Houston Strategies

Houston Metro vs. Dallas DART: Houston wins as costly light rail nearly destroys DART

Another fantastic and devastating (for DART) guest post from Oscar Slotboom.

---

Updated 6/3/2026 to include the official announcement of the Dallas Stars moving to Plano

2026 has been very bad for downtown Dallas. On January 5, AT&T announced it will leave downtown to build a new $1.35 billion headquarters complex in Plano. In May, Fifth Third Bancorp announced it will leave downtown, vacating 222,900 square feet of space in a prominent towner. On June 1, the Dallas Mavericks announced they will leave American Airlines Center, with its DART light rail station, to move to the former Valley View Mall site along Interstate 635 (LBJ Freeway) in North Dallas with no light rail service. Like a one-two punch, the next bomb dropped on June 2 when the Dallas Stars officially announced they will leave downtown to move to the Shops at Willowbend site in Plano, which has no light rail service. These events are the culmination of years of decline for downtown Dallas (more below).

How can this be happening? Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) has 93 miles of high-quality light rail focused on downtown Dallas. Shouldn't light rail be an asset which attracts and retains downtown tenants? The typical response would be to say these departures are happening in spite of the light rail system serving downtown. But the more likely reality is that downtown lynchpins are fleeing partly because of the light rail system, and its affiliation (justified or unjustified) with unsavory elements and perceived high crime rate.

Earlier this year, DART had bigger problems than the ongoing loss of potential customers at its downtown hub. Six member cities, fed up with DART's high costs and unwillingness to share sales tax revenue, threatened to leave DART. In February a compromise was reached, preserving DART at least through 2031.

With all the news about DART, it's a good time to do an analysis of Houston's Metro vs. DART, to find out how the two agencies compare on key performance statistics. Spoiler alert: Houston performs far better in nearly every key statistic. The reason is because DART spent massively on downtown-focused, high-cost light rail. Houston has far less light rail, even with the cringe-worthy Green and Purple lines, which has enabled Metro to have much better financial performance.

This map shows the 119-mile DART light rail system and its connections to other rail service. The system is heavily focused on downtown Dallas, which is in serious decline while almost everywhere else in North Texas is booming.

Key Statistics

All data is for 2025 except as noted. (Metro, DART) Unusually bad statistics are highlighted with red, good statistics are highlighted with green.

	Houston Metro	DART
Year created	1978	1983
Service area	1307 sq miles	700 sq miles
Service area population	4,038,849 (2024, source)	2,646,340
Light rail miles	22.7	119 93 as of 2025
Light rail standards	Low	High
Employees	4,779	3,512
Sales tax rate	1%	1%
Sales tax collection	$1,086 million	$900.4 million
Per capita taxation	$268.88	$340.23
Sales tax sharing with member cities	25% target 27.1% since 2002 23.3% since 2016	none until 2026 5% in 2026 rising to 10% in 2031
Ridership (boardings)	78,642,439	54,175,258
Ridership per capita	19.5	20.5
Year of peak ridership	2006	2013
Ridership loss since peak	-23.5%	-24.0%
Ridership loss since Covid (U.S. average -15.2%)	-12.6%	-21.6%
Operating expense	$1,076 million	$1,021 million
Operating loss	$1,027 million	$959.1 million
Average taxpayer subsidy per boarding	$13.07	$17.70
Long term debt	$758.8 million (page 99)	$4.027 billion (page 81)
Long term debt per capita	$188	$1522
Interest on debt	$28.1 million (page 100)	$144.4 million (page 11)
Interest + principal	$98.2 million (page 100)	$210.8 million (page 83)

Ridership

DART steadily expanded its light rail system after the first opening in 1996, reaching 93 miles in 2014, all focused on downtown Dallas. (A 26-mile line from Plano to DFW airport opened in fiscal 2026 and is not included in ridership data.) Houston opened the first section of the Red Line in 2004 and the system reached 22.7 miles after expansion in 2014.

Houston Metro ridership peaked in 2006 and in 2025 was 23.5% below the peak and 12.5% below the pre-Covid 2019 ridership. DART ridership peaked in 2013 and in 2025 was 24.0% below the peak and 21.6% below 2019 ridership. In March 2026 the national average for ridership vs. 2019 is down 15.2%, so Metro is performing better than the national average and DART is worse.

