Rail down Richmond

seems Westpark is too far out of the way to have the effect you would hope it would. i'd like westheimer, too...but that would be a nightmare during contruction. richmond seems like next best alternative. get 'er done.

 

While I think light rail is a waste of money I also think Richmond is the best place for it, especially since the Richmond strip area has lost it's luster since Downtown started booming again.

 

So is there a plan for the rail to spread out from downtown to the other population centers around Houston? It seems like a park and ride rail option for downtown workers would get a ton of usage and actually help get rid of freeway congestion.

My wife and her coworkers took a rail trip from downtown to the medical center to visit a coworker in the hospital. She said that she was surprised that they were the only ones to actually pay for the ride and the number of homeless people just riding the rail to get air conditioning.

 

Hmm, I need to look over the proposals again then... anyone have links? If anything I believe the rail should go through the Rice area, that would be nice to hop on a train after happy hour in Rice Village to downtown for the dancing ;-)

 

I completely agree. The park and ride system in Houston is a HUGE success and is always packed, I don't see why they wouldn't try and figure out ways to spread it's use and area.

 

I'm not opposed to rail. But I believe that our focus should be on a suburban rail system:

Kingwood to downtown
Woodlands to downtown
Tomball to downtown
Jersey Village to downtown
Katy to downtown
Sugarland to downtown
Pearland to downton

These should have our highest priorities.

 

i used to think so, too. but those who know more than i do say you have to start from the inside and work out. there needs to be a system in-town first that you branch out from.

 

They will get there, eventually. You can't start out a good rail program by just making a bullet train from one suburb to the next.

Besides, Houston is waayy too sprawled out, as it is. These programs are for rebuilding the inner city, which suburbanites gave up on long ago.

Hell, if it were up to me, I'd make it harder for suburbanites to commute, just to promote urban living.

 

I don't believe that, and I'll tell you why...

What I've heard is, "You can't train people from the suburbs to downtown, drop them off, and then give them no way to get around." But... Yes, we can.

That belief may be true for cities like New York. But this isn't New York. A person can walk across downtown, from one side to the other, in 15 minutes. And God forbid we actually open doors of opportunity for increased cab business downtown, like other cities have.

Now I believe that the light rail that we have is nice. But I thinks it's foolish for us to be building it and expanding the Katy freeway in a higher priority over building a suburban rail system.

 

i don't disagree entirely.

though, the katy freeway expansion needed to happen about 10 years ago. it needs to happen with or without rail running out west.

 

So the vote passes by the slimmest of margins, now Metro wants to move the rail line from the voted-on segment that would run down Westpark to Richmond? Well, the voters didn't approve that plan, for starters. Do you people remember the PAIN that was involved with building the Main street line? That was by all accounts a complete disaster. I still remember schlepping through puddles of mud and blocks of cardboard covering open holes and cracked pavement on the sidewalks downtown. Nothing like dodging backhoes and ditch witches while trying to go grab a sandwich downtown at lunch. Just awful. If you insist on building this waste of money, at least do it where voters approved it and where impacts to businesses will be minimized.

Now, an additional problem that nobody seems to be talking about is what happened to driving on Main street after the rail was built. Have you people driven on that road in midtown/downtown? You can't turn left anywhere!!! You have to make a right turn, then either do a three point turn around and sit at a stoplight waiting to cross back across Main or you have to do a big 3 block loop to get back going across Main. The road has lost a lot of its functionality. Nevermind the fact that riders are scared to death driving on the road waiting for one of the wham-bam-trams to broadside them. Main street is horrible to drive on now. I don't want Richmond to be the same way.

Finally, all you people who think this light rail is going to greatly open up the city and make us be able to move around so easily, I'd like to welcome you to reality. I went to metro's trip planner and planned a trip from Main & McKinney out to Richmond and Weslayan (approximately the planned route of the rail line) at 9am on a weekday. Wow, there are SEVEN options for bus transportation that pick you up +/- 11 minutes from 9am and take you out to Richmond and Weslayan. Seems like we already have tons of flexibility. Once the train is built we'll axe all those routes and have a train every 10 minutes. Fabulous.

 

Downtown is the nexus of Metro's bus network. There are myriad bus routes available that start from downtown and will literally drop you off anywhere in the city that you could possibly want to go. We need to educate people not to be scared of buses - not waste even more money on the wham-bam-trams.

 

Ahhh... you've touched upon what I believe is the true motivation for not building commuter rail systems: money.

Of the communities that I listed, only one of them is in the city limits (Kingwood, which was annexed).

The reason that inner-city properties have so much more value is because of the convenience of their location. If the rail system starts bringing in people from the suburbs, it decreases demand for inner-city residential property, and consequently lowers inner-city property value.

So, the suburban rail system helps people in the suburbs and hurts people who own inner-city property. For that reasons, Houstonians will (IMHO) never approve funding for a suburban rail system. Such an ambition could only be accomplished from a county or state level.

 

I agree. Buses.... Cabs... even walking are all options for people to move around. Their argument is BS.

 

cabs? yeah...i think public transportation helps out a lot of people who probably can't afford cab fare all day.

as for buses...typically i would agree. but rail bias is real.

 

I agree. I don't agree with the way that the're widening it (almost all of the lanes will be toll or fee-based).

And I don't agree that the widening should come before a suburban rail.