Hobby rail critique, livable city ranking flaws, Houston tops Dallas for homeless reduction, and more
This week's items:- I've come around to accepting light rail to Hobby in the MetroNext plan as a less-than-optimal compromise among many different constituencies, but this Urban Reform blog post by Connor Harris of the Manhattan Institute makes a pretty strong case about the cost-inefficiency of such a line at $167,000 per new daily rider. His alternative:
"For improving service to Hobby Airport, Houston Metro has a much faster and cheaper option: express buses.
Currently, bus route 40, the only direct bus line from the airport to downtown, takes a scheduled 55 minutes to cover a distance that is less than 9 miles as the crow flies. An express bus alongside Interstate 45, however, could easily make the trip in 20 to 30 minutes—substantially faster than light rail, which currently averages only about 15 miles per hour. Buses could make the trip this fast even during rush hour: Interstate 45 has a separate HOV lane all the way from the airport to downtown, and adding an entrance at Airport Boulevard for express airport buses would just require repainting a few lane markings. Special-purpose express buses could also be fitted with luggage racks, which would compete with rush-hour commuters for space on light rail trains."
- That same Connor Harris created his fantasy rail map for Houston.
- Why homelessness is going down in Houston but up in Dallas. Hat tip to Kevin.
- NYT: Justin Verlander and Kate Upton's favorite places to visit in Houston.
- CityLab takes down the Global Livable Cities Index, which I completely agree with. Excerpt:
"Issues such as housing affordability are taken into account, for example, but have to balance against more rarified qualities such as access to opera, high-end restaurants, and other amenities. This isn’t all bad—for those who can afford them, opera and restaurants are wonderful things. The result is still that rankings often end up assessing cities in terms of a small band of citizens for whom almost all of such metrics are relevant. They assess, broadly, how much potential a city possesses when seen from a privileged point of view: that of a straight, affluent, mobile, and probably white couple who works in something akin to upper management and has children. Remove even one of those characteristics from the equation and the results often seem way off the mark. City rankings are thus a window onto the projected tastes of a highly specific elite."
- This month’s edition of the Greater Houston Partnership's Houston: The Economy at a Glance analyzes recent population estimates and discusses how the region's population has grown since '10, provides an employment update, and summarizes the Partnership's recent publication, Global Houston.
Labels: affordability, census, demographics, economy, home affordability, Metro, mobility strategies, quality of place, rail, rankings, transportation plan, world city
posted by Tory Gattis @ 6:39 PM
10 Comments:
In the age of Uber and Lyft, why would anyone, working downtown, walk more than a block to catch a ride to anywhere, much less to Hobby. Most downtown workers will be multiple blocks from the nearest rail station. You think they are going to drag their bags five to eight blocks for a 45 minute train ride to the airport. Uber will cost twenty bucks, max, in the middle of the day, door to door, and have you there in 25 minutes. Hobby rail is madness, it's madness; I tell you!
Lol, I tend to agree. 45 mins is a long trip from Hobby. But a $1 train ride is way cheaper than a $20 Uber, which will matter to some people happy to give up 20 mins to save $20. I think they're hoping a lot of convention center event attendees will use it to cheaply get from Hobby to their downtown hotel or GRB event.
We need only look at Dallas, St Louis, Minneapolis, Denver, Anchorage, Orlando, Burbank, Providence, South Bend, Baltimore, Phoenix, Salt Lake to know that this does not happen. How many times do you have to run the experiment to conclude that the result will not change. The only people who ride rail to the airport are airport employees who live within two blocks of the station. That, and the occasional novelty seeker who wants to ride the train to the airport, just once. Slay this beast now, before it is born!
You're right - the data is there. This is where democracy breaks down. Metro polls the public, and they all ask for rail the airport hoping they won't have to pay for parking anymore, when the reality is that the vast majority won't use it.
Interesting economic report from GHP. Houston is basically not interesting to white people, whose metro population has grown 6% (!) since 2010, despite a major economic boom, and more than accounted for by natural increase. They are slowly moving out, apparently to Austin, judging by the number of Astros caps I've seen there in the past two years. This seems like partially white flight (now at 35% of metro population), partially dissatisfaction with quality of life ("Houston is ugly" a common sentiment), partially they just genuinely love the hill country and didn't notice it was there before. Will be interesting to see whether the metro % reaches equilibrium at around 30-35% or if it accelerates downward similar to how white people rapidly move out of a school district once they realize they're in the minority.
Fair point. Houston's appeal has always been a combination of cost and opportunity, but there is plenty of opportunity all around the country now. Next recession will make us look more attractive.
https://www.city-journal.org/atlanta-growth
Why we should be thankful for Beltway 8
http://access.umn.edu/research/america/auto/2017/
https://opportunityurbanism.org/2018/11/employment-access-in-us-metropolitan-areas-2017/
Yep. Love Aaron's Atlanta piece. Will be blogging on it soon.
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