The plot shows that DART's ridership between 2002 and 2019 was basically flat, even with huge spending on light rail. Of course ridership collapsed in 2020 due to Covid.

Metro and DART are now in a very similar position in terms of ridership. Per capita ridership is close, 19.5 for Metro and 20.5 for DART (see table). Metro is 23.5% below its peak and DART is 24.0% below its peak.

DART's extensive and costly light rail system, including DFW airport service, does not provide better ridership performance.

Sales Taxes, Revenue Sharing and the DART revolt

A huge flow of sales tax revenue goes into the bank accounts of Metro and DART. Inflation-adjusted tax collections are up 73.1% for Metro and 66.1% for DART since 2003.

While the population of the DART service area (2,646,340) is only 65.5% as large as Metro's (4,038,849 in 2024), DART sales tax collection is 82.9% as large as Metro's. DART's per capita taxation is $340.23 per year, and Metro's is $268.88 per year.

Houston Metro has had a formal policy of sharing sales tax revenue with member cities since 1988, traditionally called "general mobility" funding and, in financial statements, "local infrastructure assistance". The target for infrastructure assistance is 25% of sales tax revenue. 2025 was 30.1%, the 10-year average since 2016 is 23.3%, and the average since 2001 is 27.1%.

DART, however, never had a sales tax revenue sharing program. (There was a one-time transfer in 2022.) Certain member cities, particularly Plano, Farmers Branch and Irving, became increasingly frustrated about their high sales tax payments to subsidize high-cost DART, leaving them with no resources for other transportation needs. In recent years DART consistently refused to return sales tax revenue to member cities. Legislation was introduced in the Texas Legislature to mandate DART return 25% of its sales tax revenue to member cities, but the legislature was unwilling to get involved in the local issue. The situation came to a boiling point in 2026, when six member cities - Plano, Irving, Farmers Branch, Addison, University Park and Highland Park - scheduled elections to withdraw from DART. After months of negotiation, an agreement was reached for DART to share some sales tax revenue with member cities, starting at 5% in 2026 and reaching 10% in 2031. Plano, Irving and Farmers Branch canceled their withdrawal referendums. Addison, University Park and Highland Park proceeded with elections, and only Highland Park voted to withdraw.

DART's high costs and unwillingness to share revenue nearly resulted in the collapse of the agency. In contrast, Metro's longstanding revenue sharing targeting 25% has empowered member cities to meet their local mobility needs.

Taxpayer Subsidy per Boarding

Average subsidy per boarding is the cost covered by taxpayers every time someone steps onto a bus or train. A transit roundtrip is two boardings. This subsidy is calculated by dividing the operating loss by the number of boardings.

While both Metro and DART have high average boarding subsidies, DART's $17.70 subsidy is significantly worse than Metro's $13.07.

The DART web site scorecard page (click Finance button) reports the bus boarding subsidy is $13.93, the light rail subsidy is $11.73, and the paratransit subsidy is $72.92 in April 2026. In my view the average subsidy per boarding for all services is the best indicator of agency cost and the best number for comparison.

Debt and Interest Payments

DART incurred substantial debt to build its light rail system. The 2025 financial statement shows $4.027 billion in long-term debt.

Houston Metro's financial statement shows $758.8 million in long-term debt. Metro's per-capita debt of $188 is only 12% of DART's $1522.

Metro's interest payment is only $28.1 million per year, compared to $144.4 million for DART.

Houston is in a vastly better position than DART, with far lower debt and lower interest payments. Page 18 of the Metro annual report states, "The debt payable balance has been declining during the last several years as principal payments were made, and the amortization of premium/discount occurred." Metro acheived this superior financial position because it built much less light rail, even with the ill-advised Green and Purple Lines and their disastrous ridership.

Light Rail Doesn't Save Downtown Dallas

An extensive light rail system focused on downtown should help ensure a vibrant and growing downtown, right? No, not in Dallas. Downtown Dallas has generally been stagnant or in decline since light rail service started 1996.

After AT&T, the Dallas Mavericks and the Dallas Stars dropped their departure bombs, the outlook for downtown Dallas became increasingly grim. The downtown office vacancy rate is projected to reach 35% after AT&T and other departures.

