Houston Strategies

The $10 Million Mile: How The Boring Company Changes the Transit Equation for Houston

This week we have one of the best guest posts yet from Oscar Slotboom on progress at Elon Musk's Boring Company and the implications for Houston.

TL;DR Executive Summary:

• Revolutionary Cost Reductions: The Boring Company is driving tunneling costs down from traditional transit's $900M+ per mile to roughly $10-20M per mile today, with a future target as low as $3-4M.
• Superior Service Model: The system offers nonstop, point-to-point travel with virtually zero wait times and high speeds, avoiding the "stop-and-go" inefficiency of traditional buses and trains.
• Scalable Infrastructure: Unlike subways, stations are inexpensive (often <$1M) and can be added continuously without slowing down the main line, supporting capacity up to 90k passengers/hour.
• Houston Potential: While full private funding might be difficult here compared to Vegas, the drastically reduced costs make a public-private partnership highly viable. A network connecting Downtown, the Galleria, and Hobby Airport could be built for a fraction of the cost of the now-suspended University BRT.

In the post I did last week, I spotlighted the need for new technology to improve the cost-effectiveness and ridership of public transit, and I mentioned that The Boring Company projects in Las Vegas and Nashville offer the potential for vast improvements in public transit productivity.

Coincidentally and conveniently, a podcast featuring the president of The Boring Company, Steve Davis was posted online a few days later. Sure, Davis is going to be a salesman for The Boring Company's service, but they are clearly making huge progress toward their goal of a revolutionary new type of public transit service.

For those not familiar, Bastrop-headquartered The Boring Company builds tunnels for use by Tesla electric vehicles, providing private, nonstop point-to-point service between stations on the tunnel network. The first project in Las Vegas is operational with 10 miles of tunnels, providing service along the strip, with airport service slated to start in the first quarter of 2026. The system is authorized to be expanded to 68 miles. The second project about to begin construction is in Nashville, providing service from the state capitol going nine miles to the airport, with a route underneath Broadway Street, the city's main party zone, anticipated to be added.

All work is 100% privately funded with no taxpayer funds or incentives. The cost for tunneling is vastly lower than absurdly expensive traditional public transit tunneling. In fact, tunneling in the United States has become so ridiculously expensive, between $900 million and $5 billion per mile, that it is no longer an option in nearly all places, and even New York City struggles to arrange the exorbitant funding needed.

The podcast is long, around 100 minutes, worth a listen for someone interested in the subject (except for the useless commentary from the Nashville representatives). I have excerpted the key points below. Timestamps for podcast reference points are provided in parentheses.

Cost

The cost reduction for tunneling that the Boring Company says they expect to achieve is mind boggling, reducing the cost from a minimum of $900 million per mile for traditional transit to around $10 million per mile right now (around $20 million fully loaded with stations and safety equipment), and possibly as low as $4 million per mile in the future.

(24:40) "Building infrastructure in America is unbelievably expensive," mainly due to perverse incentive structures. "To build a mile of subway tunnel will cost you between $900 million and $5 billion. ... Highest in the world, by the way. Europe is expensive but about half that, China is maybe a tenth of that."

"We're able to build Loop tunnels for order-of-magnitude $10 million a mile." (26:31) He says that stations, safety features and other expenses roughly double the cost to $20 million per mile. "I think when we're all said and done [with tunneling innovation], we're probably between two and five years away from hitting this number, I think we can get down to $3 to 4 million per mile, which is less than the cost to build a highway lane."

The graphic below is from a post on X.

Tunneling Innovation

(26:21) "We've innovated for years on the tunnel boring technology in order to make it inexpensive to tunnel."

(49:00) Three technologies are critical to their cost reduction.

The first is porpoising, in which the tunnel boring machine (TBM) goes into the ground from the surface, typically directly off the transport truck, without needing a large hole to be excavated. After completing a section of tunnel, the TBM steers itself back to the surface, like a dolphin coming to the surface for air. This has been done many times in Las Vegas. (Video)

The second technology is called "continuous mining". Traditional TBMs bore out a section, such as 5 feet, then stop to install tunnel lining. The Boring Company TBM is envisioned to operate continuously without stopping. They are still working to perfect this technology.

The third technology is called ZPIT, for zero people in tunnel. Traditional TBMs have many operators in the tunnel boring machine, up to 40, which necessitates complicated and expensive safety systems. Currently, Boring Company TBMs have 3 operators at the back end (opposite the boring face). A future machine, Prufrock 6, will potentially be able to achieve ZPIT.

"The day that Boring Company perfects a ZPIT, continuously mining, porpoising machine, the conversation starts to switch from 20 miles in Music City Loop to hundreds of miles connecting Nashville to Knoxville, Nashville to Chattanooga, Nashville to Memphis, because then we'll have the speeds to do that."

