Montrose LRT, 290 rail vs. bus, #1 income growth, #1 diversity, housing, IT
Time to catch up on the smaller misc items:- Houston tops the nation for income growth in the last decade. Hat tip to Josh.
- Why is Houston an information technology hotbed?
- Somebody's personal essay on why Portland sucks, specifically mentioning the traffic (from underinvesting in freeways), taxes, and government over-regulation. Normally I try to avoid bashing other cities (and I've actually visited Portland and it's very nice, at least from a tourist perspective), but when cities get too much unvarnished acclaim (Austin, anyone?), I sometimes like to point to alternate perspectives.
- An analysis over at the Unconventional Economist debunks high property taxes as a cause of Texas' housing affordability.
- The same author has another post on "The Texas housing miracle".
- By this ranking, Houston is the most diverse major metro area in the country, even more than LA or NYC (see Simbha's #2 message in the thread). You can see the racial map of metro Houston based on the 2010 Census here.
- Houston Tomorrow makes a great observation: 290 commuter rail would carry fewer riders than the current Metro Park-and-Ride service. It would also cost more, be less frequent, and require a transfer to get downtown. Why do we want this again?
"Metro service today has 5-minute intervals between buses and goes nonstop to downtown. The proposed commuter rail line would have 20-minute intervals and stop at 10 stations, then require a transfer to a bus to get downtown."Finally we'll end with a little humor: how many things can you find wrong with this picture? That is some mighty impressive photoshopping, although I can't figure out *why* somebody went to all the trouble?...
Labels: affordability, commuter rail, demographics, economy, home affordability, Metro, mobility strategies, rail, rankings
posted by Tory Gattis @ 7:20 PM
5 Comments:
This is not relevant to today's post but should be of interest. The cost of California's high speed rail project has now increased to $99 billion, up from the $33.6 billion promised to California voters. And it won't be fully operational until 2034.
http://www.mercurynews.com/california-high-speed-rail/ci_19241126
http://transportationblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/11/high-speed-rail-costs-rise-fas.html
TxDOT is about to launch a four-year study of high speed rail between Houston and Dallas. The study is funded by federal dollars earmarked for high speed rail. Hopefully we'll get the truth from the TxDOT study, not grossly
underestimated costs like California used.
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/transportation/
Thanks for the links. I've been saving up material for a HSR post for a while and will add this to it. Everything I've read indicates it's pretty much budgetarily dead at the federal level, which, in turn, will almost certainly kill any local projects - although CA may be just stupid enough to build a small segment in the middle of nowhere and then give up.
Requiring a transfer will squelch the line's appeal to commuters. The research I've seen shows that commuters hate having to make transfers to get to work. (It's probably psychological -- prolonging the dread, or something.) But if you want anecdotal evidence, just take the anemic ridership of Austin's Red Line. Its downtown terminus is a long hike from the major commercial buildings, requiring these workers to hop on a circulator bus. The circulator buses drew so few riders, however, Cap Metro scrapped them.
Mike Dahmus in Austin has written a bunch about transfers. Just google him.
Totally agree. The question is whether they properly factor that into their ridership models so they don't make a stupid, low-ridership investment in the first place.
"but when cities get too much unvarnished acclaim (Austin, anyone?)"
Exactly. I lived there for several years and think all of the positive attention it gets, with no mention of the negatives, is perplexing. And they too, like Portland, have under-invested in roads, and it shows (the worst traffic in the state by some measures.)
Post a Comment
<< Home