Rail Line in 2014 and beyond (homes, homeless, car)

[annie_himself]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

This is just plain silly. I think you have the cause and effect wires criss-crossed. Adding roads makes it worse? Really? You think roads spawn cars? Traffic gets worse because the population grows and infrastructure must grow with it. I don't know why some expect we could expand a road once and never need to do it again despite growth. Should we stop building new schools too? After all, they will just become overcrowded again. Does building schools just make it worse? Do schools spawn kids?

Katy freeway was at more than 200% occupancy before the rebuild. The $2 billion expansion alleviated traffic significantly and it carries 500,000 people per day. That amount would get you a rail line that carries maybe 50,000.

Nearly everyone directly uses roads (no need for nebulous indirect benefits) by owning a car or riding in a car. Roads are already mostly supported through fuel taxes and other motorist user fees. User fares don't cover 15% of mass transit operating expenses.

Yes, roads actually do spawn cars. Do you know how people think when they see a new freeway expansion or something like the new Grand Parkway freeway. They think, "OMG it only takes 20 minutes to get to work now!" Then you have tens of thousands more people thinking the exact same thing and developers take advantage of this. Now that brand new road or freeway is clogged everyday. Gas taxes do NOT cover most of roads.
Nearly everyone uses roads, correct, but with 20% less traffic that means those roads better serve everyone.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by annie_himself

Yes, roads actually do spawn cars. Do you know how people think when they see a new freeway expansion or something like the new Grand Parkway freeway. They think, "OMG it only takes 20 minutes to get to work now!" Then you have tens of thousands more people thinking the exact same thing and developers take advantage of this. Now that brand new road or freeway is clogged everyday. Gas taxes do NOT cover most of roads.
Nearly everyone uses roads, correct, but with 20% less traffic that means those roads better serve everyone.

So having better roads leads to more development which leads to more people? Hmmm, wouldn't the same thing happen even more if we built commuter rail lines to these suburbs? People would think "OMG it only takes 20 minutes to get to work now AND I don't have to do the driving!" Then you have hundreds of thousands more people thinking the exact same thing and developers take advantage of this.

Federal and state fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees, inspection fees, and other motorist fees cover most of the cost of roads.

So you think a rail line would result in the roads being 20% less congested? I'll concede the point if you can do ONE thing. Cite me a U.S. city where traffic congestion decreased after building a rail system.

[crono_clone]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

So having better roads leads to more development which leads to more people? Hmmm, wouldn't the same thing happen even more if we built commuter rail lines to these suburbs? People would think "OMG it only takes 20 minutes to get to work now AND I don't have to do the driving!" Then you have hundreds of thousands more people thinking the exact same thing and developers take advantage of this.

Except that you can fit a lot more people on a train than in a car.

The problem isn't that there are a lot of people moving into the surburbs -- the real problem is that they each want to drive their big SUV or Hummer to work everyday.

So what you just described would actually be ideal. I'd love it if more people moved into the suburbs and took the train.

[DSL_PWR]

I just don't see people around here using a rail line to get into/out of the city.

There is still that huge problem --> where to put it. It's not part of the freeway expansions, current or future..

You will see more toll roads before a rail line, which is fine with me.

[xsatyr]

Houston is just not a world class city yet.

[Kiovo]

Where would the stops be? Or would it be a straight in and out of the city?

Houston has been built on the infrastructure made for cars and still caters to cars. Houstonians love their cars because that's the only mode of transportation they know. We will have to go to rail in order to support all the growth

[texas7]

I think the train is great for those who need/want it but personally, I don't care for mass transportation and will deal with the traffic and drive my own car. However, there is a big need for mass transportation - but good mass transportation. Not this narrowing a main street down to one lane for a train -- should have been done differently - not sure how but better than it is.

[Kiovo]

The current rail right now is a joke. All it did was take some buses off the road since most of the riders would ride the bus if the rail wasn't there. Its also on the honor system for paying with Metro PD doing random inspections. I take it from downtown to midtown about once a week and for $2 roundtrip, it's pretty cheap. I do keep my pepper spray handy when I ride.

[Truth713]

Originally Posted by Kiovo

The current rail right now is a joke. All it did was take some buses off the road since most of the riders would ride the bus if the rail wasn't there. Its also on the honor system for paying with Metro PD doing random inspections. I take it from downtown to midtown about once a week and for $2 roundtrip, it's pretty cheap. I do keep my pepper spray handy when I ride.

You mean buses that can now be rerouted to other areas, instead of having five buses lines that end up going along the same route ? So that metro can redeploy those buses to other areas, or double up the numbers of buses on that route so that they can cut down the wait time ?


Funny for al the wining about the poor and the homeless , people the only people who ever cause problems are the loud drunk, middle class people , comin back from bars or sporting events


I mean you can only hear in a boosting , drunk voice. dude, dude, did you see our waitesss !! I would so hit that !! before you snap

[Kiovo]

Originally Posted by Truth713

You mean buses that can now be rerouted to other areas, instead of having five buses lines that end up going along the same route ? So that metro can redeploy those buses to other areas, or double up the numbers of buses on that route so that they can cut down the wait time ?


Funny for al the wining about the poor and the homeless , people the only people who ever cause problems are the loud drunk, middle class people , comin back from bars or sporting events


I mean you can only hear in a boosting , drunk voice. dude, dude, did you see our waitesss !! I would so hit that !! before you snap

Funny how the poor and homeless always get bought up. Being a female, I carry my pepper spray with me everywhere. And I take it during the day so there's no loud drunk middle class people. Lets not try to pretend the rail doesn't have any stragglers and shady looking people on there, but that doesn't stop me from taking it.