How To Hate Light Rail in Houston

Apparently there is a recipe in Houston for anti-rail arguments. Go to any Houston anti-rail site and there is a clearly a template for bashing rail lines. I can see the book now, steps for being against rail in Houston. I noticed some of the many steps in a recent editorial in the Houston Chronicle.

Step 1: Claim the Light Rail Blocks Traffic and Hogs the Road.

Though the light-rail trains don't often sit still to clog streets, the right-of-way hogs do stifle traffic through downtown and Midtown each day. If the leaders of the Metropolitan Transit Authority have their way, Richmond Avenue will also soon be nearly impassable during rush hours.

Remind me again how many people those LRVs carry versus cars? So who should have priority, a train full of people, or a single occupancy vehicle? Increasing the capacity of Main Street seems to be rather beneficial. The line does get 40,000 riders a day.

Step 2: Transit should be a private enterprise, since cars always pay for themselves.

The New York Times, which so often whiffs at attempts to explain Houston to the nation, highlighted the downtown tunnel system recently in a feature story that illustrates how the city works best.

"(The tunnel system) was not centrally planned; it just grew," wrote Houston-based reporter Ralph Blumenthal. "And, befitting Texans' distrust of government, most of it is private."

Rule 3: Cite Joel Kotkin or Wendell Cox or RandalL O'Toole as Experts

Light rail and bike paths are but two examples of the current push to shape Houston in the vision of urban planners and civic leaders who hate Houston's now 171-year tradition of organic growth. A debate on such matters has been carried out in this newspaper since urban expert Joel Kotkin told the Greater Houston Partnership early this summer that Houston's embrace of free-market planning was a great example for other cities.

Outsiders like Kotkin seem to have a pretty good view of Houston's workings these days, perhaps even better than its residents.

It always cracks me up that there is no mention of where these guys come from or their motives, just that they are experts. But most people know who these guys are by now.

Rule 4: Houston's Lack of Planning Make it the Greatest City in the USA

Indeed, like the tunnels, Houston wasn't planned so much as it just grew into the nation's fourth-largest city. Now, many would like to see Houston turn its back on the very strategy — that is, nonstrategy — that made the city great.

Rule 5: The Public Process is Flawed Because We the Minority Aren't Getting Our Way

Alas resistance, as they say, is futile. Metro recently held public hearings that allowed opponents of the Richmond rail route to voice their dissent. But surely all those attending the meeting know any words of discord fell on deaf ears.

Seemingly nothing can be said that will convince Metro's leaders of anything other than the plan they're forcing on Houston. Those who live and operate businesses along Richmond are told to sacrifice for the "greater good."

I believe over 50% voted for the Metro Solutions light rail plan and most people on Richmond want the rail line. The stats that come from Culbertson's head are just that, in his head.

Rule 6: If It Doesn't Serve Suburban Commuters, It Doesn't Serve Anyone Worth Serving

Never mind that the light rail can't get commuters from the suburbs to their jobs. Or that Houston's decentralized population and wide geographic reach vastly reduce the utility of a static mass transit structure.

Of course they are probably fine with the HOV lane road warrior bus system they created. People in Houston working along the major freeways have an option with those HOV lanes built with federal funding. Very few people realize that Houston has already spent at least a billion dollars on those spokes. Yet even with those improvements, there was still a need for a crazy expansion of the Katy Freeway, which no one complains about going over budget.

Rule 7: Call the Rail Line a Name

I know the guy in this article wanted to call the Houston light rail by a name, perhaps danger train or something silly like that, but he had to look credible right?

So take a look at all of these elements of a rail attack piece, does it look like every other attack piece ever done? Of course it does because deep down they just do not like rail and can not just come out and say it. All they have to do is say "I don't like rail". This is not a war of ideas but one of ideology. It's like a virus that has spread from Karl Rove's brain to every aspect of life.

If you have another step, feel free to post it in the comments.

Land Use, Land Use, Land Use

We've known for a while now that it isn't just the transportation that matters, it's also the land use it serves. And new research from Smart Growth America is another rather compelling argument for it. It basically states that compact development is key to reducing auto dependence and the effects of climate change. This report also uses the expertise of Jerry Walters at Fehr & Peers who with his colleagues there has come up with the direct ridership model which does a better job at predicting ridership based on different access to the stations such as bikes, buses, and walking based on the land uses and the surrounding grid. Previous studies referenced in this report state that there is a 35% reduction in driving from compact development.

