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does the houston metro go anywhere? how many lines exist? where does it go? does it serve a lot of the community?
Right now, it's just about a seven mile stretch of line going down Main St. but it does go through TMC, the Museum District, the Theater District, Midtown, and downtown. It's pretty efficient for just a seven mile stretch of light rail. It has been pretty successful to the point that the city is adding 4 lines and all but one (the Uptown line) will be inside the 610 Loop. So needless to say, it's going change the city quite a bit.
I'm curious to this as well. Perhaps the user was going by the bigger is better philosophy that many people incorrectly follow.
Charlotte's LRT is certainly effective on a national level and is ~2 miles longer than Houston's, but Houston's LRT has 2X the riders/mile.
Given that Houstons city population is about 3X that of Charlotte, I would expect it to have a higher ridership. And I actually didn't know that Charlotte's LRT was longer. I was under the impression that Houstons LRT was ginormous, but I think I may have confused that with Phoenix, I think that one is about 30 miles. Don't ask how I got Phoenix and Houston mixed up.
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eek
does the houston metro go anywhere? how many lines exist? where does it go? does it serve a lot of the community?
It's got 1 line right now in existence. 7.5 miles.
The plans to extend it which has started construction is to add 4 more lines to the existing. And to extend the current line by .5 miles as well.
In the end after the construction is over, it will be nearly 73-82 miles (depending on the minimum or maximum of their plans), and most of it will serve the inner loop of Houston.
There are also plans to get commuter rail set and going after the completion of the Light Rail extension.
Hey, Houston's not the best for public transportation. But it's making changes to satisfy the people of it's city.
Given that Houstons city population is about 3X that of Charlotte, I would expect it to have a higher ridership. And I actually didn't know that Charlotte's LRT was longer. I was under the impression that Houstons LRT was ginormous, but I think I may have confused that with Phoenix, I think that one is about 30 miles. Don't ask how I got Phoenix and Houston mixed up.
It doesn't interfere with traffic like Metro does.
So what? That apparently hasn't affected ridership nor has it made traffic along the rail unbearable, as people now adapted and take alternative routes. Houston system serves as model of putting a line to where to people actually work instead of a public transportation boondoggle like Dallas has going.
Quote:
Originally Posted by adavi215
Given that Houstons city population is about 3X that of Charlotte, I would expect it to have a higher ridership. And I actually didn't know that Charlotte's LRT was longer. I was under the impression that Houstons LRT was ginormous, but I think I may have confused that with Phoenix, I think that one is about 30 miles. Don't ask how I got Phoenix and Houston mixed up.
Houston, being a city of generally low density has stuck with a bus public transportation system. With the growth that has been occurring the Houston's inner core it has decided to expand the LRT, adding about 4X the track.
It's not safe to assume anything about LRT ridership as Buffalo, NY has the nations 3rd most effective LRT, behind Boston and Houston.
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