High Speed Service

(1:25:30) There are five components to the time required for a transit trip: time to get to the station/stop, time waiting for the transit vehicle to arrive, the number of stops on the trip, the speed between stations and the time from the terminus station to the destination.

(11:00) Boring's general policy is to have the station within 100 feet of the location being served.

There is virtually always a car waiting to provide service. The median wait time is 0 seconds (indicating at least 50% customers have zero wait time) and the average wait time is 20 seconds.

Service is always point-to-point, with no intermediate stops. This drastically improves the service speed compared to traditional transit. "This means you can add an unlimited number of stations along the way, and you're not affecting transit time." He mentions there are 50 stations on the Vegas Loop from the airport to north Vegas and the driving trip takes 6 minutes.

(1:24:00) Tunnel speed limits are based on conditions and will normally be between 40 and 60 mph.

With its features, the Loop can provide service which is much faster than traditional transit, and usually vastly faster.

No Limit for Stations

(29:30) On the subject of stations, Davis says the 9-mile initial Nashville route has 20 stations, but he expects many more to be added, as has been the case in Vegas. "When people start seeing how good it is, [stations] will keep getting added." "The great part of the architecture: if you add a station in the middle, you can do it while the system is operating, and it doesn't affect the transit time of the other stations."

(30:16) It is very inexpensive to add stations to the Loop. "A Loop station is a glorified parking lot. You just need a place for the car to go." In sharp contrast, a traditional subway station can cost from $250 million to $500 million due to very high construction complexity.

There are three types of stations: surface stations, stations integrated into underground garages of adjacent buildings and full underground stations.

"[For] a surface station ... you basically build a ramp up and a ramp down from your tunnel, and you could build them for under a million dollars, sometimes less than half a million. And what you get for that is point-to-point transportation between any other station in the entire system."

(31:20) "As long as you plan with the property owner in advance, you can actually tunnel within a foot or two of their subsurface garage, and then you actually poke a hole in the garage for the exit, and now your stations are literally the cost of cutting a hole."

(31:46) "And then the third type of station, which is the most expensive, is just a pure subsurface station", which is around $5 million for the most basic design and up to $15 million for more complicated stations. "I think most [stations] will be surface stations", which is the least expensive type.

Operating Hours and Capacity

(53:20) Operating hours will be based on demand, and the system can potentially run 24/7. Davis mentions that off-peak service will be just as good or even faster than peak service. "If you picture what happens in a bus system or a train system, ... when you're at an off-peak time in a bus or a train, what you typically do is you run less buses or trains. ... What this means if you happen to be at a bus station or a train station at this time, you'll just have a longer wait time. ... When we have an off-peak time in Loop, we'll run less cars, but the cars wait at the stations, so the median wait time during off-peak at Loop is zero. ... It actually is economical for us to generally open all the time, even if not a lot of people are riding."

For capacity, Davis cites numbers from the Vegas Loop. He says the initial section at the convention center could handle 4400 people per hour. After the recent expansion, the system can handle 6500 people per hour. After the airport connection opens in Q1 2026, they are expecting to be able to serve between 17,000 and 20,000 people per hour. The fully built-out Vegas Loop is expected to be able to handle 90,000 people per hour. The initial Nashville Loop is expected to be able to handle 20,000 people per hour.

(55:35) Davis says that the Loop system will have equal or better capacity than buses, and it is an "enormous" misconception that buses have more capacity. Davis says Loop is also more energy efficient than buses because Loop cars are lightweight compared to buses, Loop cars don't constantly start and stop, and Loop cars don't drive around mostly empty. "Loop with three people in a car is actually the lowest kilowatt-hour per passenger mile of any transportation system in the world."

Drivered vs. Driverless cars

(1:11:10) The Vegas system originally only used cars with drivers, but full driverless was recently introduced on a limited basis. Davis says Loop system self-drive is a much easier problem to solve than surface self driving on the street. For driver vs. driverless, Davis says, "What we've found is that people want both. There are some routes where full self-drive makes perfect sense, others where people like having drivers, especially for information [to] answer questions about the system." For Nashville, Davis says, "My prediction is ... that we'll start with a drivered system and then transition a certain percentage [to driverless], which may be high or low." He expects a "healthy mix" of drivered and driverless, and the business model of financial viability is not dependent on driverless cars.

(1:20:00) Vehicle drivers are Boring Company employees who receive extensive training, not contractors.

Attracting Customers

(18:30) The Vegas and Nashville Loops are 100% privately funded with no incentives or taxpayer dollars. (20:20) The Boring Company takes all the financial risk. "Our goal is to provide a public transportation system that is so good that people will want to ride it." They are actively seeking public input about station locations and other system features.

(26:00) "We have an architecture of a public transportation system that is wonderful, that people that ride it like it."