The 1994 Portland Metro Travel Survey stated that people who live in mixed use communities with good transit take about 9.8 VMT per capita versus 21.7 VMT per capita. That's rather impressive and shows that increases in transportation and land use measures would benefit cities who are looking to reduce VMT. This finding was used to show that the over 7,000 housing units built on the streetcar line downtown in walkable, transit oriented neighborhoods, would reduce VMT by 31 million a year. If we say that a gallon of gas is 20 pounds of carbon, then we would reduce carbon emissions by 24.8 million pounds if fuel economy is 25 mpg which is being really generous.

More transit options, more compact development, reduced VMT.

Making the Case for Rail Transit

Over at Seattle Transit there is a post about a misinformed blog over at Crosscut. The part of the argument that rubbed me the wrong way and Diamajin gets right was that no one gets that you build transit then the densities will follow. We learn this the most from the Arlington Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor in DC. They put the subway in and limited the growth to the corridor to protect the surrounding neighborhoods. Now they get 32% of the county tax revenue from 7% of the land because of the transit and land use combination. This area densified (to 7,700 people per square mile) and would not have look anything like the famous picture below if it wasn't for the subway. The most interesting statistic is that 73% of riders walk to the station. I wish people would get real and understand that you don't need to already be like New York and Chicago, but you can grow corridors that have densities to support urbanism.

Capping the Interstates

It seems like something out of the future but why hasn't the federal government or cities for that matter thought about capping all of the freeways with new buildings and streets to gain revenue? It seems to me that in areas which have urban freeways and high land prices, we should be able to not waste that land. Why not build steel tables on top of the freeway and just build up? There wouldn't be too much objection to it and perhaps there would also be room for transit on top.

We already see ideas for either capping or submerging freeways and this might be a way to just leave them as they are while using the air above them as buildable space. And to make sure that the freeway isn't an eyesore from street level, there should be shops or housing wrapping the sides of it.

A Huge TOD

Pentagon City is about to get a huge TOD. 3,200 Units is a lot so it might take a while to build. But this will give a huge ridership boost to the two metro lines.

Kettler, one of the Washington area’s leading diversified real estate development and property management companies, announced today that it has purchased 19.6 acres in Pentagon City from affiliates of Vornado Realty Trust for approximately $220.4 million. Kettler closed on the initial 11 acres today for $104.3 million, and plans to purchase the remaining acreage over the next year.

Misconceptions of Smart Growth, New Urbanism and TOD

I would consider myself a New Urbanist and a Smart Growth advocate but I'm not sure that i would characterize it as wanting people to live on top of each other or even communism as some have so put it. Just like with rail transit versus the automobile, people like to have choices. And given that the vast majority of new construction are single family homes, this doesn't match up with consumer choices. The reason we know this is because this condo boom is always reviled as a rich boom. There is a huge demand and people will pay premiums to live in urban settings over suburban ones. Building neighborhoods is something that was forgotten between the era of streetcar suburbs and today.

What the New Urbanists are trying to do is bring that neighborhood structure back. You might hate the modernest architecture and the silly color schemes but that isn't what New Urbanism is all about (although its a hot type right now and all builders will want to claim new urbanism in their projects). A lot of projects are on greenfields where people have their own yards and the ability to walk in their neighborhood with interconnected streets and connections to transit. The projects you hear about are the infill projects where developers are fighting to make building density and mixed use legal again since it has been outlawed in many cities by post war zoning codes. That causes quite a rile in newspapers and media but doesn't tell the larger story of the movement.

In New Urbanism there is a strategy for design called the transect. It talks about the densities that should be employed from center city to the rural. You'll rarely see anything but single family homes in the T1 or T2 settings(The transect goes from T1 which is the most rural to the T6 which is New York City type density). So while many might think that New Urbanists and Smart Growth types are all about shoving density down your throats, its really all a misconception of how the movement operates and how it values neighborhood design that goes back to the streetcar suburbs that had grid street patterns and good transit options. If more people had the choice of walking, biking or taking transit we would have less of an issue with peak oil or oil at all.