Intermodality

Not all bus lines are the same. On a METRO map, the 25 Richmond and the 34 Montrose are represented by the same kind of line. But the 25 comes every 15 minutes on weekdays and 20 on weekends; the 34 comes only every 45 minutes on a weekday and not at all on the […]

2008 started with a new development in an old Houston debate. Former mayor Bob Lanier and several real estate developers have organized a PAC to fight increased building regulations, speaking to city council and bringing in anti-planning speakers. It might seem as if old battle lines have been re-drawn, and we’re in for another zoning […]

It’s not enough to put a rail line in the right street; it has to be done right, too. That involves a lot of “little” decisions that add up to a big deal: station designs, crosswalk locations, left turn lanes, sidewalk widths, street trees. If you do that right, you end up with a street […]

This is the Texas Department of Transportation’s brand new Houston District Headquarters on Washington Avenue. Where’s the sidewalk? There’s a nice paved path from the parking lot to the building, but there’s no path at all along the street. In fact, there’s a bus stop in front of the building, but the only way to […]

The Chronicle reports on plans for an new soccer stadium just east of Downtown.

A soccer field is 300 feet long. That’s bigger than a Downtown block. Add stands, and you have a 3-block-long structure. Unless you elevate the stadium — and that’s an expensive proposition — you have to close streets to fit it. The […]

At the corner of Church and Market (above), you have transit choices. To get to Downtown San Francisco, you can take the J Church light rail line (the silver train), which ducks into a tunnel 2 blocks later and runs in a subway under Market Street. You could also take the F Market and Wharves […]

It’s the beginning of a new year, so it’s a good time to look into the future. But here’s a caution for transit planners: don’t look too hard.

As a society, we like to believe in the power of technology to change things. Transit has not escaped that, and we regularly see new technologies touted as […]

This is the beautiful Hudson River Valley, and on the left is Dia Beacon, one of the most amazing museums I have ever been to. And, yes, there’s a Metro-North train. But the train is not what’s important; it’s just a way to get here to go home or go to the museum or enjoy […]

Rep. John Culberson had an opinion piece in this Sunday’s Chronicle laying out his vision of Houston transit. His basic point seems to be that urban light rail is ineffective, and that the answer is commuter rail. Culberson claims:

The most important lesson from the transit experiment is that light rail cannot survive without commuter rail, […]

Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff is running a series of pieces from guest contributors called “looking ahead to 2008.” Today is my turn:

Whoever wins these county races will have an extraordinary budget - and thus an extraordinary amount of power - to shape how Houston grows. The fact that the county does not get […]

If you want to see some really unhappy people, check out Rad Sallee’s latest column in the Chronicle. In it, readers complain about the recent re-timing of Downtown traffic lights. As Rad notes:

Reader response is running about 4-to-1 against the new downtown stoplight timing. Even granting that people are more likely to speak up when […]

The signs in just about every front yard make it clear: the neighborhood around the corner of Ashby and Bissonnet does not want a highrise built on the site of the Maryland Manor apartments. I don’t blame them: if I owned a nice house with a secluded backyard in a quiet neighborhood I’d be alarmed […]

While light rail gets the attention, studies continue for commuter rail in Houston. HGAC is evaluating possible routes, and TxDOT’s selected alternative for the SH35 corridor includes commuter rail. As I’ve said before, commuter rail isn’t an alternative to light rail. But the only way we’ll have an effective commuter rail system in Houston is […]

Here’s an updated version of CTC’s 2012 METRO map, updated with the latest information from METRO. In particular:

Station locations in Uptown have been change to match a more recent METRO map (alas, I have only a paper copy and can’t find it online).

The Middleton station on the East End Line is gone again. It had […]

The Chronicle looks at the failed jail bonds:

County Judge Ed Emmett said Wednesday that he still was analyzing the loss — the first defeat of a county bond request in 20 years — and will consult with Commissioners Court on whether to hold another referendum for the jail project, possibly as soon as next year.

The […]

Houston voters tend to approve bond issues. If there’s no organized opposition, they pass; if there is organized opposition, they often pass anyway. That was the pattern yesterday for Harris County, the Post of Houston, and HISD — with one exception.

That exception was Harris County Proposition 3, which would have issued bonds to build […]

A year ago, I looked at station boardings to see who was riding the Main Street Line. Now, we have another set of data, and it give a more complete picture.

This May, the Houston-Galveston Area Council surveyed riders on trains and buses in the Houston region. They completed 12,000 surveys, including 1,136 on METRORail (resulting […]

Last week, the METRO board voted to build all five 2012 lines as light rail instead of bus rapid transit. That answers the people in the North Side, the East End, and the Third Ward who have been disappointed since 2004 that they would not be getting rail. It also means the system will have […]

Another bit of Houston’s industrial history is coming down. The Hardy Yards were the Southern Pacific Railroad’s main locomotive shops in Texas. The first railroad here was the Houston And Texas Central in 1856; the shops were built sometime around the Civil War and were in continuous use (through many expansions and rebuildings) into the […]

20 months since METRO started talking about the University Line, and nearly 4 years since voters approved light rail expansion, the map of our 2012 light rail system is set. And, as usual, the outcome was a bit surprising and driven by public comment.

In the morning, the METRO staff recommended the Westpark-Cummins-Richmond option west of […]