Light Rail Progress (Houston, Dallas, Palestine: living in, move to, garage)

[mm4]

The city is trying to build a regional rail network, which is the right thing to do. It's never done to remove cars from streets, rather its both an alternative way of getting from one place to another by efficiently avoiding car-jammed streets, and a way to do that quickly as well for commuters without their own autos.

But that's impossible on a wall-to-wall neighborhood carpet of preexisting development without either going aerial almost everywhere or digging everywhere. There's no middle ground in Houston; it's painted completely into a corner with medium to low capacity streets. The west side is completely lacking in non auto ROW. Not even east/west rail easement. It's really unique, in a bad way.

The University Line has to be done. From a practical perspective most of it should ideally be done above grade farther west of Main and money should be thrown at it. It's too important to be a trolley line. I think a Richmond line would work best as something where far more cross streets than Main should be eliminated, others (major intersections) should be handled as underpasses where the tracks are raised, and there needs to be a complete continuous barrier between the railbeds and what remains of the street.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by dv1033

Then we only have the Main St line and essentially have an all bus mass transit system for a city of 6 million. It's called compromise.

But honestly, Houston's light rail is nothing more than a streetcar system if it continues to run along the street for it's entire length and I have no problem with that. It's not any different than what Washington DC is currently building right now with their new lines. It is meant to get you from neighborhood to neighborhood but it's slow. Houston's LRT system is not rapid transit and I don't think they want it to be.

But the question is when will Houston get the type of rail system that you will find in other cities. I do think they are doing it the right way by taking care of the urban neighborhoods first. But I wish it could have it's own row that rarely has any interaction with the street. But of course, this isn't Houston's fault. The feds and the local government is not helping. I also agree, University line must be done.

[mm4]

Originally Posted by Spade

Houston's LRT system is not rapid transit and I don't think they want it to be.

They do want it to be at least a semblance of rapid. And there's no money for anything other than surface LRT. The speed performance of these vehicles is on par with heavy rail, it can be taken advantage of with limited exposure to the neighborhood street. Unfortunately most of their service area is papered over with neighborhood street. The challenge is how to maximize the speed within that limitation. If they have to do it effectively, some of these auto thoroughfares will have been rededicated as rail routes first and primarily, and streets second.

They're not even grand boulevards like Boston's Green Line C (Beacon), E (Huntington), B (Commonwealth) that had been originally designed a hundred years ago around center median rail. Instead in Houston it's not only the inverse, but the streets are half as wide.

Originally Posted by Spade

I do think they are doing it the right way by taking care of the urban neighborhoods first.

Houston has no choice--the only way transit can be fit into a sizable portion of anything west of downtown is through its neighborhoods, both sides of West Loop South. There's nowhere else to run some of these lines, there's literally no room. Else they'd have to exclusively tunnel (which is prohibitively expensive and the option isn't on the table).

Houston's physical cityscape is uniquely unaccommodating for superimposition of surface rail. There's nowhere to put it on top of the ground, yet the city needs it.

[robertrulez]

Originally Posted by Univ_Texas_Alum_30

I'm not going to re-type my previous posts, because each time you come up with a new logical fallacy. This fallacy is that you are lumping buses in with rail. The light rail are essentially buses with millions of dollars worth of track making them less flexible. I already addressed that issue. Secondly, we were talking about the safety of light rail. It doesn't make sense to introduce a new danger to houston traffic even if existing options carry danger. Finally, dude, we have addressed ad nauseum the argument that rail only benefits a few. It is only in walking distance for a few select apartment complexes, it doesn't make sense to drive from the burbs and get on a train, and finally, it costs the same or less to park downtown.

YOU: buhbubububububububub, RAIL.
ME and OTHERS: debunk, debunk, debunk

None of the pro-rail trolls even pay attention to the arguments against the houston light rail. IF you did, you wouldn''t be regurgitating the same tired, debunked arguments.

This was the nail in the coffin. The light rail trolls will now be ignored.

