GQ: Houston Is the New Capital Of Southern Cool, plus Houston's freeways+employment advantage and oil cluster domination
This week's lead item is
GQ's long feature on Houston, which is really well done and has some great excerpts. It's very cool for Houston to get some good national attention, especially vs. Austin.
Paper City discusses the coverage, as does
CultureMap: 5 reasons every Houstonian should read GQ's love letter to our city. Hat tip to Oscar. Excerpts:
Houston Is the New Capital Of Southern Cool
We’ve been hearing the buzz for a few years now: Houston may, sneakily, be America’s best food city. But when we sent GQ food critic Brett Martin to dive into the scene, we realized that was selling the city way short.
...
“At the time, having grown up in Houston in kind of a bubble, I was pretty skeptical about the city,” Odam says. So Odam asked the kid in the black T-shirt why he'd be moving there from someplace as verifiably and undeniably hip as Austin. The kid shrugged. Austin, he said, was a white monoculture of hipsters, yuppies, and techies. (Odam was telling me this story in a Japanese-fusion spot in East Austin, which made it easy to visualize said culture.) In Houston, the kid said, things were happening.
...
He gripped the wheel and considered the unspeakable: “Was Houston cooler than Austin? Really?”
...
But a good deal of what's happening in Houston feels more organic and idiosyncratic than what an urban-studies expert might devise in a PowerPoint presentation—an energy that feels born of two major factors: one, the growth that has turned the city's diverse but discrete bubbles into a series of unavoidable Venn overlaps, allowing cultures to clash, cohabitate, and collaborate; the other, a pervading sense of independent frontier wildness.
That trait may not ride in wearing the cowboy costume it does farther west, but it nevertheless feels distinctly Texan. “There are no zoning laws here” is the sentence you will hear more than any other in Houston. This is a key point of identity: the theoretical ability for anyone to build anything anywhere (never mind that it is in part responsible for the kind of development that makes the city so susceptible to damage from natural disaster). People chatter about commercial real estate in Houston with the same mix of envy, romance, and fascination that they do residential real estate in New York or San Francisco: who's developing what project and where; which buildings are sitting empty, waiting for the price of oil to rise; who's erecting what glass tower as revenge for which other guy's glass tower. “No zoning” turns out to be the urban equivalent of the great western myth of “no fences.”
...
“Austin is like your young, hip millennial brother who always knows the latest cool thing. Dallas is the metrosexual middle brother that nobody really wants to spend time with. But Houston is the older, cooler sibling—he's got some miles on him, he's been through some stuff, but he totally knows what's cool and what's not. You love all your siblings, but you know which one you want to hang out with.”
...
We drove mile after flat mile filled with parking lots and strip malls, fast-food restaurants and box stores, new undistinguished construction cheek by jowl with older undistinguished construction. It is empirically ugly and totally intoxicating. The point isn't that there are beautiful places hidden amid the ugliness; it's that the ugliness itself becomes imbued with a kind of beauty, thanks to the thrum of human energy that takes root there.
...
Maybe it's that sense of defiance that ultimately defines Houston's cool—the sense that a city where cool isn't the primary commodity can afford to lie back and let the world come to it, whenever the world catches on. As Matthew Odam's passenger put it, before closing the car door and taking off toward the Menil's lawn and into legend: “Houston is cool because Houston doesn't give a f**k about being cool.”
Just awesome.
On to a few other items this week:
Proximity Counts: How Houston Dominates the Oil Industry
..."Once formed, these clusters set up a virtuous cycle that eventually draws in a major piece of their industry: the bigger the cluster, the greater the cost savings; the greater the savings, the more firms are drawn into the cluster; more firms mean more savings … and the industry concentration continues on. These cost advantages are powerful enough to (1) explain why only one large headquarters/technical center typically dominates each industry, and (2) why it is so hard for other cities to challenge these centers for a share of their work.
Proximity generates the cost savings that accrue to companies operating inside Houston’s oil cluster, and these savings arise in three ways: access to many local companies specializing in oil; large numbers of skilled and specialized employees; and by generating company-specific intelligence on oil markets through its local knowledge loop."