On December 28, 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported on downtown Dallas with an article "Dallas Is Booming—Except for Its Downtown"

DALLAS — This city is a hotbed for commercial property. The metro area’s population is booming and financial-services firms are flocking here, earning the area the sobriquet “Y’all Street.”

Yet at its heart is one of the country’s worst-hit central business districts: Downtown Dallas.

Companies are abandoning this neighborhood and its aging office towers. They are heading to the Uptown district or the thriving suburbs, often over concerns about crime and homelessness. Left behind are defaulted loans, foreclosures and deeply discounted property sales.

Dallas’s downtown has the second-highest office vacancy rate of any in the nation, behind Seattle. Downtown Dallas, the central business district, was at 27.2% at the end of the third quarter, according to real-estate data firm CoStar. In Dallas’s Preston Center district, 7 miles away, the office vacancy rate was only 5.9%.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on downtown Denver, another city which built extensive train service to downtown, only to see its downtown become a wasteland as employers fled to the suburbs. "Can This Guy Get People to Live in America’s Emptiest Downtown?"

America’s downtowns are suffering a crisis. Office work has migrated into the suburbs, leaving abandoned buildings and blighted conditions behind. Central business districts from St. Louis to Dallas and Portland, Ore., are fighting to escape a death spiral.

Downtown Houston has had and continues to have struggles, with office vacancy at 28.9% in March. (The Wall Street Journal report used older or different data.) I think downtown Houston is in a better position than downtown Dallas, but that subject is beyond the scope of this post.

Conclusion

Here are the consequences of of DART's high-mileage, high-cost, downtown-focused light rail system

• Inability (and unwillingness) to share sales tax revenue with member cities, leading to a revolt which put the agency's future at risk
• High debt, 5.3 times higher than Metro, with per-capita debt 8 times higher than Metro
• Downtown Dallas is among the worst performing downtowns in the United States, with lynchpins AT&T, Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars announcing departures this year.
• Long-term ridership comparable to Metro, but worse than Metro and the national average since Covid
• A sky-high $17.70 average boarding subsidy ($35.40 for a roundtrip)
• High per-capita taxation, $340.23 vs. $268.88 for Metro

In the Houston vs. Dallas transit performance contest, Houston wins by a landslide, mainly because Houston has built much less light rail.

As I've posted in the past, the future of public transit is new, low-cost technology: automated Robotaxis and low-cost tunnel transit built by The Boring Company.

Labels: autonomous vehicles, commuter rail, Metro, mobility strategies, public debt, rail, transit

posted by Max Concrete @ 9:32 PM 0 comments

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 2 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...

---

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

The death of Texas high-speed rail

Texas Central high-speed rail looks pretty much dead based on recent news of the CEO's departure (Chronicle). Some key items from the articles:

A Spanish news site in Madrid, “La Informacion,” reported that the entire management team of Texas Central has departed, and the project has entered “a hibernation phase in search for financing.” ...

“The unorthodox LinkedIn announcement speaks to the company’s lack of staff, lack of resources, and lack of leadership, with no successful path forward. No money, no permits, no progress…. It is abundantly clear that this project is more than dead in the water, especially when the captain jumps ship,” he added. ...

Their press release included hints that the agreement between Japan and Texas Central may not be as solid as once accepted. 

---

“Texas high-speed rail is collapsing before our eyes,” Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, a longtime skeptic of the plan, said in a social media post. “Today, with no leadership, no funding, no permits and no Washington bail-out from taxpayers, this project is dead.”  ...

Texas Central, meanwhile, has not paid its property taxes for land it already purchased, something critics in rural areas opposed to the train have said for months.

“The math never made sense,” Waller County Judge Trey Duhon said Tuesday morning. “It did not cash flow at $12 billion, much less the current price tag of $30 billion, that was before the recent inflation and escalation of costs.”

Even supporters in recent weeks have started to memorialize rather than champion the project. During his annual state of transportation remarks in May, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner — who signed an agreement with Texas Central to support development of a train station at Loop 610 and Hempstead — lamented the project’s fate.