(1:33:40) Current fares charged on the Vegas Loop are around $4 for a single ride, $7 for a round trip and $12-13 for a day pass for unlimited travel. "The goal is to be extremely accessible and extremely affordable." For comparison, the cost to Houston Metro for a single trip provided in 2024 was $13.03, the average fare collected was $0.66, and the taxpayer subsidy per trip was $12.37.

Safety, Flooding and Fires

(1:01:40) Davis says they've served 3.5 million customers in Vegas with no safety incidents, and only one vehicle which became stuck and was corrected in 170 seconds. If a vehicle becomes stuck or disabled, occupants can safely walk out the 100% lighted tunnel to the nearest station or emergency exit. Tunnels have "zero internal touch hazards", in contrast to train tunnels with electrified third rails. The 10-foot width of the tunnel provides ample space for evacuation in one direction and first responders going in the opposite direction. Davis says they have an extensive 5-layer plan to deal with water intrusion in the event of floods, and the Vegas tunnels continued to operate normally during recent floods in Las Vegas.

(1:07:00) For fires, there are extensive safety systems including a bidirectional redundant fire-rated ventilation system, a water supply outlet approximately every 100 feet, emergency responder radio and LTE cell phone functionality in tunnels, frequent first-responder training, and special emergency-responder vehicles. Davis says there have not been any fires in the Vegas system, but in anticipation of one occurring at some point, there are evacuation plans and the capability to blow the smoke in the safest direction.

(1:17:40) A huge number of permits are needed to allow a project to move forward. Inspection is extensive and continuous.

Tunneling in Soft, Wet ground

High water content and soft soils are surely the tunneling environment in Houston. (59:00) Perhaps surprisingly, this is also the environment in Las Vegas, which has a water table between 8 and 20 feet below the surface. "Our tunnels in Vegas are about 30 feet below the surface, which means 100% of the work we do in Las Vegas is underwater." (1:15:53) One of the two biggest lessons learned in Vegas is "just how extreme subsurface water is. ... The amount of paranoia that our team has for handling water is very, very high."

With their experience in Las Vegas, Boring Company will be equipped to handle wet environments like Houston in the future.

Construction Disturbance

(42:00) The boring machine is usually between 20 and 90 feet underground. For tunneling, Davis says noise and vibration is undetectable for people at the surface or in nearby buildings. Tunneling through soft ground (as is done in Las Vegas, and would also be true for Houston) requires more precautions to prevent surface disturbances. Tunneling through rock, as will be done in Nashville, presents virtually no risk of surface disturbance.

In Las Vegas, "We have settlement sensors on the road. So, on the actual surface, you have these little prisms every 50 to 100 feet, and 24/7 there's automatic monitoring of those sensors. And, you have thresholds [such as 1/10 inch]. In the history of our tunneling, we've never even crossed the first [1/10 inch] threshold." (47:48) "It is critical that this is safe and the general public sees that this is safe, and settlement monitoring is a large part of that." "We will never, for tunneling, shut down a lane of traffic on a road." The only closures would be brief periods during the night for core sample acquisition.

Not Discussed in the podcast

There was no discussion of the possibility of Tesla Robotaxi service using traditional street driving for part of the trip, then entering the tunnel for the rest of the trip. To me, this seems like it should be totally possible, and could further extend the feasibility of Robotaxi and Loop service.

Implications for Houston

Houston may not be as attractive as other cities for a 100% privately financed Loop system because we're not a tourist city and Bush airport is much farther from downtown than the Las Vegas and Nashville airports.

On the other hand, the lack of a legacy fixed-route transit system in most of the city (including everywhere west of Main Street) will make Houston a better candidate, since it is an untapped market with no political concerns about competition with legacy public transit.

If Boring delivers on their vision of low-cost, high-speed transportation with enthusiastic public acceptance, it will be revolutionary and transformative. Houston will surely want to get the benefits of this technology. It is easy to envision a system within the Loop 610 area and beyond, with tunnels serving destinations including downtown, the Washington Avenue corridor, Rice Military and Memorial Park, Post Oak and Uptown, the Galleria, Highland Village, Greenway Plaza, Upper Kirby, Rice Village, Montrose, destinations along Main Street, Hobby Airport and possibly high-density populations like Gulfton.

Realistically, I don't think we can expect future Loops in new cities to be 100% privately funded like the Las Vegas and Nashville systems. But with drastically reduced cost compared to traditional public transit, a public-private partnership should be very affordable. Public contribution could be direct contributions for tunnel construction, or as simple as authorizing a certain amount of Metro fare subsidies (which were $939 million in 2024) to apply to Boring system riders. For perspective, the suspended University BRT was estimated to cost $2.2 billion ($88 million per mile), with half or more of the cost being local money. Even at the current Boring Company cost of $20 million per mile, $1 billion could build 50 miles of tunnel (which would be 25 route miles due to twin tunnels.)

