"Don't Mess With Texas"-FORBES (Houston, West: transfer, school)

[glorplaxy]

Not everyone wants to pay the massive expense of owning and insuring a car or spend all of the time in hectic highway traffic, either.

But it's not just about walking around and using public transport, it's about having to go all the one from one side of town to the other in this gigantic city just to get things done. It's also about having centralized areas where you can actually go out and interact with people in a public environment instead of going to a mall. Surely people notice how in centralized cities there is much more life and activity on the streets than in Houston.

[chris_ut]

Originally Posted by glorplaxy

Not everyone wants to pay the massive expense of owning and insuring a car

Exaggerate much or will you not commute to work in anything less than a fully-loaded Lexus? I have a nice small pickup truck. I paid 13k cash for it a few years back. My insurance is $28 a month. My gas is $96 a month. Throw in the occasional oil change and repair and it cost me a whopping 1800 a year to own, insure and drive my truck everywhere I need to go.

[Malvie]

Originally Posted by glorplaxy

Not everyone wants to pay the massive expense of owning and insuring a car or spend all of the time in hectic highway traffic, either.

But it's not just about walking around and using public transport, it's about having to go all the one from one side of town to the other in this gigantic city just to get things done. It's also about having centralized areas where you can actually go out and interact with people in a public environment instead of going to a mall. Surely people notice how in centralized cities there is much more life and activity on the streets than in Houston.

Fortunately, NYC is still there, and they're still renting cool apartments, depending on how much you want to pay.

Oh, now, those cool apartments are vastly smaller than where I live. The only green space is in the park. And the difference between apartment rent and what I pay in house payment is vastly more than the cost to me to own/operate a car.

Different strokes for different folks. If you want a highly centralized urban environment, NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, Chicago all offer same.

I like my car, I like parking decks to park it in, and I don't mind driving to where I want to go in my air conditioned car to go into an air conditioned mall or office. If I want to walk outside in boiling Houston heat, I can use Terry Hershey Park any time I want, or Memorial Park. Lots of people there.

This isn't New York. It isn't London. It isn't Paris. I don't understand why people keep trying to make it something it's not.

[Trae713]

Originally Posted by glorplaxy

Not everyone wants to pay the massive expense of owning and insuring a car or spend all of the time in hectic highway traffic, either.

But it's not just about walking around and using public transport, it's about having to go all the one from one side of town to the other in this gigantic city just to get things done. It's also about having centralized areas where you can actually go out and interact with people in a public environment instead of going to a mall. Surely people notice how in centralized cities there is much more life and activity on the streets than in Houston.

And luckily, you don't have to in Houston. Just live in the Inner Loop. There, you have light rail and the bus. Plus, in a couple of years, you'll have about 40 additional miles of light rail in the Inner Loop. And I don't know, I was in Uptown last night, and saw plenty of activity. The pedestrians were actually making me mad. They need to learn how to cross the street correctly.

[robertrulez]

Originally Posted by hsw

Journalists and community organizers who live/work in NYC or Wash tend to be Luddites and commies who can't drive; like their trains to nowhere; and cheap 3rd World grub from some illegal immigrant mom&pop hole-in-the-wall (likely no more safe or healthy than junk from any suburban fast food chain)

In era of mobile computing and globalized industries like tech or finance or energy, idea of skyscrapers and CBDs and living in slums of old cities is fairly archaic

Outside of a few 1000 really affluent yuppies, no one can afford to live in cities like Manhattan or SF with any decent quality of life (hell, modern air conditioning, garages, modern bathrooms, and in-unit washer/dryers are luxuries in these slummy towns)

And most workers eventually have families, need good public schools and a decent-sized, affordable new house w/a yard...and a close drive to their suburban office

No surprise why world's highest tech regions choose to be in suburban sprawl, not cities...SiliconValley is rather similar in layout to Hou's EC or Dallas' Irving/Plano, where much of what matters is decentralized across various suburbs

Another suburbanite complaining about the very much superior city life. Sprawl is disgusting and it is the single reason why our city has terrible air quality and terrible traffic. I even live in side the city and it can be difficult and time consuming to go to another side of the city because all the suburb losers are all on the freeway driving back to their lifeless podunk towns.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by robertrulez

Another suburbanite complaining about the very much superior city life. Sprawl is disgusting and it is the single reason why our city has terrible air quality and terrible traffic. I even live in side the city and it can be difficult and time consuming to go to another side of the city because all the suburb losers are all on the freeway driving back to their lifeless podunk towns.

