Do you favor a plan to build elevated lanes down the middle of loop 610 from I-10 to US 59? (West: cars, required)

[MAROON79]

Originally Posted by Dopo

WTP?
The solution is always "more lanes"
How about we design the highways better instead of adding more lanes?

More lanes on 610 is not going to fix the traffic created by the people going South on 610 toward 59 West and all of a sudden they have to slam on their breaks because somebody coming from W. Alabama St. gets in front of them and tries to go to 610 West.

***610 Southbound to 59 West***

it would relieve the west loop of many of those drivers who are not exiting onto either 59 or I-10. It would help.

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by MAROON79

it would relieve the west loop of many of those drivers who are not exiting onto either 59 or I-10. It would help.

What needs to be done is fix the stupid entrance and exit ramps

[MAROON79]

Why not both?

and which stupid entrance and exit ramps are you referring to?

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by MAROON79

Why not both?

and which stupid entrance and exit ramps are you referring to?

***610 Southbound to 59 West***

[ptt]

You will never build enough roads to keep up with cars. Houston need mass transportation that link suburb and downtown. Modern Cities around the world with large population have them. If Houston wanted to keep up with the future she has to build it.

[ptt]

Originally Posted by HookTheBrotherUp

You mean like this one Houston tried already?

When monorail came to Houston - Bayou City History

just to help you up to date with today technology.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)

[gwarnecke]

Originally Posted by ptt

You will never build enough roads to keep up with cars. Houston need mass transportation that link suburb and downtown. Modern Cities around the world with large population have them. If Houston wanted to keep up with the future she has to build it.

We have an extensive, affordable, and well-used Park and Ride system.

[ptt]

Originally Posted by gwarnecke

We have an extensive, affordable, and well-used Park and Ride system.

Yes, if that is what you believe is the best way of transportation for the city of 7 millions people.

[gwarnecke]

The Park and Ride system has a number of advantages over commuter rail, chief among these the fact that it already exists and enables much more flexibility than rail. Routes can be added/removed with relative ease. Capacity can be added/removed as needed (tremendous additional capacity could be someday created by kicking payers out of the HOT lanes, and maybe eventually requiring HOVs to have 3+ or 4+ occupants). Buses can be upgraded to new technologies far easier than train cars (could go to double-decker or "flex" buses, powertrains could switch from diesel to natural gas or electric motors in the future, etc). Additionally, P+R buses provide front-door service to many of the buildings downtown. You couldn't get that with commuter rail. You'd have to transfer to the light rail, or to a local bus, eating up the potential time savings of rail vs bus.

Commuter trains might make more sense if Houston had a dominant central business district and a smaller number of suburbs, but we're so decentralized (both in terms of business districts and residential areas) that any money spent trying to build a train line would go a lot further if it were spent on adding more direct P+R routes from suburbs to the various business districts (besides downtown) and addressing bottlenecks in the current P+R system (more parking at the overcrowded locations like the northwest transit center, more bus-only flyovers like the one to be built to Post Oak blvd, etc).

Sorry to get off topic, but I get peeved whenever folks complain about Houston lacking "mass transportation to link the suburbs and downtown". We've got a functional and affordable system as is. And investments in our highways benefit both mass transit users and single drivers.

I still don't support these elevated lanes, though. Without a link to 59, I10, or both, they benefit too few users to do much good.

[curbur]

Originally Posted by gwarnecke

I still don't support these elevated lanes, though. Without a link to 59, I10, or both, they benefit too few users to do much good.

Exactly; just double deck the whole thing or do nothing at all. Realistically TXDOT has made their decision and there's not much locals can say or do, but in the very least there should be some sort of connections for I-10 and 59 that link up with the existing entrance/exit ramps.