More Tunnels and lower highways in Houston.... (Paris, Roma: subsidized, income)

[tstone]

Originally Posted by jfre81

Not everyone is driving to Port Arthur for work, and not everyone is in a position where the high fuel prices are helping them make money faster than they can spend it at the gas pump or the grocery store.

Well if a paranoid transvestite with a felony can jump on the gravy (oil) train when gas is $4-ish....

Seriously though, during the boom there were many, many people jumping from one company to the next every few months for significant pay increases, incompetent people getting hired, newbies breaking into the industry, etc. Mostly on the good-ole-boy system, but in all honestly that's American business. If anything it created the perfect Texas example of the haves and have-nots.

Anyway, when/if things start picking back up I'm sure there will be another push for rail, as well as another powerful push back. If it's not cost effective nor time effective, the people making the money are going to shoot it down, and get labeled as ignorant suburbanites as usual.

In my example I'm imagining a rail from the Ellington Field area to Downtown and can't see it being any faster than driving right now, especially with all the stops in between + the 5 minute bike ride. Maybe a couple decades in the future it will be, but not before a full I-45 expansion.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by tstone

I'm not going to pretend I know much about this subject, but it's a ''real train'' like you said. It's all cargo that goes up & down those tracks so I'm pretty sure it's a heavy rail. It's like the track that connects Sugar Land to Greenway then slices through Memorial Park. Here's a previous post:
]

There are already jog/bike trails along the streets and it would take me literally 5 minutes to bike to the track. Now getting from Downtown to the Galleria would be the next issue...

Ok, yeah, that's a commuter rail and yes, it's a train. But what I'm talking about is the trains that run on eletricity but carries a larger capacity and it's heavy rail. Here are two examples.
This is the TRE commuter rail running from Downtown Dallas to Fort Worth. It is usually a locomotive based engine that has it's stops miles apart from each other. Many of them are double decked. This would be great for people living in far Southeast Harris County, Galveston County, Prairie View, Conroe-Huntsville, and Sealy.

YouTube - ** Train Ride from Fort Worth to Dallas ~ TRE ~ Trinity Railway Express **

This is the heavy rail that I think will work for Houston to connect to Sugarland-Missouri City, Katy, The Woodlands, and most of the Outer loop. Each stop is not that far from each other and they are even closer the closer you get to the downtown. This is Metro in Washington DC.

YouTube - Metro at Washington DC
These are usually the faster inner city rail systems.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by dv1033

The point of stopping at traffic lights (which it doesn't always do as someone previously mentioned) is a cost issue as it is 2-5 times more expensive to have a grade separated elevated line. Currently the feds are only giving money awarding money to LRT lines that are similarly configured like ours because of the success.

Yeah, TexastheKid explained it to me earlier. But don't you think again as the inner loop increases in density that this may become a problem in the future. There's a reason why they built it grade separated in other cities so it doesn't disrupt the traffic on the street. Rapid transit can be dangerous if you let it run on the street. Though this is why I do not call it rapid transit.

To expand and rebuild 23 miles the Katy Freeway cost less than 4 billion dollars, which offers a lot of bang for the buck. It is somewhat of a shame that they didn't include rail with it but the projected ridership of rail on I10 was ~14000 riders a day. It would have increased significantly once it connected to LRT inside the loop but it gives you somewhat of an idea of successful commuter rail can be in a sunbelt city.

We already have a great HOV/Park&ride system that offers point to point service and it's shame we aren't going to expand it any further in favor of commuter rail. Commuter rail sounds modern and fancy but we need to b e careful in where and how we implement it. Personally I think 290 and Galveston are first up for commuter rail once we get our inner loop LRT built. Building a system takes time and lots of money. I think Houston is on the right path by starting with the inner loop and working its way out.

I agree. That's why I said they need to continue to build the LRT in the inner loop. Make it more extensive. I'm a big believer that you take care of the cities first and worry about the suburbs later. I think Houston is doing that the right way compared to even Dallas. But when it comes to rapid mass transit and then they start to venture about to areas like the outer loop and inner suburbs, I think heavy rail needs to be studied in the future for those areas as opposed to extending the current light rail system as it is and/or commuter rail.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by tstone

Well if a paranoid transvestite with a felony can jump on the gravy (oil) train when gas is $4-ish....

He was entertaining, wasn't he? Not that I necessarily believed anything he said, especially since his story about how he got his felony changed every time. I do that sometimes when I'm blowing smoke up people's asses too. Literary effect.

Point remains though, we're not all working in O&G, and that's why we still have an economy to speak of after last September.

[dv1033]

Originally Posted by Spade

Yeah, TexastheKid explained it to me earlier. But don't you think again as the inner loop increases in density that this may become a problem in the future. There's a reason why they built it grade separated in other cities so it doesn't disrupt the traffic on the street. Rapid transit can be dangerous if you let it run on the street. Though this is why I do not call it rapid transit.

LRT will be fine for the foreseeable future unless our density really starts increasing and approaching Manhattan or Chicago level density. Then we might need to look into subway or elevated rail.