"The South holds some lessons. Dallas and Houston both built out major freeway networks with multiple rings and connectors. Atlanta stuck with a simple hub and spoke plus beltway system typical of smaller metros and has paid a big price for it. "
- Building on that, it leads to this *huge* tax base and vibrancy advantage for our city and region. It's a testament to the amazing freeway and commuter lane network we've built that employers have chosen to stay in the core because suburban employees can reach those employers within a reasonable commute, unlike many metros.
"Also, the city of Houston is home to 60.2 percent of the region's jobs. In Miami, Detroit and Atlanta, for example, the city is home to 11.7 percent, 13.1 percent and 17.7 percent of the region's jobs, respectively."
Labels: companies, economic strategy, economy, energy, identity, mobility strategies, perspectives, quality of place, transportation plan
The battle for Houston, rapidly arriving autonomous taxis, big success with big sports events, and more
A big backlog of smaller items this week:
"Commuters who use public transit typically use their regular route on the order of 500 times a year. If they also take public transit for non-work trips around the city, the number goes even higher, perhaps 700. In contrast, people who fly only fly a handful of times per year. Frequent business travelers may fly a few tens of times per year, still an order of magnitude less than the number of trips a typical commuter takes on transit."
"Clearly, at $4 per ride, bus-rapid transit is the most cost-effective use of transit dollars. Bus-rapid transit requires minimal new infrastructure, and most of that infrastructure won’t become obsolete if and when driverless ride-hailing replaces transit. Bus-rapid transit also tends to have smaller cost overruns and ridership shortfalls than rail projects.
...
Still, when buses can carry riders for $4 per trip, why are cities planning rail lines that cost $10, $20, or $151 (!!!) per trip? A big part of the answer is the desire to get “free” federal dollars."
"Where the most major neutral-site sports event by city/metropolitan area have been held since the turn of the 21st century or are already booked in the future:
New Orleans (9) – 2002 Super Bowl, 2003 Final Four, 2008 NBA All-Star Game, 2012 Final Four, 2013 Super Bowl, 2014 NBA All-Star Game, 2017 NBA All-Star Game, 2022 Final Four, 2024 Super Bowl.
Houston (8) – 2004 Super Bowl, 2004 Major League All-Star Game, 2006 NBA All-Star Game, 2011 NCAA Final Four, 2013 NBA All-Star Game, 2016 Final Four, 2017 Super Bowl (LI), 2023 Final Four.
Phoenix (7) – 2008 Super Bowl, 2009 NBA All-Star Game, 2011 MLB All-Star Game, 2015 Super Bowl, 2017 Final Four, 2023 Super Bowl, 2024 Final Four.
Indianapolis (7) – 2006 Final Four, 2010 Final Four, 2012 Super Bowl, 2015 Final Four, 2021 Final Four, 2021 NBA All-Star Game, 2026 Final Four"
That's probably more than enough items for one week. More to come next week...
Labels: affordability, autonomous vehicles, home affordability, Metro, mobility strategies, opportunity urbanism, rail, smart growth, sports, transit
METRONext 2040 Transit Plan Should be Affordable, Adaptable, and Designed for the Future
Today's guest post is from Houston Freeway's Oscar Slotboom as a followup to my recent post on the early draft MetroNext plan.
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How can very limited available public transit funds be used to achieve maximum benefit for the Houston area? I suggest that the guiding principle should be designing for the future, not the past.
The Past
Light rail is very expensive and very slow, with new mileage likely to cost in the range of $150-200 million per mile. Commuter rail (expected to be under the authority of an agency other than Metro) is expensive and slow, costing at least $50 million per mile. Both are fixed, inflexible and usable only by trains.
This table tells us three important facts
- Concrete roadway is vastly less expensive than rail
- The fastest transit service is achieved by bus-on-concrete express bus service with limited stops
- Light rail is extremely slow, suitable only for short distance travel like 5 miles or less.
