Houston Chronicle: Metro Is So Far-Sighted They Are Short-Sighted

What? Perhaps its because Houston has been such a car oriented city for so long, the editors at the Chronicle aren't sure how transit will work when there is a new energy reality. Before we get into more details, I'd like to debunk the myth that commuter rail lines primary transit function is to get people to airports.

Houstonians will still lack a reliable, affordable public transit option to get to the region's two major airports. Such links are a primary function of commuter rail in other cities.

It's nice to have a link to the airport, but they aren't the primary function. But let's talk about the reality of airports in an energy constrained future. Given that flights are having trouble currently with gas prices, I can't imagine what would happen when it gets even worse. Building lines to airports just to go to the airport seems a bit silly to me, at least when people are fighting over such small amounts of funds as it is and shorter flights could diminish extensively. If we were a place like Vienna with an existing extensive transit network, we can build lines directly from the Airport to the major subway transfer station downtown.

But for Houston, the North Line could be eventually built to have an express train on tracks that serve the neighborhoods to the North. But hopefully by that time there will also be High Speed Rail in Texas. Now we're just voting on it here in California, but if it were to happen in Texas, it would not stop at the airport but downtown at the commuter rail and light rail hub. And when you get off of that train, it is more important to have a network that gets you to all of the major job centers (orange below) and places of housing density in the core of the region rather than have an easy link to the airport. Christof always has wonderful maps...



Now they are looking into commuter trains and complaining that the inner-city network is shortsighted. Well what happens when those people get to the hub downtown on those commuter trains without a circulation network? I would guess less ridership because their trip ends there, they aren't going to hop on a bus to get to other parts of the city. It seems to me they are actually quite smart in fixing up the light rail network.

Long-distance commuter rail lines could relieve growing traffic congestion on area freeways, but there is no single agency empowered to plan and build them. Some major roadway projects, such as the recent Katy Freeway expansion, include no provision for future rail systems.

Not that commuter rail isn't needed on some corridors, but Houston has rather good express buses that take HOV lanes downtown from the far flung suburbs. My dad took one of these downtown to work every day which brought me more appreciation for transit. In addition to these existing facilities though, commuter rail could prove to quicker to get through the process of construction than light rail making the initial city circulation network genius. The issue of networks and overlapping service needs to be addressed more extensively, because we keep having these suburb, urban debates when we need to bring every different type for their strengths and build them all together. As discussed before, you wouldn't build a freeway without arterial and local streets, so why would we do that with transit modes?

Subway to the Sea Moves Along

Slowly. But at least they are paring it down. It goes from this:

to this:


Of course its going to take a large chunk of green to make this happen but how else are you going to build people moving capacity for increased density along the line. Here's the badge again, if anyone wants to use it.

Orange Line Full, Driving Away Riders

We've covered this issue before, but here's an article written by a suit and tie guy that loves to ride this bus who is getting fed up with the crowding. It again shows that Americans are not the same as Brazilians and are not willing to put up with that type of passenger crush load in its buses. Thus the comparison to Curitiba again gets fresh debunking.

I take the line at least once a week, sometimes two or three times. That’s not bad for a guy in a suit and tie. We’re a rare breed on the busways of Los Angeles and a segment of the population that the MTA wants to attract. I live near one end of the line at the Chandler subway in North Hollywood and work at the Business Journal at the other end of the line in Warner Center.

So he's even reverse commuting away from downtown Los Angeles but to another major job center that is surely growing. Yet the end to end run time is getting slower. As said before, the Gold Line is the same length and 15 minutes faster. It's also been able to take the ridership hit because of two car trains and now we see ridership jump to 27,000. Over the last year, that's a 39% increase versus the constrained 8% of the Orange Line.

And the buses seem to be getting slower. It’s supposed to take 45 minutes to cross the Valley on the Orange Line. It’s five minutes longer than that many times. That may not seem like much, but if I’m spending 50 minutes traveling I might as well be in my car and in control.

Sure the Gold Line was a bit more expensive to build but the Orange Line won't be able to take much more growth, so something will have to be done soon that will make the Orange Line much more expensive than it had to be. Hopefully things will get fixed before more people start talking like this.

The point of all this: I don’t really want to ride the Orange Line anymore under these conditions. A champion of the service has become disillusioned. And considering this city’s track record on mass transit, I’m skeptical things will be fixed.

First Ever Elevated BRT in China

Wonder how much this cost them.

Brian in the comments links to the webpage for this new line. Tons of pictures there like this one...

China Wants to Go Fast

Tell me again why Maglev is still an option? From Reuters:

"We have mastered core technologies in terms of manufacturing high-speed trains and made innovative achievements in the process," he said.

"It is possible that we can start to manufacture 380-kph trains in two years' time, and put them into service on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway," Zhang added.

That's 236 miles per hour and the technology is still progressing.

Update: Frequent commenter NJH has the following analysis on top speed for HSR.

Amtrak Evacuation Ahead of Gustav

Amtrak is taking people from New Orleans to Memphis. Something that didn't happen during Katrina apparently because no one returned their calls.

Update: Apparently the RTA learned from Katrina as well. In that storm many of the motors were ruined on the streetcars when one of the barns flooded. The ones which survived were stored at Carrolton Station and will be stored there again on high ground.

More Roads!

Build Build Build. More roads. Now. Because comparing rush hour transit service ridership to the all day road number is apples to apples right?

As If a Darwin Award Wasn't Enough

No one should be able to sue over the excuse "They should have known people would tresspass."

Unconventional Streets Wisdom

For those who watch the numbers, it should be no surprise that San Francisco's Sunday Streets would be a success for merchants at Fisherman's Wharf. However, the merchants still stuck in auto mode were complaining about the embarcadero shutdown today. However their fears, as many predicted, were unfounded. There was also a little help from demonstration E-Line service which hopefully will come online as full time sooner rather than later. Via the MSR blog:

Plenty of riders came out to take part in the free demonstration service, especially later in the morning. And it's a good thing that the E cars were on the line because, north of the Ferry Building they were needed to reduce the crush loads on the F. Muni added three shuttle buses on top of the regularly scheduled vintage shuttles, and everything was packed. Apparently, the Mayor's Sunday Streets idea worked to get more people to the Wharf, instead of fewer, as Wharf merchants had feared. The closed northbound traffic lanes of The Embarcadero were filled with skaters, walkers, and bikers.

Follow "The Market"

Let's keep doing what we've been doing and expect different results.