“I was hoping before I left office that at least a shovel would have been somewhere,” Turner said, joking he might build his own train. “Hopefully, it can be revitalized.”

The economics were only ever possible if Japan was willing to subsidize it as a jobs program and to show off their trains in America (hoping for future sales).  The economics never made sense: to repay $30 billion in loans (far higher now with inflation), 6m annual riders would have to pay $255 a ticket on top of whatever it costs to operate the trains! Compare that to typical Dallas-Houston airfares of around $100, and the math does not look good at all...

Labels: autonomous vehicles, high-speed rail, infrastructure, rail

posted by Tory Gattis @ 4:47 PM 9 comments

Sprawl Is Good - The Environmental Case for Suburbia

This week I'd like to feature this excellent essay from Judge Glock at The Breakthrough Institute, "Sprawl Is Good - The Environmental Case for Suburbia". It makes a comprehensive case for why and how sprawl can be pro-environment and address climate change. Some key excerpts:

"Complementing sprawl has also been a long-term trend toward people driving more and taking transit less. In 1960, about 12 percent of all Americans took transit to work. By 2020, it was about 5 percent, and the decline of non-work trips on transit was even faster. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who travel to work by car, especially those who travel alone in a car, continues to increase. The miles driven by car per capita have almost doubled. This is not because of supposed subsidies to cars; according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, cars pay for almost all of the cost of roads through gas taxes and other charges, while transit riders pay barely a third of the cost of their rides, and that ratio is dropping as transit use declines. For decades, in fact, more and more of the gas tax has been siphoned off to pay for increasingly expensive and increasingly empty buses and trains. ...

Perhaps the most important tool for reducing the heat island effect is trees, which provide shade and absorb solar radiation. Suburbs are, almost by definition, more verdant than cities. Famously sprawling cities like Atlanta or Houston have tree cover on more than 30 percent of their landmass, while older, denser cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago have under 20 percent. Besides reducing the heat island effect, nearby trees have been shown to intercept particulate matter and absorb ozone, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide, thus reducing local air pollution as well. The personal and psychological effects of trees are real too. Studies have shown that the presence of trees decreases stress, increases attentiveness and sense of safety and comfort, and reduces the likelihood that pregnant women will have low-birthweight babies. There is no way to have the same access to trees in dense urban areas.

...

Over even a medium-term time frame, the increasing adoption of hybrid, electric, and autonomous vehicles will almost completely sever the connection between VMT (vehicle miles traveled) and greenhouse gases. Those who are attempting to redesign cities, projects that will take decades or even centuries, merely to reduce the use of gasoline-powered cars are thus engaged in a futile exercise that will only become more futile with time. It would be like attempting to redesign cities in 1900 to reduce horse manure. The technology will change faster than the city will."

'Issuing a challenge, Glock talks of the “Long Triumph of Sprawl,” describing a “clear global and long-term preference,” while the “pandemic has only made the shift toward the modern, sprawling city more rapid and obvious.”

Glock suggest that “instead of warring against sprawling cars, planners and environmentalist should recognize how the green spaces of suburbia allied to autonomous electric vehicles in green single-family houses can provide both the affordability and sustainability most Americans crave.” ...

 Appropriately, Glock concludes, “environmentalists should embrace the same future that most Americans have already chosen.”

Labels: affordability, autonomous vehicles, density, environment, home affordability, perspectives, sprawl, transit

posted by Tory Gattis @ 3:34 PM 1 comments

Houston should learn from the future of public transit in Las Vegas

This week we have an excellent guest post from Houston Freeways author Oscar Slotboom.

---

Tory and I regularly post about the painful reality of traditional public transit: the extremely high cost of rail facilities, low and declining ridership, susceptibility to events like Covid, and the ongoing need for more subsidies from taxpayers.

Of course, we're not the only ones to notice the poor results of large public transit expenditures. Entrepreneur extraordinaire Elon Musk has established The Boring Company, and its first project at the Las Vegas Convention Center has been operational since June. The firm is now poised to proceed with a large 100% privately financed Las Vegas system that is expected to provide a monumental improvement in public transit service quality, which should also bring increased ridership.