We can hope that Houston political leadership will closely monitor the progress of The Boring Company in Las Vegas and Nashville. If Boring delivers on their vision, local leadership should position Houston to be a contender for future Boring Company transit Loop systems.

Labels: autonomous vehicles, infrastructure, Metro, mobility strategies, transit, tunneling

posted by Tory Gattis @ 7:51 AM 1 comments

A (hopefully) momentary lapse of reason at TxDOT

This week we have another excellent analytical post from Oscar Slotboom debunking TXDoT's fairly insane state transit plan. Let's hope this thing goes on a shelf somewhere never to be opened again...

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TxDOT recently published a 91-page report called "Texas State Multimodal Transit Plan 2050", with a shorter executive summary also available (KUHF NPR story). This sprawling document is so heavily overloaded with pro-transit fallacies, platitudes and bogus numbers that it cannot be debunked in a single post.

The staff or consultants at TxDOT who authored this report are either grossly uninformed or delusional about the ability of public transit to serve transportation needs.

The best response to the report is this: we've had large increases in transit agency budgets and massive spending on rail systems in recent decades, and transit ridership goes DOWN, both in Texas and nationally, even with ongoing population increases, strong economic growth, and increasing roadway traffic.

Houston transit ridership peaked in 2006

Regular readers of this blog have seen my analysis of Houston Metro's annual statements. Ridership peaked at in 2006. Ridership never fully recovered from the 2008 recession. Heavy spending on bus improvements in the 2010s held ridership flat, but then Covid in 2020 cut ridership in half and it has slowly recovered during the last five years.

Dallas: extensive rail system plagued by low ridership

DART's 93-mile light rail system is one of the most extensive in the United States. It is built to much higher standards than Houston's MetroRail, nearly entirely on dedicated right-of-way, including a subway, long elevated sections and DFW airport service.

The first section of DART light rail opened in 1996. It was steadily expanded in the 2000s and 2010s, reaching its current 93-mile length in 2021. As the plot shows, overall (bus and rail) ridership growth before Covid was minimal with the massive rail investment, only 5.6% between 2002 and 2018, but 17.1% between 2002 and 2019 due to a spike in 2019. Then Covid hit and 2024 overall DART ridership is 23.4% below the 2013 peak.

DART's ridership page reports 68,700 weekday light rail boardings in September 2025, which is around 34,350 riders making a roundtrip. For comparison, Houston's busiest bus line, 82-Westheimer, had 14,345 boardings. Rider security has always been a challenge for DART. In October there were two fatal shootings on the light rail system (1, 2), and a non-fatal shooting this month. DART ridership has had a weaker recovery from Covid than Houston, and it will likely take a very long time for DART to reach pre-Covid ridership, if ever.

A post I did in 2021 revealed that the DART Las Colinas station, in the middle of an area with dense apartments in all directions, had the second-lowest ridership of all stations in the DART system. (plot) So much for transit-oriented development!

The Los Angeles ridership disaster

Around 2010, Los Angeles (excluding Orange County) ended virtually all freeway improvements and put all its resources into public transit. The result: steadily decreasing ridership since 2013, with overall ridership down 36.8% in 2024. Hugely expensive investments in rail systems are especially disastrous, with ridership down 43.5% since the 2013 peak and down 30.7% from the 2019 pre-Covid value.

National Data

This plot from the Antiplanner based on data from the National Transit Database shows flat or declining transit ridership since around 2007, with steadily escalating operating costs during this period.

Taxpayers get stuck with the large subsidy bill

Public transit operating expenses and operating losses (i.e. taxpayer subsidy) have escalated in the last 25 years, including Houston. The plot below shows the operating loss from audited financial statements, which in 2024 was $939 million for Houston and $952 million for Dallas.

Page 64 of the TxDOT document predicts continued rapid escalation of operating expenses.

With flat or declining ridership and costs going up, taxpayer subsidy per boarding have soared upward. In 2024 Houston taxpayers contributed $12.37 every time someone stepped on a Metro bus or train. The only good news is that per-boarding subsidy in Houston is much lower than Dallas and subsidies have been decreasing since peak Covid impact in 2021. (See post with time series)

	Year	Operating Loss millions	Ridership millions	Subsidy per boarding
Houston	2024	$938.6	75.859	$12.37
Dallas	2024	$952.1	54.573	$17.45
Los Angeles	2023	$2,639	270.179	$9.77

Lowball Cost Numbers

As usual, pro-transit documents use unrealistically low cost numbers. For example, it says that light rail costs $200-250 per mile (pages 33, 62). This listing of new projects on the Federal Transit Administration site shows seven light projects which vary in cost between $153 and $964 million per mile, with the average cost $408 million per mile. The current cost estimate for the planned 9.8-mile Austin light rail system, which will run on surface streets like Houston's MetroRail, is now a stunning $8.2 billion, or $840 million per mile. From the article: "Soaring rail transit costs are 'not necessarily unique to Austin,' said transit engineer Chetan Sharma. 'It’s essentially a national problem.'"