Cute, aren't they those suburbanites. Oh and btw, hsw, the trains in DC do indeed go somewhere.

[glorplaxy]

Originally Posted by Scarface713

And luckily, you don't have to in Houston. Just live in the Inner Loop. There, you have light rail and the bus. Plus, in a couple of years, you'll have about 40 additional miles of light rail in the Inner Loop. And I don't know, I was in Uptown last night, and saw plenty of activity. The pedestrians were actually making me mad. They need to learn how to cross the street correctly.

I live in the inner loop. Have you ever actually tried to use the metro to get around seriously? Obviously not, because if you did you would never have said something like that.

The metro is a huge shame. HUGE. It does NOT work efficiently unless the only place you are trying to go is downtown, and as we all know, downtown is pretty much useless for the average person.

I hate when people who have never actually used the metro on a regular basis try to act as if it actually works when it does not. It takes 45 minutes on the bus from my neighborhood just to get downtown which is RIDICULOUS seeing how close I live, and the bus drivers are almost always late by 10-20 minutes....and its $1.25 now!!!!!! Maybe it made more sense to ride when gas was more expensive but now there's just no point. $1.25 for a one-way ticket on a slow ass bus. And don't tell me that all buses are like that and that slow because they certainly are not. I've been to many other cities that had very efficient public bus systems and for way cheaper.

What is really stupid to me is how almost every Metro bus is one of those large, full-size buses and they never even get half full. The only ones that get crowded occasionally are the 82 on Westheimer and the 50 on Heights. Maybe if they had smaller buses running more often it would make more sense...and if they actually had some buses that ran at night in places other than Westheimer because most people do not live up and down that street.

[Trae713]

Originally Posted by glorplaxy

I live in the inner loop. Have you ever actually tried to use the metro to get around seriously? Obviously not, because if you did you would never have said something like that.

Where I stopped reading. Yes, I've ridden on METRO (bus and light rail) PLENTY of times. We use to always catch the 82 Westheimer to go to The Galleria. Don't try and tell me what I've done in my life. Thanks.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by glorplaxy

It takes 45 minutes on the bus from my neighborhood just to get downtown which is RIDICULOUS seeing how close I live, and the bus drivers are almost always late by 10-20 minutes....and its $1.25 now!!!!!! Maybe it made more sense to ride when gas was more expensive but now there's just no point. $1.25 for a one-way ticket on a slow ass bus. And don't tell me that all buses are like that and that slow because they certainly are not. I've been to many other cities that had very efficient public bus systems and for way cheaper.

What is really stupid to me is how almost every Metro bus is one of those large, full-size buses and they never even get half full. The only ones that get crowded occasionally are the 82 on Westheimer and the 50 on Heights. Maybe if they had smaller buses running more often it would make more sense...and if they actually had some buses that ran at night in places other than Westheimer because most people do not live up and down that street.

And that's just one (or two) of many reasons why buses are seen as unpopular compared to rail transportation to most people.

[glorplaxy]

Originally Posted by Scarface713

Where I stopped reading. Yes, I've ridden on METRO (bus and light rail) PLENTY of times. We use to always catch the 82 Westheimer to go to The Galleria. Don't try and tell me what I've done in my life. Thanks.

That's the ONE bus on WESTHEIMER that actually works...every 15 minutes, almost 24 hours, but it's useless to people who actually need to get around the city and go other places than the Galleria or Montrose or Lamar high school. But most of Houston does not live close enough to Westheimer for that bus to be on any importance to someone who would actually need to use the metro daily, and I know for sure that the buses in my neighborhood do not connect that the 82 Westheimer bus, although I do admit that the bus is very useful for shopping and entertainment and such.

What about using it to get around the city? All around the city? To work and/or school and back? I used the metro very extensively a couple of years ago, not just to go to the Galleria, and it was very tiring to go to school and then work. I had to wake up at 5:30AM and be out the door at 5:45AM so that I could catch a bus to a place that isn't even 15 miles away on the highway and be there by 8AM....and I was always about 5 or 10 minutes LATE.

The metro is really hard to use to get around for people who aren't just going to the galleria to do some shopping on the weekends.