Since you want to bring in fallacies to the equation you are essentially denying the correlative. Almost 40,000 people ride rail every day essentially destroying the argument that one a select few people living in nearby apartment complexes benefit it. You are the epitome of a suburbanite that fears any colored person in any corner as demonstrated by your unwillingness to disclose your location. Go back to your cheap prefab piece of crap and leave the discussion to people who live in Houston that will be affected by rail.

[dv1033]

Originally Posted by Spade

But honestly, Houston's light rail is nothing more than a streetcar system if it continues to run along the street for it's entire length and I have no problem with that. It's not any different than what Washington DC is currently building right now with their new lines. It is meant to get you from neighborhood to neighborhood but it's slow. Houston's LRT system is not rapid transit and I don't think they want it to be.

I never understood this "streetcar" notion. It has always come off as a negative connotation to me as Houston's light rail only similarity to traditional streetcars is the fact it runs in the street... Seriously, when you actually look into capacity and speed there's not much resemblance.

Finally, I'm not sure why Houston's LRT would need to be "rapid". It currently takes ~30 minutes to ride the 7 mile line but no one rides it from end to end. It won't be as fast as subway or elevated rail but Houston's destinations and transit centers are spread over the proposed expansion so riding long distances wouldn't be the norm.

But the question is when will Houston get the type of rail system that you will find in other cities. I do think they are doing it the right way by taking care of the urban neighborhoods first. But I wish it could have it's own row that rarely has any interaction with the street. But of course, this isn't Houston's fault. The feds and the local government is not helping. I also agree, University line must be done.

But why not in the streets? Have you driven along and rode Houston's Main St line?

[blkgiraffe]

Originally Posted by dv1033

I never understood this "streetcar" notion. It has always come off as a negative connotation to me as Houston's light rail only similarity to traditional streetcars is the fact it runs in the street... Seriously, when you actually look into capacity and speed there's not much resemblance.

Finally, I'm not sure why Houston's LRT would need to be "rapid". It currently takes ~30 minutes to ride the 7 mile line but no one rides it from end to end. It won't be as fast as subway or elevated rail but Houston's destinations and transit centers are spread over the proposed expansion so riding long distances wouldn't be the norm.

But why not in the streets? Have you driven along and rode Houston's Main St line?

I have and it's annoying.

[DANNYY]

Houston Metro wins $50 million from Uncle Sam | Texas on the Potomac | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Okay I know this is good news and all, but WTF, what about the other 3 lines? Especially the ones I am looking forward to the most the University & Uptown Lines. WTF Houston, getting the funding for the wrong lines man. Easing traffic congestion on the freeways, really Green? Really? A freakin 11 Mile addition wont do jack. These incompetents in METRO take the smallest things and brag about it to make it sound like its the greatest thing in the world. Houston has a 7.5 Mile line, and this agency here (METRO) thinks that it's "first class" transit.

Yeah right. METRO panelists are smoking crack. For real.

[blkgiraffe]

Originally Posted by DANNYY

Houston Metro wins $50 million from Uncle Sam | Texas on the Potomac | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Okay I know this is good news and all, but WTF, what about the other 3 lines? Especially the ones I am looking forward to the most the University & Uptown Lines. WTF Houston, getting the funding for the wrong lines man. Easing traffic congestion on the freeways, really Green? Really? A freakin 11 Mile addition wont do jack. These incompetents in METRO take the smallest things and brag about it to make it sound like its the greatest thing in the world. Houston has a 7.5 Mile line, and this agency here (METRO) thinks that it's "first class" transit.

Yeah right. METRO panelists are smoking crack. For real.

Funding for the worst lines. Uptown and University lines should be the main priority at this point. Those others can wait.

[Black Jack22]

Haha, just the fact that we are discussing this shows that this city does not have it together in terms of public transportation planning!

[mm4]

There are socio economic factors involved. Equality means not being exclusively west-centric in all the first legs.