also are planning a "signature express bus" from downtown to IAH via Greenspoint.

 

Digging deeper into the handouts from the meeting, the numbers for the University line corridor and the Inner Katy corridor are impressive; 59,500 predicted daily boardings on the university line and 28,650 predicted daily boardings on the inner Katy line.  The university corridor really should be train, not BRT - those BRT buses will be packed if they get anywhere near those numbers.

 

http://ridemetro.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=5&clip_id=1651&meta_id=37660

Edited August 1, 2018 by cspwal

[Houston19514]

19 minutes ago, cspwal said:

They also are planning a "signature express bus" from downtown to IAH via Greenspoint.

 

Digging deeper into the handouts from the meeting, the numbers for the University line corridor and the Inner Katy corridor are impressive; 59,500 predicted daily boardings on the university line and 28,650 predicted daily boardings on the inner Katy line.  The university corridor really should be train, not BRT - those BRT buses will be packed if they get anywhere near those numbers.

 

http://ridemetro.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=5&clip_id=1651&meta_id=37660

 

That is a pretty impressive forecast.  The route is also 22 miles long with 34 stations.  Keep in mind, riders won't be on the bus for the whole 22 miles, or anything close to it.  I expect there will be room on the buses.

 

I like the plan for signature bus service to Bush Airport, but it should stop at the Tidwell Transit Center (thereby connecting to the Red Line) and the other bus lines that meet at the Transit Center) instead of the random stop at Shepherd.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Houston19514

[samagon]

On 8/1/2018 at 8:27 AM, mfastx said:

I like the idea of connecting the airports by rail, but I am a little disappointed at how much light rail they're proposing in what they call "dense" areas.  The actual "dense" areas have no rail going to them at all (basically the entire west side of Houston).  For the one rail line going towards the west side, having it in the middle of I-10 will also limit ridership.  

 

But BRT can work as well so hopefully something gets done on the west side.  I just think it's backwards, BRT is better served on the east side areas with fewer population. 

 

There are certain political entities that will do everything in their power to keep rail out of the west side of town.

 

If you want rail, move east.

[cspwal]

Just did some scribbling on a map.  I estimate the one-way time between Hobby and downtown on the Redline will be about 45 minutes; the current ride is 33 minutes to get to Fannin South, and the 9 miles of new Redline will probably take about as long as riding the purple line to the end.  This isn't too bad, though it is slower than driving, which is only 30 minutes if you're in the HOV lane or there's no traffic.

 

What's more interesting is how they will leave Palm Center TC - the maps they drew imply that the purple line will continue down MLK, which would mean having to turn around and back out of Palm Center to leave.  The alternative is to build a large amount of elevated rail over Long Drive/Griggs/Myawaka, which is currently a mess of train tracks and roads.

 

It will be interesting to see how they have the University line interact with the existing light rail stations - will they have new platforms for the BRT guide way?  Or will the guide way guide it onto the tracks and the bus will pull up to the current light rail platforms?

[Houston19514]

17 hours ago, cspwal said:

Just did some scribbling on a map.  I estimate the one-way time between Hobby and downtown on the Redline will be about 45 minutes; the current ride is 33 minutes to get to Fannin South, and the 9 miles of new Redline will probably take about as long as riding the purple line to the end.  This isn't too bad, though it is slower than driving, which is only 30 minutes if you're in the HOV lane or there's no traffic.

 

What's more interesting is how they will leave Palm Center TC - the maps they drew imply that the purple line will continue down MLK, which would mean having to turn around and back out of Palm Center to leave.  The alternative is to build a large amount of elevated rail over Long Drive/Griggs/Myawaka, which is currently a mess of train tracks and roads.

 

It will be interesting to see how they have the University line interact with the existing light rail stations - will they have new platforms for the BRT guide way?  Or will the guide way guide it onto the tracks and the bus will pull up to the current light rail platforms?

 

Unfortunately, unless they build and operate the Red Line extension differently, 45 minutes seems pretty optimistic.  33 minutes to travel 6 miles and then 12 minutes to travel 9 miles?

[pablog]

26 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Unfortunately, unless they build and operate the Red Line extension differently, 45 minutes seems pretty optimistic.  33 minutes to travel 6 miles and then 12 minutes to travel 9 miles?

That’s how it is in Seattle. The light rail they have there goes from the airport to downtown, and the train goes through a long stretch alongside the freeway very quickly, but once you get close to downtown, it has more stations and it slows down considerably even though it is a lot shorter distance wise. 

[Houston19514]

28 minutes ago, pablog said:

That’s how it is in Seattle. The light rail they have there goes from the airport to downtown, and the train goes through a long stretch alongside the freeway very quickly, but once you get close to downtown, it has more stations and it slows down considerably even though it is a lot shorter distance wise. 