Page 62 says bus rapid transit costs $30-65 million per mile, but the suspended 25-mile Metro University BRT was estimated to cost $2.2 billion, $88 million per mile. Metro's Gulfton BRT is included on the FTA list at $54 million per mile.

Page 44 says that intercity high-speed rail costs $65 million per mile, but the most recent cost number for the 240-mile Texas Central project is "over $40 billion", or over $167 million per mile. The most recent cost estimate for California high-speed rail is $135 billion and the ultimate cost is surely much higher. The system length for this cost is not clear, but phase 1 is listed at 494 miles, which would be $273 million per mile.

On page 43 there is a section for "Funding Intercity Connectivity" which states "A high-level analysis estimates that building rail and bus infrastructure would require an estimated $30 to $40 billion in capital investment and operating costs greater than $5 billion annually." It's impossible to analyze this statement without any project details, but if this number includes Texas Central then it is far too low. This is a huge cost, and history tells us any such spending will not increase transit ridership and probably become a Los Angeles-style disaster.

Look to new technology to save public transit (and taxpayers)

There are powerful forces at work pushing down public transit ridership, and no amount of public transit spending can overcome them. Before Covid, employers were steadily relocating from downtown to suburban locations which are very difficult or impossible to serve with transit. Then Covid hit in 2020, greatly increasing work from home. On the horizon are driverless vehicles, which could deliver yet another blow to transit ridership.

Attempting to solve future transportation needs with absurdly expensive legacy transit solutions is a recipe for disaster, both for ridership and taxpayers. The only way we'll ever get better results for transit expenditures is with new technology. Fortunately, technologies are in development which could eventually deliver much-needed productivity improvements for transit and nearby intercity travel.

While driverless vehicles did not deliver on their initial hype, Tesla and Google's Waymo are making steady progress toward service rollouts. Waymo recently expanded to freeway service in three cities, and driverless taxi services - "robotaxi" - are now Tesla's main focus to achieve future profits, with Tesla's latest self-driving software FSD v14 getting mostly good reviews. In 5 to 10 years, these technologies may be viable and, like all new technologies, we can expect prices to drop. Driverless taxis will be ideal for many public transit needs, particularly for rural and exurban transit discussed in the TxDOT document.

The Boring Company is actively building projects in Las Vegas and Nashville. If successful, this technology will provide an affordable alternative to legacy public transit tunneling, which now costs a minimum of $1 billion per mile and is financially prohibitive.

For longer distances between cities, there are many companies developing electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft. (Full list) Joby, Archer and Beta are the best-known American companies developing taxis. Joby is scheduled to begin commercial service in Dubai in 2026, and Archer recently purchased the Hawthorne Municipal airport near LAX to base its operations. Flight speeds are comparable to high-speed rail, although initial ranges are expected to be around 100 miles. Of course we can expect improvements in range, and Beta CTOL (C=conventional) lists a range of 387 miles. If these technologies become reality, they could be far more practical than a high-speed rail project.

Suppose you are in the Woodlands or Clear Lake City area and you want to go to Plano. With Texas Central high-speed rail, you would need to fight traffic to the Texas Central station at the Northwest Mall site, then buy a ticket which Texas Central has stated will be priced comparable to airline service. In Dallas you would still need to cover the long distance from downtown Dallas to Plano. A VTOL could leave from Hooks Airport or Ellington Field and go to Addison or McKinney Airport (much closer to Plano), or perhaps a VTOL port very close to activity centers in Plano like Legacy. Capital costs will be minimal, instead of at least $40 billion for Texas Central. Repeat this scenario for an innumerable number of start-to-end points, like Sugar Land to Austin, Katy to Waco, Baytown to Fort Worth, etc.

Company	Model	Top Speed	Range
Joby Aviation	S4	200 mph	100 to 150 miles
Archer	Midnight	150 mph	100 miles
Beta	Alia VTOL	176 mph	(not listed)
Beta	Alia CTOL	176 mph	387 miles

Labels: autonomous vehicles, Metro, mobility strategies, rail, transit, transportation plan

posted by Max Concrete @ 10:52 AM 0 comments

How Houston can silence those ear-blasting cars and trucks!

This week the Houston Chronicle published my op-ed calling for noise cameras in Houston (thank you shout out to Evan and Lisa!). I would also like to post it here for posterity. As a resident of Midtown I can't tell you how often I hear cars driving down Bagby with their stereos so loud they rattle windows, even at 2am in the morning! 😠 I really hope the City (as well as Midtown and other TIRZs) strongly consider these noise cameras being used in other parts of the country.  The fine revenue will more than cover the cost of the cameras! Please pass along to any officials you know - thank you.