Our LRT is grade separated in most places as cars are only able to enter at certain left hand lanes and has priorty at traffic lights. By nature, rapid transit can't run on streets as it usually refers to heavy or commuter rail. Our LRT is an upgrade over buses in that is more reliable, fasters, and more efficient. It was next the step in our mass transit upgrade. Furthermore, the LRT rail cars are being upgraded as well. The current rail cars have a capacity of ~400 passangers for 2 cars while the new cars will have a capacicity of ~560 passangers (a 41% increase).

I agree. That's why I said they need to continue to build the LRT in the inner loop. Make it more extensive. I'm a big believer that you take care of the cities first and worry about the suburbs later. I think Houston is doing that the right way compared to even Dallas. But when it comes to rapid mass transit and then they start to venture about to areas like the outer loop and inner suburbs, I think heavy rail needs to be studied in the future for those areas as opposed to extending the current light rail system as it is and/or commuter rail.

I agree it should be studied more. You have to consider how much these rails are going to be used. Would you want a rail to Katy where there isn't much bidirectional commuting, i.e. a large majority a traffic will either be inbound or outbound depending on the time of day and only on weekdays. Rail from Houston to Galveston makes sense because it would serve large employment centers (downtown, NASA, UTMB galveston) and serve tourists areas (Kemah, Space Center Houston, Galveston) that would have passangers throughout the day and all week.

[jluke65780]

Originally Posted by dv1033

LRT will be fine for the foreseeable future unless our density really starts increasing and approaching Manhattan or Chicago level density. Then we might need to look into subway or elevated rail.

Our LRT is grade separated in most places as cars are only able to enter at certain left hand lanes and has priorty at traffic lights. By nature, rapid transit can't run on streets as it usually refers to heavy or commuter rail. Our LRT is an upgrade over buses in that is more reliable, fasters, and more efficient. It was next the step in our mass transit upgrade. Furthermore, the LRT rail cars are being upgraded as well. The current rail cars have a capacity of ~400 passangers for 2 cars while the new cars will have a capacicity of ~560 passangers (a 41% increase).



I agree it should be studied more. You have to consider how much these rails are going to be used. Would you want a rail to Katy where there isn't much bidirectional commuting, i.e. a large majority a traffic will either be inbound or outbound depending on the time of day and only on weekdays. Rail from Houston to Galveston makes sense because it would serve large employment centers (downtown, NASA, UTMB galveston) and serve tourists areas (Kemah, Space Center Houston, Galveston) that would have passangers throughout the day and all week.

We'll need better rail before we reach the density levels of Manhattan or Chicago.

[Zhang Fei]

Originally Posted by tstone

In my example I'm imagining a rail from the Ellington Field area to Downtown and can't see it being any faster than driving right now, especially with all the stops in between + the 5 minute bike ride. Maybe a couple decades in the future it will be, but not before a full I-45 expansion.

Everyone on this forum seems to think rail transit will improve their daily transit time. In real life, commuters living in NYC can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1-1/2 hours to get to work - using the subway, ferry and bus systems (no - you can't get everywhere by subway even in a tiny place like NYC, and walking to station with the line you need can take 10 to 15 minutes, at a New Yorker's Olympic racewalker pace).

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by dv1033

LRT will be fine for the foreseeable future unless our density really starts increasing and approaching Manhattan or Chicago level density.

Which we're still far away. Manhattan is in a league of its own as density goes though, so it might not need to reach that level.

North of Hermann Park I see no problems at all with the rail as it is. I don't consider it a problem with the rail line an occasional collision with a driver who ran a red light or made a turn that's been illegal for longer than the train. I consider that a problem with the idiot drivers. If you can't read signs or see red lights you don't need to be driving anyway.

There's something to be said for the convenience of being able to get on and off downtown without going into a subway or an el-train station.

Most of the stopping at intersections is around TMC. This is really the only part of the line where street level is a problem.

[dv1033]

Originally Posted by jluke65780

We'll need better rail before we reach the density levels of Manhattan or Chicago.

Point was it will be awhile if ever Houston reaches that type of density. Also, it would probably be cheaper to add additional LRT lines or increasing bus service in parallel or adjacent corridors instead of going with subway or elevated.

[Spade]

Yeah, Houston will never reach Manhattan's density level. No city in this country ever will. Even San Francisco. Heck, even the other boroughs of NY won't ever reach it. MI think Houston's inner loop density level can reach Baltimore's current levels. For that to happen, 760,000 people will need to live inside the loop which would put the density level at 8000 per sq mile which is slightly above Baltimore's now. The new light rail systems (BTW, have they started moving the dirt around to build the two three new lines) could help the density increase if the city allows it too. If the inner loop gets to 8000 per sq mile, metro needs to take action and construct more light rail lines and make it more extensive.

Heavy rail will eventually come. It maybe will be pushed by the current generation that's in middle school now. But it'll come. For the outer loop and the inner suburbs, it should be studied only if the density shows that it is increasing and if they want it and the politicians listen. I hate to sound like a broken record, but heavy rail is the best technology to use for these residents to get inside the inner core of the metro area.