 

But this line is not planned to run alongside a freeway. I suspect it will have fewer stops per mile, but still, 12 minutes seems ambitious.  I hope it's feasible.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Houston19514

[cspwal]

The planned route is along Bellfort; between Fannin South and Sunnyside park I guessed that there wouldn't be any stops (there would have to be a minimum of 2 overpasses, so I could see it being much more grade separated than typical.  That lops 2 miles off the route, leaving 7 miles of line similar to the purple line in length and road network density. 

 

The purple line's end to end time is 27 minutes to go 6.6 miles, with 8 stops between Theater District and Palm Center.  That's averaging 14.7 mph with 1.2 stops/mi.

 

The green line's end to end time is 21 minutes to go 4.3 miles, with 7 stops between Theater District and Magnolia Park TC.  That's averaging 12.3 mph with 1.6 stops/mi.

 

The red line's current end to end time is 55 minutes to go 12.8 miles, with 23 stops between Fannin South and Northline TC.  That's averaging 13.9 mph with 1.8 stops/mi.

 

The extension is planned to have 9 new stations; assuming one is a new Hobby station, that leaves 8 intervening stations to go through in that 7 miles of line (1.1 stops/mi).

 

So judging by this, the train will take about 27 minutes to go from Hobby to Sunnyside Park, and I would expect from there it would travel at 45 mph to Fannin South, which would only take about 3 minutes.

 

That means it will probably take 33 + 27 + 3 = 1 hour and 3 minutes to go from Downtown to Hobby.  That is much worse than I expected - maybe they can speed it up some going down Bellfort compared to the Purple line.  How fast do you all think it needs to go for it to be a reasonable alternative?

[102IAHexpress]

56 minutes ago, cspwal said:

That means it will probably take 33 + 27 + 3 = 1 hour and 3 minutes to go from Downtown to Hobby.  That is much worse than I expected - maybe they can speed it up some going down Bellfort compared to the Purple line.  How fast do you all think it needs to go for it to be a reasonable alternative?

 

Metro's 40 Telephone Rd bus from downtown to Hobby is actually faster than a light rail extension costing hundreds of millions of dollars. lol.

 

https://www.ridemetro.org/MetroPDFs/Schedules/BusSchedules/n040-Telephone-Heights.pdf

 

 

[cspwal]

Granted the extension isn't primarily for connecting downtown to the airport, it is funny that it wouldn't beat a local bus because of all the stops it's making

[102IAHexpress]

Harris County should be grateful it has spent as little on light rail as it has and be done with future expansion. Instead, Metro should pour more money into maintaining and upgrading existing local/commuter bus routes. Cars are just too inexpensive and convenient for Houstonian's to give up for public transportation. Outside of the region investing 25 billion for a regional mag lev and or hyperloop, people are not going to start riding Metro in high enough numbers to justify the costs. 

[Houston19514]

56 minutes ago, cspwal said:

Granted the extension isn't primarily for connecting downtown to the airport, it is funny that it wouldn't beat a local bus because of all the stops it's making

 

It seems the red line extension is not at all for connecting Hobby to downtown.  The purple line would be much more direct.  Maybe 35 minutes?

[cspwal]

1 minute ago, Houston19514 said:

 

It seems the red line extension is not at all for connecting Hobby to downtown.  The purple line would be much more direct.  Maybe 35 minutes?

It takes 27 minutes to travel to the end of the purple line; double that to get to Hobby and it comes out around 54 minutes.  A little faster, but still pretty slow.

[Houston19514]

8 minutes ago, cspwal said:

It takes 27 minutes to travel to the end of the purple line; double that to get to Hobby and it comes out around 54 minutes.  A little faster, but still pretty slow.

 

Why would the travel time double?  The purple line extension to Bellfort is only 2.5 miles with 4 stations.  Another mile to Hobby.

[cspwal]

Oops forgot where the purple line would be hitting the red line 

[felt38]

Is turning the red line to Hobby really the right thing to do? Why not extend further SW?  It seems like the Green line is the best candidate for extending to Hobby.  

[Nate99]

Light rail to the airports seems a bad idea. Heavier rail, like NJT in Newark or BART in SFO works to some expensive extent where you have a dense destination, but taking an hour and a half tour of Acres Homes and Greenspoint to get to/from IAH is a joke. 

[j_cuevas713]

13 hours ago, Nate99 said:

Light rail to the airports seems a bad idea. Heavier rail, like NJT in Newark or BART in SFO works to some expensive extent where you have a dense destination, but taking an hour and a half tour of Acres Homes and Greenspoint to get to/from IAH is a joke. 

It would take an hr and a half? I heard it would be less stops with right of way for the train.

[Nate99]

16 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

It would take an hr and a half? I heard it would be less stops with right of way for the train.

 

Hopefully it would be faster, mine was just an uneducated guess based on how long it takes to get to NRG and how long the drive would be along the same route.  

Edited September 18, 2018 by Nate99

[Houston19514]

On 9/16/2018 at 11:25 PM, felt38 said:

Is turning the red line to Hobby really the right thing to do? Why not extend further SW?  It seems like the Green line is the best candidate for extending to Hobby.  

 

The plan would also connect the purple line to Hobby.