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Light rail in the core is a good idea, but we don't need or want it everywhere else. Seems like some people want to force people out of their cars. Geesh. Houston is a driving city and needs to be planned accordingly. When I initially heard about this project years ago, I was surprised and didn't like it at first. I was seriously surprised they wouldn't really be adding any lanes along I-45 through downtown. But when they compared it to the Katy Freeway widening, I thought they have a fair point. This project will do some interesting things, including connecting many streets by burying the freeway at parts.
But it looks like they are adding some lanes with the MAX lanes or whatever they're called. And they're not just relocating the Pierce Elevated. They're rebuilding some of that as entrances and exits to downtown/I-10/I-45, which makes perfect sense. Use the west side of downtown for that separate from the interchanges on the east side of downtown. I think it will be efficient. It's nice there will be express lanes on I-10 which may be needed by the time the project is complete. But what about I-45 and I-69? I couldn't tell if there will be express lanes on I-45 and I-69 all the way through downtown from one side to the other for thru traffic that wishes to pay. But having the Hardy connector seems like it will help! That will be done within a few years. I mean that'll be great to have a link straight north out of downtown, and it looks like it will be two lanes from downtown to 610. I couldn't tell if the Hardy will just end downtown or connect to the interstates there as well.
It's an interesting project. I'm fascinated to see how it unfolds and if it really will help relieve congestion by the time it is finished. The I-10/610/290 project focused on efficiently rebuilding that interchange, and seems a lot better now. I don't know if that's a fair comparison, but I look at it because that's where three highways come together.
I've been to way more foreign cities than most folks, and have ridden rail to or from the airport 4 times. All in London. Twice from Gatwick, twice from Heathrow. Everywhere else, it's been taxi or car rental. That's since I started travelling overseas in 1972. I don't know anyone who takes rail from airports, and I know a lot of folks who travel overseas on a regular basis.
Well some people do. But it really is low volume. The studies in Houston showed really weak ridership. Even in New York you have to transfer to connect to Manhattan. BART in San Francisco didn't extend to the airport until 2003.
Using DC as an example which has one of the better rail systems in America; currently metro only has a connection to National Airport but its not the terminus of the either the blue or yellow line. They are finally getting a line to Dulles that will open next year. Nearly 45 years after its opening so while they desired to put one out there, it wasn't a priority. Dulles airport is also not the terminus for the silver line. I think they set this up like that for a reason. Also, while many people do love the option of having public transit to National Airport, a great many of people if not most people still uses cabs or shuttles to and from the hotels or wherever their destination is at and with the advent of Uber and Lyft now, it makes it even more challenging for mass transit to work well at airports.
I'm with WRM20 on getting rail to the airports and suburbs. If you're going to run a system like that, it needs to be on its own row with no interaction on the streets and have a high capacity. Light Rail can check only one of those boxes. The current Houston rail doesn't check any of those boxes as it's nothing more than a tram or streetcar. It would be a waste to have that current system run out to the suburbs let alone the airport. It would be a waste of time to even run it to Hobby as it may them an hour just to get from Hobby to downtown if they run the rail primarily on the street. Heavy Rail is the way to go if you want to run it out there and to the airports.
Since last time I checked, I-45 N gets about 330K vehicles per day back in 2012. It might be the same right now as more cars are using Hardy Toll Road and also Grand Parkway that would take some cars off of I-45 N.
Does anyone have the current vehicles per day in 2019 or maybe at least 2018? I’m curious to find out what it is now. I would imagine it’s the same as 2012. I know it doesn’t beat Katy Freeway at 360K vehicles per day back in 2012. That’s massive!
If I-45 remake from downtown to Beltway North were to go through, I would imagine it would be at least 400K vehicles per day despite Hardy toll road being 2 miles away. It would also bring a lot of new businesses in to replace old local businesses that exist right now. Plus new neighborhoods that took over.
Using DC as an example which has one of the better rail systems in America; currently metro only has a connection to National Airport but its not the terminus of the either the blue or yellow line. They are finally getting a line to Dulles that will open next year. Nearly 45 years after its opening so while they desired to put one out there, it wasn't a priority. Dulles airport is also not the terminus for the silver line. I think they set this up like that for a reason. Also, while many people do love the option of having public transit to National Airport, a great many of people if not most people still uses cabs or shuttles to and from the hotels or wherever their destination is at and with the advent of Uber and Lyft now, it makes it even more challenging for mass transit to work well at airports.
