Houston Strategies: Fixing traffic, census, entrepreneurial education, rankings, and more

Monday, February 21, 2011

Fixing traffic, census, entrepreneurial education, rankings, and more

Some smaller items this week:

The Wall Street Journal examines options for reducing traffic congestion and improving commutes (with some good graphics). The good news is that Houston is already doing most of these. That's also the bad news - no easy improvements here. The Houston-specific excerpts:

"In many cities, roadways are lined with sensors or cameras that feed information to traffic-management control rooms. Houston has one that looks almost like the one NASA used to run the moon missions—except it's bigger—and it is run by Houston TranStar, the multi-agency consortium that manages the region's traffic.
...
Traffic relief doesn't have to involve cutting-edge networking technology or pricey fast lanes. Hiring more tow trucks to clear wrecks and stalled cars faster can generate big gains at a moderate cost. Houston spends about $5 million a year to assure that there are roughly 100 tow trucks cruising the major commuting routes.

The Texas Transportation Institute's Mr. Lomax estimates Houston's tow truck army saves $25 million to $30 million in congestion costs and about $30 million in collisions that could have resulted from chain-reaction pileups."

More on how Houston commutes, with map and stats.
Joel Kotkin in Forbes on why affordable housing matters, one of Houston's best features.
Austin, Dallas, and Houston top ranked in attracting young adults.
The surprisingly large drop in Chicago's 2010 Census population has led to speculation that Houston might become the country's third-largest city by the 2020 Census... (and more here). Houston census results discussed here.
A great op-ed from the Sunday Chronicle on the thriving, entrepreneurial model of education found in our charter schools, where Houston may be the top city in the country. (and, yes, I saw the Glaeser one too lauding Houston - more on that next week)