For those not familiar, the Boring Company will build tunnels and move transit customers through the tunnels with autonomous electric Tesla vehicles. The key features are on-demand service, private vehicles, and high-speed point-to-point express service. Regular readers know that Tory and I are supporters of a regional express lanes network for Houston which has the potential to provide this same level of service.

Here is a map of the proposed Las Vegas Loop transit system

Here is a photo of a station at the Las Vegas convention center

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported on the plan for the Las Vegas system on October 20 and Oct 14. The improvement over traditional public transit is so large it's mind-boggling. Here are some key points from the articles.

Point-to-point service will provide a drastic speed improvement over traditional public transit. Metro's light rail lines have an average speed of 14 miles per hour.

"The system is planned to be a point-to-point system, so passengers won’t have to stop at each station along the way. A rider could get picked up at the Las Vegas Convention Center, for example, and be directly transported to Allegiant Stadium without having to stop at each resort along the way.

Davis said a 3.6 mile ride between the Las Vegas Convention Center and Allegiant Stadium would take 4 minutes and cost $6 per vehicle."

That's 54 miles per hour!!

Metro's annual report does not directly report a cost per transit trip, but we can get an average value by using overall numbers. For Metro's most recent fiscal year not affected by Covid (2019), Metro reported 89,951,217 boardings, transit fares of $75,294,678, scheduled service operating expenses of $420,755,621 and total operating expenses of $854,335,088. So pre-Covid, Metro was collecting 84 cents per boarding but spending $4.68 per boarding in direct operating cost and a shocking $9.50 overall cost per boarding. So the reported Las Vegas vehicle fare (not person fare) of $6 is well below Metro's fully-loaded cost per trip, especially if multiple riders share a vehicle. However, most Metro customers are on trips more than 3.6 miles long.

The Las Vegas service will be on-demand. No more waiting for a bus or train, or needing to be concerned about getting to the stop on time.

"[You] walk into a station and the vehicle is waiting for you. And go directly to your (destination) station, you can really solve the traffic problem."

The capacity of the planned 15 mile system is very high. In September 2021 Metro served 151,000 weekday trips, down from 303,000 weekday trips just before Covid.

"Once fully operational, Davis said the system is expected to handle 57,000 riders per hour."

We all know how the entrepreneurial culture of SpaceEx has empowered the SpaceEx Dragon launch system to outperform the competing Boeing Starliner, which is plagued by delays and technical problems. The Boring Company's new thinking about transit has the potential for massive gains in financial performance. The entire 15-mile dual loop system is slated to be built in 3 years at no cost to taxpayers. No more waiting decades to get infrastructure built. And while tunnels built by public transit agencies are now absurdly and obscenely expensive, typically $500 million to $1 billion per mile, the smaller and simple tunnels used by the Boring Company can keep the cost feasible.

"The entire system will be funded privately, with no taxpayer money used to construct it.

Boring will have three years to complete construction or have at least a portion of the system that is in the county’s right-of-way in operation."

The system has the potential to be a source of revenue for local government, instead of being the ongoing money pit of traditional public transit. Remember, once upon a time (1950s and before) public transit was a private, for-profit activity in most U.S. cities and did not require taxpayer subsidy.

"Boring would be required to pay the county a quarterly franchise fee dependent on how much revenue is generated each quarter.

Quarterly gross revenue less than or equal to a threshold of $17.5 million would result in a 0.5 percent quarterly payment of that gross revenue to the county. If quarterly gross revenue surpassed $17.5 million, Boring would pay the county 0.5 percent of the first $17.5 million and 5 percent of any revenue in excess of that."

Sure, the Las Vegas Strip is a special case due to the high demand for service on the corridor, and we can't expect Houston or other low-density cities to match a Las Vegas system. But the key takeaway is the three features for providing successful transit service in the future: on-demand service, private vehicles, and high-speed point-to-point express service. With the revolutionary service improvement provided by these features, we can expect increased transit patronage and the associated benefits for regional mobility.

Houston's future transit system should strive to achieve these goals, and as technology advances it should become feasible to provide this level of service on non-tunnel dedicated or shared facilities, such as bus rapid transit facilities and managed MaX lanes. By using BRT facilities and managed lanes, the construction cost will be lower and the average trip cost should also be lower. I can envision a hybrid system, where tunnels are used in high-congestion areas like downtown, Uptown, and the Texas Medical Center, while lower-cost surface or elevated guideways are used elsewhere.