How Houston can silence those ear-blasting cars and trucks

Noise cameras would give police — and residents — a tool to fight back

Labels: quality of place

posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:37 PM 3 comments

Houston METRO Ridership Update

This week we have yet another excellent analytical blog post from Oscar Slotboom (he's on a roll!)

Metro's 2025 fiscal year ended at the end of September. Bill King has some good commentary about Metro's ridership in his most recent blog post, especially on the topics of light rail and Uptown BRT.

Metro's annual financial report becomes available in early April, which is when I do the comprehensive analysis of Metro's performance. Metro recently posted its September ridership data, so now is a good time for an updated monthly ridership plot. September and October are the highest ridership months of the year, so September looks good compared to the 12-month pre-Covid average (which includes low-ridership months).

As usual, I focus on weekday boardings. Overall weekday boardings of 260,782 in September is a post-Covid high, 14.0% below September 2019 and 8.2% below the 12-month pre-Covid average. Metro ridership continues to outperform the national average, which has been about 20% below 2019 in recent months.

Bus ridership of 197,494 is 2.8% below September 2019 and 3.7% above the 12-month pre-Covid average. If the current trend continues, we should see bus ridership reach the pre-Covid corresponding monthly values as soon as 2026.

MetroRail continues to perform poorly. September was 32.0% below September 2019, 3.3% below September 2024 and 27.5% below the 12-month pre-Covid average. While bus ridership has had continuous improvement, light rail ridership has been flat for the last three years.

Park and ride service continues its slow, incremental improvement from its near-total collapse in 2020. September was 45.9% below September 2019 and 41.2% below the 12-month pre-Covid average.

Labels: Metro, transit

posted by Max Concrete @ 1:15 PM 0 comments

Highways: costs are way up, funding is in decline. What's the Impact on Houston?

This week we have another excellent analytical blog post from Oscar Slotboom.

An agenda item for the October 24 H-GAC Transportation Policy Council meeting includes a spate of delays to projects in the Transportation Improvement Plan. 18 projects and 18 right-of-way acquisition programs are being delayed.

Delayed projects include the items listed below. The new project year for most projects is listed as 2029, but realistically we can expect more delays since most are not included in TxDOT's 2029 information dashboard (see section below "Planned Contracts in the Next 4 Years").

	Updated project year
Connecting the SH 35 freeway extension to Loop 610	2029
Widening the Gulf Freeway to 8 lanes on Galveston Island, including direct connections at 61st Street	2029
Interstate 10 Widening from Katy to Brookshire	2029
Direct connectors at the Gulf Freeway and Grand Parkway segment B	2028
SH 249 inside Beltway 8 (West Mount Houston Road), widen to 8 lanes	2029
US 290 in Waller County, widen to 6 main lanes	2033
Inner Katy BRT (Metro)	2033
SH 6 at FM 529	2029

Delays to right-of-way acquistion include the following (NHHIP section map)

	Updated project year
NHHIP 3C-2 (I-69 at I-10)	2028
NHHIP 2A (I-10 to Loop 610)	2031
NHHIP 2B (Loop 610 interchange)	2034
NHHIP Segment 1 (Loop 610 to BW 8)	2034-35
I-10 East San Jacinto Bridge	2030

This HGAC action is no surprise to anyone who closely watches TxDOT letting schedules (which includes me), since there is a reduction in non-tolled contracts in fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal year 2025. The H-GAC document revision is an administrative confirmation of the funding reality for Houston projects.

Project delivery gets a double punch: dramatically increased costs and lower funding

We've seen this story before, especially in the mid 1970s (page 31). The post-Covid spate of inflation has increased Texas construction costs 67% since August 2021. Nationally, costs are up about 65% between Q1 2021 and Q1 2025 (the most recent data online). With flat revenue, this results in a 40% reduction in the amount of projects which can be awarded.

TxDOT's bank balance was nearly $10 billion as of January 2024, but was $3.5 billion as of May 2025 and is projected to be around zero by March 2026. This drawdown allowed a surge of project spending in 2024. The TxDOT chart says "Negative balances, if any, will be avoided through the issuance of short-term borrowing and other cash management strategies." If I were the TxDOT financial controller, I would reduce contract awards to avoid the risk of an empty bank account and the costs associated with short-term borrowing.

Contract awards for non-tolled projects statewide were generally $1 billion per month in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 (which ended in August), with an average of $1.01 billion per month in FY 2025. In fiscal year 2026 (now in progress) the average for non-toll projects is $824 million. In the screenshot for FY 2026, the spike in June is due to the $1.9 billion tolled Grand Parkway segment B, which will issue bonds for funding. Including toll funding, the monthly average is $980 million.