I'm with WRM20 on getting rail to the airports and suburbs. If you're going to run a system like that, it needs to be on its own row with no interaction on the streets and have a high capacity. Light Rail can check only one of those boxes. The current Houston rail doesn't check any of those boxes as it's nothing more than a tram or streetcar. It would be a waste to have that current system run out to the suburbs let alone the airport. It would be a waste of time to even run it to Hobby as it may them an hour just to get from Hobby to downtown if they run the rail primarily on the street. Heavy Rail is the way to go if you want to run it out there and to the airports.
LRT can work as well in US cities as HRT if it is grade separated. Houston's line wouldn't work well to the far suburbs or to IAH. If they grade separated any new sections, maybe. But that's not what they are talking about. The new sections will look just like the old sections.
LRT doesn't have the capacity of HRT, but Boston's Green Line gets 8,000 a mile. Houston's initial Red line got 4,800 a mile. Boston's had more riders per mile than any HRT except NY, Philly and the HRT in Boston.
Houston beat all but those + Chicago, DC and Los Angeles. Per mile, Houston had more than Atlanta or BART in San Francisco. San Francisco's LRT with over 4,000 beat the average on San Francisco's BART.
Very few places need the capacity of HRT. HRT accelerates a little faster and has a higher top speed, but that doesn't add up to that much. The key is having it grade separated. Most of Boston's Green Line is subway. I can't imagine any US city starting from scratch choosing HRT over LRT. HRT typically costs $100 million a mile more than LRT and can't ever mix with traffic as LRT can in places where its too difficult or expensive to grade separate. There are only 12 metros with HRT now-NY, Chicago, Philly, DC, Boston, LA, SF, Atlanta, Baltimore, Miami, Cleveland and San Juan. Only Los Angeles (1993) and San Juan (2004) have opened in the last 35 years. There are about 35 with light rail or streetcars. All but 7 (SF, Boston, Philly, Cleveland, New Orleans, Newark and San Diego-1981) have opened in those 35 years.
Folks may be right that light rail to the airports would be low-volume. Although if so, Houston has plenty of other places it could build rail. I’d be curious to see data on who exactly uses Houston MetroRail, where, and why. I’m very familiar with the mass transit systems in a few other cities. But it’s mystery where Houston should go next with its rail.
As for the I-45 project, I haven’t seen any source predict that it will either relieve congestion or increase the number of commuters to downtown.
Seems like some people want to force people out of their cars. Geesh. Houston is a driving city and needs to be planned accordingly.
Single-occupant automobiles may be fine in small and/or declining cities. But growing, global cities in the 21st century know that single-occupant automobiles aren’t effective and aren’t competitive. Single-occupant automobiles are too expensive, too dangerous, too polluting, and too slow. They are falling out of favor in most of the big cities in the U.S. Houston’s over-reliance on single-occupant automobiles is holding it back.
Single-occupant automobiles may be fine in small and/or declining cities. But growing, global cities in the 21st century know that single-occupant automobiles aren’t effective and aren’t competitive. Single-occupant automobiles are too expensive, too dangerous, too polluting, and too slow. They are falling out of favor in most of the big cities in the U.S. Houston’s over-reliance on single-occupant automobiles is holding it back.
Yes. That's why Houston is one of the fastest growing cities in the country and one of the most affordable big cities in the country. Its why Houston is only #18 in traffic congestion despite being #5 in population.
Yes. That's why Houston is one of the fastest growing cities in the country and one of the most affordable big cities in the country. Its why Houston is only #18 in traffic congestion despite being #5 in population.
What Houston is doing is working.
Atlanta and Phoenix are also two of the fastest growing and affordable big cities in the country (even more affordable than Houston by many measures) and both have better rail infrastructure than Houston. In the case of Atlanta, if a better political relationship between the city and the state existed, they would likely have road infrastructure just as good as Houston's - the issue there isn't money, its NIMBYism and state-level antagonism that keeps them from expanding roads there. In the case of Phoenix (Phoenix!), they have both better road and rail infrastructure than us, with a concrete plan to extend rail all around the valley by 2030. This is Phoenix we're talking about!
And if you really believe Houston has only the 18th worst traffic congestion in the country, I have a bridge in Arizona to sell you. It's all about options. Do you really believe that Houston will continue to grow at the rate it has in the past (particularly given the murky future of the O&G industry) by continuing to eschew options in transportation in favor of SOVs? Do you think we can attract future non-O&G industries and investment competing against a bunch of cities that provide their residents transportation options? Not everyone wants to drive everywhere and building rail does not preclude continuing to build road infrastructure where it is needed. Look at LA - they've built highly successful rail in the last 10-15 years, yet are continuing road projects as well - they're in the middle of rebuilding the entire Santa Ana freeway through LA County as we speak, for example. And of course, the aforementioned case of Phoenix applies here as well - they are capable of building high quality examples of both. We should be too.