The Future: More Job Dispersion
HGAC projections show the percentage of jobs inside Loop 610 will drop to 16.6% by 2045.
| Employment, millions (HGAC, January 2018) |
|
2015 |
2045 |
Change |
| Region |
3.2 |
100% |
4.8 |
100% |
|
| Inside Loop 610 |
0.66 |
20.6% |
0.79 |
16.6% |
-4.0 |
| Loop-BW8 |
0.85 |
26.6% |
1.34 |
28.2% |
+1.6 |
| BW8-Grand Parkway |
1.18 |
36.9% |
1.82 |
38.2% |
+1.3 |
| Outside Grand Parkway |
0.51 |
15.9% |
0.81 |
17.0% |
+1.1 |
This tells us that:
- A downtown-centric mass transit system will serve a declining percentage of overall regional travel, and the need to serve so-called long and thin routes (i.e. routes with low ridership) to points outside downtown will increase.
- We don’t need more high capacity transit, but instead need more routes that can be affordably operated to more destinations with low rider counts at high service levels.
- Transit technologies of the past cannot affordably meet the future need.
Transportation of the Future is Taking Shape Today
While the future of autonomous vehicles and their impact remain speculative, recent reports detail impressive progress.
- Google’s Waymo test program has logged more than 8 million miles of its vehicles driving in the fully autonomous mode in Phoenix, with around 400 people participating in the program for their daily transportation needs. An excerpt: (emphasis added)
"If self-driving cars make ride-hailing cheaper and more convenient, the research suggests, it could take a wrecking ball to public transportation. Strangely, the head of Phoenix’s public transportation agency agrees with that assessment.
'It will absolutely happen,' says Scott Smith, Valley Metro’s CEO. 'But I’m not scared, I’m excited. There will be a reduction in bus use, in subway use in some areas, but expanded use in others. This is real. We’ve got to be a part of it.'”
- Wired reports on Phoenix's efforts to keep public transportation relevant with coming automated transportation services
- Zoox (with impressive video report) is developing an all-electric robot taxi which is potentially highly suitable for transit service. The vehicle travels in both directions and can move sideways with its four-wheel steering. It is being tested in downtown San Francisco, and Zoox is among only three firms (along with Waymo and GM’s Cruise) that are currently known to be well-along in urban testing.
- At least 6 other major efforts are in progress (see chart), which currently are reported to be less far along than Waymo, GM Cruise and Zoox.
Being Adaptable to Whatever the Future May Bring
While decentralization of employment is virtually certain in the future, the impact of new technology on public transit is unknown but could but be hugely disruptive, potentially substantially reducing demand for traditional public transit.
That’s why we need a plan which is adaptable to whatever the future may bring.
For future planning purposes and MetroNext, it really does not matter if autonomous vehicles become available in 5 years or decades in the future. Anything built in the MetroNext plan can be expected to be in service to the year 2100 and beyond. MetroNext needs to be ready for autonomous transit, if and when it comes, but also maximize mobility benefits of transit investments if autonomous transit is slow to develop or has a minimal impact.
- Scenario 1: A future with minimal influence of autonomous vehicles
In this case we need to serve dispersing employment with expanded service to more job centers at an affordable cost. Low-cost designs will maximize the number of these routes.
What we need: Concrete pavement for an expanded network of HOT lanes for buses and HOV
- Scenario 2: A future where autonomous vehicles and traditional transit coexist, each serving different segments of the market
In
this case we can envision traditional transit serving mainly a few
high-volume destinations such as downtown, but most other transit
will be served with public or private autonomous vehicles.
What we need: Transit facilities designed to be used by autonomous vehicles, as these vehicles may start on regular streets, then enter a dedicated transit guideway for a segment, then switch to a HOT lane, then return to regular streets
- Scenario 3: A future where autonomous transit vehicles are affordable and widely available, drastically lowering the demand for traditional public transit
In this case the focus of transportation agencies may totally change, perhaps with public transit agencies subsidizing fleets of autonomous vehicles to serve low-income communities, and perhaps shifting their focus to build and maintain autonomous vehicle guideways to provide premium high-speed service for robot transit taxis.