Planned Contracts in the Next 4 Years

TxDOT lists the projects expected to be let for construction in the next four fiscal years. This data is accurate for the current year (above the thick border line) and is subject to frequent change beyond the current year. This list has large Houston projects (over $100 million, or on freeways/tollways) currently scheduled. As this shows, the only major contracts in the Houston region in this fiscal year are based on toll revenue. NHHIP projects, with yellow background, appear to have priority over other projects but are delayed compared to the online schedule. The next big NHHIP projects are two years away, scheduled for letting in June 2027, October 2027 and March 2028.

Scheduled	Amount
Feb 2026	$77 million	US 290 new underpass as Skinner Road
Apr 2026	$166 million (Toll)	SH 99 (Grand Parkway), widen to 6 lanes between I-10 and West Road
Jun 2026	$1.876 billion (Toll)	SH 99 (Grand Parkway) segment B, build new toll road from Gulf Freeway to SH 35
Feb 2027	$113 million	FM 521 (Almeda Road), widen south of Highway 6
May 2027	$114 million (Toll)	SH 99, widen to 6 lanes west of I-45 (North Freeway)
Jun 2027	$273 million	NHHIP 3C-3 (I-10 in UH-downtown area)
Oct 2027	$866 million	NHHIP 3A (I-69 from Spur 527 to SH 288)
Dec 2027	$52 million (Toll)	SH 99 (Grand Parkway), widen to 6 lanes from Kuykendahl to Holzwarth
Feb 2028	$253 million	connections between SH 99 segment B and Gulf Freeway
Mar 2028	$180 million	NHHIP 3C-1 (I-10 Gregg to Waco St)
Mar 2028	$1.78 billion	NHHIP 3C-2 (Interchange at I-69 and I-10)
Sep 2028	$672 million	NHHIP 3C-4 (I-10/I-45 interchange northwest of downtown)
Oct 2028	$324 million	I-10 Katy Freeway, Mason Rd to Pin Oak Rd
Oct 2028	$78.5 million (Toll)	SH 99 Grand Parkway west of SH 249, widen from 4 to 6 lanes
Dec 2028	$270 million	widen I-10 in Brookshire, FM 359 to Igloo Road
Mar 2029	$159 million	SH 288 widen to 8 lanes Loop 610 to Sims Bayou

Projects Most Affected By Delays

The only projects which are minimally affected by the funding shortfall are the toll projects, Grand Parkway Segment B and widening of the Grand Parkway between the Katy Freeway and North Freeway. The projects below are most affected and are delayed into the 2030s.

• NHHIP downtown projects not listed above, and all projects north of downtown facing possible years of delays.
• Inner Katy managed lanes and BRT
• I-10 Katy Freeway, Katy to Brookshire
• I-10 East Freeway San Jacinto River Bridge
• SH 35 connection to Loop 610

No Help From HCTRA to Fill the Gap

HCTRA has historically stepped up to expand the toll road system to meet Houston's needs, and also contributed to projects like the Katy Freeway and US 290. But not anymore. As I have reported previously, HCTRA has drastically curtailed its construction program in spite of near-record revenue in recent years. "Surplus" revenue has been diverted out of HCTRA, and the only large project to be awarded since 2019 is for four direct connectors at SH 225.

Outlook

The current Federal transportation funding act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, expires on September 20, 2026. A big question is whether or not current federal funding levels can be maintained with the deteriorating financial status of the federal government. Much of the funding in IIJA was provided by debt, not by traditional gasoline tax revenue.

A significant component of state-generated TxDOT funding is proposition 1, which relies on oil & gas severance tax revenue and contributed $2.74 billion in 2025. Funding from this source is probably going to be lower in the near future due to lower energy prices.

Labels: infrastructure, transportation plan

posted by Max Concrete @ 11:58 AM 0 comments

New Zealand VIP visits Houston, HISD as a model of education reform, Texas MUDs, and young adult views on Houston

 Catching up on a few smaller items from my slow-posting summer:

• Got to have a bbq dinner with New Zealand government minister Chris Bishop in July to brief him on Houston and Texas policies that keep housing affordable (NZ houses are about 3x what they are here, similar to CA). He's in casual clothes before an overnight flight returning to NZ, lol. 

• John Arnold holds up the state takeover of HISD as a national model of impressive education reform in a nation that has pretty much given up :-(
• A substack on the Texas MUD model for housing development, including a nice graph of rent increases vs. population growth for different cities (spoiler alert: Texas does very well).
• Kinder: How do young adults feel about living in Houston? These 4 charts tell the story. 