The idea that we can't or shouldn't have both world-class rail and world-class highways has been sold by politicians, low-tax acolytes, and those opposed to public transportation and its simply not true. We could have both and make this city far better than it is today. And yes it will cost money just like other things we have financed in the past. The Astrodome would not have been built if not for a public bond from Harris County. The dredging of the Port of Houston required city money through a bond referendum in 1909. Even the birth of the TMC in the 40s was enabled by the Texas State Legislature matching grant funding to help establish MD Anderson. Houston would not be the city it is today without visionaries, and without people buying into those visions. As a matter of fact, Houston may not be a major city at all today without those visionaries.
And yet, so many people here seem to think that we're just going to plod happily along as we have in the past while our peer cities continue to understand that they need to check both boxes to continue to prosper. All major cities have traffic congestion. Most major cities have fast alternative methods to reach the busiest and most populated areas so that people don't have to deal with the traffic congestion if they choose not to. Houston is making a choice, by not even considering a truly integrated fast-transit system (be that BRT or LRT), not to offer that choice to its residents - ever.
People talk about max lanes saving us without even thinking through how congestion pricing works. Raise your hand if you want to pay $20-$40 each way for a free flowing ride along I-45 north during the rush. That's what it will cost because that's how congestion pricing works - they price the road dynamically to respond to demand. The higher the demand in the mainlanes, the higher the price in the toll lanes required to keep them free-flowing. What this will result in (as it does everywhere congestion pricing is implemented) is rich people getting a free-flowing ride to their destination while everyone else waits in the same traffic as before. A citywide max lane system isn't going to help the average Houstonian, but it will help the wealthiest class of suburbanites flee the city faster.
As an example, when I lived in Northern Virginia I had three choices every single day with how I would get to my office in DC - I could choose to drive the freeways into town, which would average 45-55 minutes each way depending on the day, and cost me $15 in parking. I could choose to drive I-66 into town during the period of time it was being congestion tolled, which would cost the $15 in parking and $15-$45 in tolls depending on the demand for the road at that time. That would take about 25-30 minutes, but I only did that once, when the toll was on the lower end and I was running very late. The third option was to drive to the metro station ($6 to park) and to take the train to the office ($5). The entire process took about 35-40 minutes from door to door.
Now, thinking about Houston, let's say a train existed that would get you from the Woodlands or Katy to downtown Houston in 50 minutes. Does anyone really think there would not be significant demand for that when making that same drive during the rush today can take an hour? Come on. I really don't understand so many people's aversion to us having choices in transportation here. I used to think it was primarily people in the oil industry not wanting to be supportive of transportation choices that would cut into the profits of their employers. Now I think its simply fear of either a future lack of funding to expand roads, or fear of better public transportation potentially serving their neighborhood and bringing in 'outsiders'. Transportation systems are built to provide a service - not to make a profit. This is true of highways as well - what profit have we made off of building our freeway system over the last 70 years? They have all come at a cost. The payoff has been economic development and mobility along those corridors. That's the exact same payoff we would get with a well thought out regional rapid transit system. But for some reason, the operation and maintenance costs of public transit are a problem, while the same operation an maintenance costs associated with freeways are just seen as a justifiable taxpayer expense. It's a crazy double-standard imo.
And this is all before we even discuss the safety aspect of it. The Houston region is #1 in roadway deaths in the United States. That's because drinking and driving is a big part of the culture here, and why wouldn't it be? There's no reasonable way to get anywhere else. Nothing would increase our highway safety more than building out a comprehensive, grade-separated, rapid transit system that hits major activity areas if for no other reason than people would have more options to avoid drunk driving.
Atlanta and Phoenix are also two of the fastest growing and affordable big cities in the country (even more affordable than Houston by many measures) and both have better rail infrastructure than Houston. In the case of Atlanta, if a better political relationship between the city and the state existed, they would likely have road infrastructure just as good as Houston's - the issue there isn't money, its NIMBYism and state-level antagonism that keeps them from expanding roads there. In the case of Phoenix (Phoenix!), they have both better road and rail infrastructure than us, with a concrete plan to extend rail all around the valley by 2030. This is Phoenix we're talking about!