What we need: Transit investments that won’t go to waste when demand for traditional public transit collapses. We need transit facilities that are readily usable by autonomous vehicles and regular (non-transit) automobiles.
Implications for MetroNext
Metro could have as little as only $1 to $2.8 billion available for capital projects in the next 20 years. If new light rail costs $175 million per mile, that money could be burned up with only 6 to 16 miles of light rail. We can and must do much better.
The need for a transit system which is affordable, adaptable and ready for future leads to these conclusions and guiding principles:
- Rail-based fixed guideways are totally useless for use by autonomous vehicles
- Rail-based public transit, particularly light rail, is obscenely expensive and will likely suffer from low ridership, like we’re seeing on the Green and Purple lines
- New rail mileage should be eliminated or minimized in MetroNext
- Pavement-based transit is much less expensive to build than rail-based transit, is better-suited to serving future needs, and is adaptable to meet future autonomous vehicle needs
- All new transit facilities should be pavement-based and designed to be used by autonomous transit vehicles. This may mean design features such as frequent entry/exit points, and through-lanes on bus rapid transit guideways at stations
- MetroNext Plan B (or similar plan) should be adopted, since it is least expensive and most compatible with future needs and technology
- Due to Metro’s limited financial resources, Metro should partner with TxDOT to build key transit links in our future system. TxDOT will do the financial heavy lifting, minimizing the cost to Metro, but full political support from Metro and the City of Houston will be needed.
Partnerships with TxDOT
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| Click for full size |
- Interstate 10 Katy Freeway between the West Loop and downtown
Both Metro Plans A and B show BRT on this section. On the west end of this section are the existing Katy Managed Lanes, and on the east side new express lanes are planned as part of the downtown reconstruction project. These two sections of managed/express lanes need to be connected.
This section needs to be expanded, with four new MaX lanes and possibly a separate BRT as included in the Metro plans. I can envision a potential plan where the current westbound lanes are converted to MaX and BRT lanes, with new main lanes built on the north side.
- Interstate 69 Southwest Freeway, Uptown/Gulfton area to downtown split
Metro’s plan A shows BRT on this corridor and plan B shows a “partnership project”. This section is currently under preliminary study by TxDOT, and this corridor should be widened to add four MaX lanes and potentially BRT.
MetroNext has no new plans for this corridor, since the Post Oak bus lanes will open soon. TxDOT has proposed four express lanes on this corridor.
The express lanes should be designed to be usable by automated transit vehicles which need to pass through this congested area. This will involve connections at both ends, and possibly a third express lane in each direction for exclusive use by transit and automated vehicles.
Future Vision
MaX Lanes as proposed by Tory are ideally suited to provide the kind of service needed in the future. We can envision a future with buses, automated transit vehicles and HOV using regular streets, MaX lanes and dedicated transit guideways to serve a vastly expanded range of transit routes with high levels of service at speeds much faster than traditional transit.
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| Click for full size |
Labels: autonomous vehicles, commuter rail, MaX Lanes, Metro, mobility strategies, rail, transit, transportation plan
My COU report on Resilient Houston after Harvey now available
Me and a team from the Center for Opportunity Urbanism have been working for several months on a 3-part report about Houston after Hurricane Harvey, and now it's finally
available here just before this crucial
bond election. An overview:
HOUSTON RESILIENT
How Houston has met — and will meet — the
challenges posed by Hurricane Harvey
This is a three-part report on how Houston has met — and will meet — the challenges posed by Hurricane Harvey. Part One defines the city and region’s trajectory, and its fundamental resilience. The second part addresses Houston’s urban form, and how the right planning choices can provide some solutions to the problems of flooding. The third part lays out specific suggestions for balancing growth with environmental sustainability.
As leaders and policy makers address post-Harvey issues, we present the steps they can take to make Houston more resilient, while still allowing it to retain its character as a region of opportunity. We demonstrate how actions that raise housing costs will make the Houston region less competitive with other parts of Texas, and with the nation as a whole.
Labels: hurricanes, resilience
