How about this idea: Houston builds the rail lines to the suburbs, and then charges the suburban cities for its use. The money that's received is then rebated to inner-city homeowners. This helps keep value in the inner-city properties (through the rebate), resolves the issue of "who's going to pay for it", and makes a high-speed commuter rail system available to the suburbs.
Well, the main reason would be because there is absolutely no need to give suburbia more incentive to move outside Houston's city limits. Houston screwed up big time with allowing the suburbia sprawl. It's time to provide more incentive for people to live in town.
NYC and London have excellent mass transport, as do other large cities like Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, and Moscow. But for comparative purposes, let's look at Portland, since I was there for work a few weeks ago. They had a nice combination of street cars and light rail, and the city is very compact in terms of size. But Houston is about 20x the size of Portland, so feasibility is a huge question mark. In the long run, maybe having rail will entice people to move back inside the loop. Some people are getting fed up with the 45 minute - 1 hr. commute. Unfortunately, you'll find that too many families in Texas these days are way too interested in living in their McMansions in the burbs. It almost seems like a part of the culture in Texas. I would be interested in what percentage of Houston lives outside of the loop. That's a good data point. I'm not sure I would consider Rice Village pedestrian friendly, but the downtown tunnels are bad ass as are the huge walkways in the Med Center. There abosolutely need to be more areas like that.
You stated that Houston was a poorly planned city when, in fact, London and New York were much more poorly planned. It took massive subway efforts over 100 years ago to keep those cities efficiently running. You talk about houston being 20X the size of Portland. Fair enough. We're 8X more populous. But this is why mass-transit needs to start developing. Once you build a nice grid of rail (hopefully elevated) in and Around the 610 loop, you'll see many new business and residences start growing there, thus making our city more focal, and not nearly as spread out. This would, in turn, take many commuters off of the existing lanes, allowing people who still live in Suburbia faster drive times, due to lessened traffic. Most importantly, it ends sprawl in this city; something that needs to happen.
Again, I happen to believe in light rail, but I just think that Houston might be a lost cause. Right now, while commuter rail in and around the loop are being discussed there are literally thousands of new homes being built well outside of the Houston city limits. For example, look at 99, Grand Parkway west of Houston. As recently as 5 years ago, that area was nothing but farmland and prison area. Now it's overrun by a bunch of grocery stores, Home Depots, and CVS pharmacies. When you go southeast look at Pearland. Growing up that area was always considered the country. Now evidently, every home builder in town is building out there. So it just seems like the market is booming like crazy for the McMansions in the burbs, moreso than the smaller places in the city limits. Hopefully the rail will entice people to move back into the city. But for the next 5-7 years or so, the suburban expansion will continue.
I'm very bullish on energy prices, which is why I'm also bullish on land inside the loop. As the price of oil and natural gas continues to be on an upward trajectory (which I am very confident about), it will become increasingly expensive to drive long distances on a daily basis, as well as heat/cool a 4,000+ sf house. These will be two huge drivers of property values inside the loop over the next 10 years.
Please rejoin us in 2006. Monorail was proposed and voted down in the mid-90's because it cost 3x as much a surface level lines. Due to the cost, we got what we got because attitudes like Baqui99 expressed above prohibit Houstonians from ever thinking forward. I agree, above-grade rail would be great. But Houstonians are small-thinkers on this issue. Not worth responding to. EDIT: fixed typo.
Sprawl rhymes with Ya'll and that's Texas baby. You are absolutley wrong about sprawl. Single family houses with a yard is what people want. They want privacy and insualtion. The failed experiments in high density public housing has shown that density is a major contributing factor in crime, stress and has a negative effect on quality of life. Houston has sprawl because that is what people want and we are one of the few major cities that can expand cheaply enough to give it to them because we have no natural barriers in topography or costs of development. New York City is sprawled, all the way from Boston to Washington DC, they just didn't have the political foresight to allow annexation. What we need is small, cheap, clean, safe personal transportation. I said back in the Whitmire years Houston needs to take the lead in transportation development, building it's own industry. Something like a four wheeled electric Vespa that is allowed on the HOV with one passenger and untaxed by the state. The manufacturer's could be given huge tax breaks. But no, we built a train.
I've already stated that I'm in favor of rail, as are most people under the age of 30. Unfortunately, the average family of 4 is more inclined to buy a 3000 sq ft home in BFE than move into a 1500 sq ft. townhome inside the loop.
Dude, it was voted down in the 80's. What part of mid-90's are you talking about? 5-7 years? It will take 20-30 years for this progression. But it needs to happen. Houston cannot continue to be "The Blob that ate SouthEast Texas."
Incorrect. Some people want a house with a big yard. A lot of people don't. Why do you think Bellaire has blown up so much in the past 20 years? Location means a hell of a lot more to most people, including me. For the people who want to build big houses on dirt cheap land, there will always be that option. But, as long as you have attractive areas to live closer to town, the majority will continue to want to move closer to the city. BTW, have you checked housing appreciation with the suburbs vs. West U/Bellaire? It completely negates your statement.
Well, ya lost me with the vespas. No friggin way. The climate is not condusive to such mode of transportation. And no Texan would want to be seen on of those pu$$y rides. (No offense).
I'm 33 and I have a 4100 sq ft house with a yard that I host parties of 40+ w/ extra room for kids to run. Granted, it doesn't have a brand new spa bathtub and walk-in closets, but I'll take it any day (including the added expense) than drive 2 hours a day. Yes, sorry. I just spouted that off. It was the 80's. Point being ...monorail already came to vote and it was defeated.
Laugh at the Aerial Tram if you want, but why? You could put as many cars on it as you want so you can carry as many people as a a train. You would only need a few towers, and it can come down to a lower level where you want stations. You could go up over trees, power lines and oh yeah, the train tracks. The one I showed, to Roosevelt Island in NY has been running for 25 years. I didn't look at the cost projection for the monorail but surley with some efficiency of scale it should be feasable. The picture I showed is from the monorail in Sydney, maybe it's only feasable in Austrailian dollars. It just makes more sense than a ground level train because it avoids the conflicts with ground level transportation.
I would absolutely love to move downtown/inside the loop but since I have kids, I can't/won't. The schools suck and I would not feel nearly as comfortable (safety wise with my kids) as I do in The Woodlands. I feel that there is a lot of work to be done before a lot of people would start moving closer to the city.
Well, then they're dumb. You can buy a house in Meyerland for a little more than in BFE, have a good location right about where the rail ends now. And the appreciation on that purchase will be leaps and bounds better.
Biggest misconception. Many Houston schools are some of the BEST in the region...particularly grade schools and middle schools. But you don't hear too much about that ...you only hear about the Sharpstown schools and such that are disasters. But many schools in the area are shinning beacons of success.
No Texan wants to be canned into a train like Tokyo either. But the coming reality is that the US can't continue to use 40% of the world's energy. We need a transportation solution that is efficient enough that we can continue our personal freedom at a price we can afford. How about a composite electric pick up truck.