While Houston may not be able to command a concession fee like Las Vegas, we can envision a public-private partnership where public funds may be used to contribute to construction costs, lower trip costs, and/or provide fare relief for low-income customers.

Let's hope Houston's leadership will closely follow the developments in Las Vegas and position Houston to become a leader in public transit of the future.

Labels: autonomous vehicles, MaX Lanes, Metro, mobility strategies, transit, transportation plan

posted by Max Concrete @ 1:22 PM 0 comments

Houston's blob is about to eat even more of East Texas... and we should embrace it

I recently submitted this op-ed to the Houston Chronicle:

The Chronicle’s recent article debating the sustainability of Houston’s traditional “build more” approach to growth (“Houston became 'the blob that ate East Texas' by building big. Is it time for that to change?” August 27) frames the debate as if Houston can dictate whether people drive cars in the suburbs or ride transit in the densifying core, when in reality people make their own choices which we can accommodate and thrive or ignore and decline. 

The debate completely misses the reality of our post-pandemic world. Remote work is now a permanent part of our economy, and it is creating a tidal wave of suburban and exurban growth as people realize they’ll no longer need to commute into the city on a daily basis. Houston can’t stop it, even if it wanted to. All we can do is try to accommodate it while keeping the core healthy and accessible to attract their dollars for discretionary shopping, restaurants, entertainment, events, health care, philanthropy, office visits, and more. And if we don’t maintain that accessibility - including prudent transportation investments - not only are they unlikely to visit, their employers are likely to leave as well along with their much-needed local property and sales tax contributions.

Houston’s great strength has always been embracing growth - suburban, urban, and the freeways to connect it all together. That formula has kept us the most affordable major metro in the country and always near the top in growth rankings.  In other words, we’ve made ourselves extremely attractive to newcomers, especially diverse people of color and immigrants looking for affordable opportunity. We’ve got a product people want. Why would we want to radically change that? Especially to models like California with urban growth boundaries, constrained development, astronomical housing costs, traffic gridlock, and wasteful transit spending (LA has spent upwards of $20 billion only to lose 21% of its ridership pre-pandemic) resulting in a mass exodus of both people and businesses.

What Houston’s formula needs is tweaking, not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. For example, with growing concerns about flooding, the answer is not banning new development, but tightening runoff regulations on new suburban developments so they don’t flood us downstream. Every new development should have enough detention that the land releases even less water during a hard rain than it did undeveloped - then every new development would actually reduce flooding!

And when it comes to transportation investments, yes, many freeways are reaching realistic width limits, but that doesn’t mean we should give up growth for perpetual congestion or old, slow transit. We’ve proposed - and TXDoT is planning - an innovative next-generation mobility strategy: a network of MaX Lanes (Managed eXpress Lanes) 'moving the maximum number of people at maximum speed' by allowing direct point-to-point single-seat high-speed trips by transit buses and other shared-ride vehicles today, and even higher-speed zero-emission autonomous vehicles in the future.  The network would enable Houston’s seven core job centers to scale from 626,000 jobs today to over one million jobs in the future while drawing employees from all across our ever-expanding region with a reasonable commute (even if they’re doing that commute less often in a remote work world).  This is the type of climate-friendly innovative mobility solution that could attract substantial federal funding while also embracing suburban and exurban trends rather than hopelessly fighting them. 

Finally, Houston’s unzoned urban core can continue to naturally densify as it has been doing successfully for at least two decades now - not because we’re trying to force it to, but because people - especially diverse young people - choose it. They choose it because we allow the free market to build and cater to that demand, including townhomes, apartments, residential towers, and walkable mixed-use complexes.

Which brings us full circle to Houston’s secret sauce: building what people want rather than what academic urban planners deem the ‘right’ way to live and get around. That strategy will always be a winner.

Labels: affordable proximity, autonomous vehicles, congestion pricing, development, economic strategy, growth, infrastructure, MaX Lanes, mobility strategies, remote work, sprawl, toll roads, transit, transportation plan

posted by Tory Gattis @ 1:12 PM 4 comments