And if you really believe Houston has only the 18th worst traffic congestion in the country, I have a bridge in Arizona to sell you. It's all about options. Do you really believe that Houston will continue to grow at the rate it has in the past (particularly given the murky future of the O&G industry) by continuing to eschew options in transportation in favor of SOVs? Do you think we can attract future non-O&G industries and investment competing against a bunch of cities that provide their residents transportation options? Not everyone wants to drive everywhere and building rail does not preclude continuing to build road infrastructure where it is needed. Look at LA - they've built highly successful rail in the last 10-15 years, yet are continuing road projects as well - they're in the middle of rebuilding the entire Santa Ana freeway through LA County as we speak, for example. And of course, the aforementioned case of Phoenix applies here as well - they are capable of building high quality examples of both. We should be too.
The idea that we can't or shouldn't have both world-class rail and world-class highways has been sold by politicians, low-tax acolytes, and those opposed to public transportation and its simply not true. We could have both and make this city far better than it is today. And yes it will cost money just like other things we have financed in the past. The Astrodome would not have been built if not for a public bond from Harris County. The dredging of the Port of Houston required city money through a bond referendum in 1909. Even the birth of the TMC in the 40s was enabled by the Texas State Legislature matching grant funding to help establish MD Anderson. Houston would not be the city it is today without visionaries, and without people buying into those visions. As a matter of fact, Houston may not be a major city at all today without those visionaries.
And yet, so many people here seem to think that we're just going to plod happily along as we have in the past while our peer cities continue to understand that they need to check both boxes to continue to prosper. All major cities have traffic congestion. Most major cities have fast alternative methods to reach the busiest and most populated areas so that people don't have to deal with the traffic congestion if they choose not to. Houston is making a choice, by not even considering a truly integrated fast-transit system (be that BRT or LRT), not to offer that choice to its residents - ever.
People talk about max lanes saving us without even thinking through how congestion pricing works. Raise your hand if you want to pay $20-$40 each way for a free flowing ride along I-45 north during the rush. That's what it will cost because that's how congestion pricing works - they price the road dynamically to respond to demand. The higher the demand in the mainlanes, the higher the price in the toll lanes required to keep them free-flowing. What this will result in (as it does everywhere congestion pricing is implemented) is rich people getting a free-flowing ride to their destination while everyone else waits in the same traffic as before. A citywide max lane system isn't going to help the average Houstonian, but it will help the wealthiest class of suburbanites flee the city faster.
As an example, when I lived in Northern Virginia I had three choices every single day with how I would get to my office in DC - I could choose to drive the freeways into town, which would average 45-55 minutes each way depending on the day, and cost me $15 in parking. I could choose to drive I-66 into town during the period of time it was being congestion tolled, which would cost the $15 in parking and $15-$45 in tolls depending on the demand for the road at that time. That would take about 25-30 minutes, but I only did that once, when the toll was on the lower end and I was running very late. The third option was to drive to the metro station ($6 to park) and to take the train to the office ($5). The entire process took about 35-40 minutes from door to door.
Now, thinking about Houston, let's say a train existed that would get you from the Woodlands or Katy to downtown Houston in 50 minutes. Does anyone really think there would not be significant demand for that when making that same drive during the rush today can take an hour? Come on. I really don't understand so many people's aversion to us having choices in transportation here. I used to think it was primarily people in the oil industry not wanting to be supportive of transportation choices that would cut into the profits of their employers. Now I think its simply fear of either a future lack of funding to expand roads, or fear of better public transportation potentially serving their neighborhood and bringing in 'outsiders'. Transportation systems are built to provide a service - not to make a profit. This is true of highways as well - what profit have we made off of building our freeway system over the last 70 years? They have all come at a cost. The payoff has been economic development and mobility along those corridors. That's the exact same payoff we would get with a well thought out regional rapid transit system. But for some reason, the operation and maintenance costs of public transit are a problem, while the same operation an maintenance costs associated with freeways are just seen as a justifiable taxpayer expense. It's a crazy double-standard imo.
And this is all before we even discuss the safety aspect of it. The Houston region is #1 in roadway deaths in the United States. That's because drinking and driving is a big part of the culture here, and why wouldn't it be? There's no reasonable way to get anywhere else. Nothing would increase our highway safety more than building out a comprehensive, grade-separated, rapid transit system that hits major activity areas if for no other reason than people would have more options to avoid drunk driving.
Standing ovation!!!
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