1. Houston's young adults (18-34) highly value the city's diversity, community, and lifestyle, seeing them as the best aspects of living there.
2. The city's affordability and lifestyle are particularly attractive to Gen Z and young millennials who are delaying traditional life milestones for financial reasons.
3. Most young adults have a positive outlook on Houston's culture, recreational activities, and higher education opportunities.
4. The primary reasons young adults choose to stay in Houston are the life they've built there and proximity to family and friends, rather than solely job opportunities.

Labels: affordability, education, home affordability, land-use regulation, perspectives, quality of place

posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:01 PM 1 comments

A new seal for the City of Houston

The Chronicle asked the public for updated alternatives to the old City of Houston seal, which is definitely looking a bit dated at this point:

So I submitted this with a little help from AI, which they published! 

Tory Gattis, Harris County: This concept features a modern and stylized representation of a bridge, symbolizing a pathway to success and a connection to the community. The clean lines and vibrant colors reflect an energetic and forward-looking city. This logo is optimistic and welcoming, embodying the spirit of "The Opportunity City." It would also be super-cool to integrate the "Be Someone" bridge into the logo, although that would require the city to protect it going forward. 

Some of the other submissions were also quite good and had great elements to them. But a lot of them also use elements that are not timeless and will run into the same issues as the current aging seal, like the downtown skyline or oil rigs or rockets. It’s hard to make something timeless, which mine kinda does (accidentally). I also just noticed the two sides of the bridge in mine are red and blue coming together, a nice subtle political reference. Houston has always done best when it operates in a working together ‘purple’ manner.

Honestly, I doubt the City will really consider undergoing a revamp, as it would create a ton of political interests weighing in and end up as some bland compromise-by-committee monstrosity 🙄

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Labels: history, identity

posted by Tory Gattis @ 6:36 PM 0 comments

The Gulfton Fallacy: Don't Let Zoning's 'Perfect' Be the Enemy of Houston's Good

The Houston Chronicle just published a shorter version of this as a Letter to the Editor, but here is the full version.

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The recent call to use the Gulfton neighborhood as a poster child for imposing city-wide zoning (“I'm an urban planning expert from Houston. It's time we talk about zoning again.” Houston Chronicle 8/1/25) is the latest verse in a seductive but dangerous song. Words like “planning” and “zoning” poll well because they offer a vague cure-all for the complexities of a dynamic city. It’s an understandable impulse, but it’s a trap—a classic case of the “grass is always greener” fallacy, where a theoretical, perfect version of zoning is imagined, while the grim reality of its failures elsewhere is ignored.

Before we consider dismantling the very system that has made Houston a beacon of opportunity, we must take an honest account of what that system delivers. Houston’s status as one of America’s most affordable and dynamic major cities is the direct result of our unique light regulatory touch. Our ability to build new housing at a rate reportedly up to 14 times that of our zoned peers is the core of our success. This is why Houston largely avoided the catastrophic housing bubbles that devastated other regions and why our home price-to-income ratio remains the envy of the nation.

The contrast with heavily zoned cities is stark. While Texas has approximately 90 homeless individuals per 100,000 residents, California’s rate is nearly five times higher, fueled by a regulatory crisis that can push the cost of a single “affordable” housing unit to over $500,000. Houston prioritizes building, which results in a higher standard of living for those with resources and more humane options for those without.

A critical part of our success has been smart, inner-loop densification, unleashed by pragmatic lot-size reforms. The resulting townhome boom created tens of thousands of new homes, the very “missing middle” housing that has effectively become illegal to build in most American cities. On expensive urban land that, under a restrictive zoning regime, would either become a massive McMansion or remain blighted, Houston gets thousands of new homes affordable to middle-income families.

The city-wide zoning now being contemplated, using Gulfton as an example, is a recipe for exclusion. It would hand a powerful tool to NIMBYs all over the city to kill development and force stagnation. This isn’t a guess; it’s the lived reality of every major zoned city, where restrictions choke supply, drive up prices, and displace the very people they claim to protect. Furthermore, this push, like the recent attempt to create so-called “conservation districts,” is an undemocratic end-run around the City Charter and the will of Houston voters, who have decisively rejected zoning three separate times.

The choice is not between chaos and zoning. Houston is not “unplanned”; it is largely privately planned through a robust system of voluntary deed restrictions. This provides the best of both worlds: neighbors who want zoning-like protections can have them, while the city as a whole can grow and adapt. For specific conflicts, we use surgical tools like buffering ordinances, not a sledgehammer.

Cities across America are now desperately trying to liberalize their land-use rules to achieve a fraction of the affordability and dynamism we take for granted. For Houston to voluntarily inflict this self-destructive disease upon itself would be a historic tragedy. We are the model other cities are trying to emulate. Let’s not break what works.

Tory Gattis is the editor of the Houston Strategies blog and a Founding Senior Fellow with the Urban Reform Institute.

Labels: affordability, home affordability, land-use regulation, zoning

posted by Tory Gattis @ 8:02 AM 4 comments