Houston Strategies

METRO BRT: 'The most colossal waste of taxpayers’ money in the history of the City'

Bill King has written one of the most impressive analytical take-downs of any proposed transit project I've ever seen - in this case the Universities and Inner Katy BRT lines. If this doesn't seal their death, I don't know what would.  As an alternative, can you imagine what we could do with $3 billion dollars to rehabilitate our street and drainage infrastructure?!? Here are my highlights/excerpts: 

"Metro’s previous leadership proposed the construction of two bus rapid transit (“BRT”) lines. At an estimated cost of over $3 billion, these two projects, if constructed, would be the most colossal waste of taxpayers’ money in the history of the City.

If you are not familiar with the term "bus rapid transit", it is the construction of dedicated lanes for buses. The only example we have in Houston is the disastrous Silver Line in Uptown. After spending about $200 million to construct the project, and who knows how much to operate, it is attracting about 800 riders per day, just over 5% of the 14,000 Metro had projected. The ridership is so bad that Metro recently announced it intends to reduce the service. Based on this rousing success, Metro has proposed to build these two additional BRT lines. ...

Let me pause for a moment to comment on ridership projections. Generally speaking, transit ridership projections are almost always too high. But Metro has been in a category of its own when it comes to overestimating projected ridership. This 2020 FTA study, comparing projected costs and ridership to actual results on about 20 projects around the country, found Metro’s ridership projection for the Purple Line to be, by far, the worst of any project they studied. The Purple and Green light rail lines are carrying about 25-30% of their projected ridership. And, as I mentioned earlier, the Silver is running a little over 5% of its projections today. So, we certainly have every reason to be skeptical of any ridership projection just based on Metro’s history. ...

While Metro’s current estimate for the University and Inner Katy projects are $2.43 billion and $735 million, respectively, Metro’s previous estimates of the cost to construct fixed guideway projects have also been unreliable. The cost of the Purple Line, for example, came in 33% higher than estimated ($591MM→$787MM).

Metro has already made massive changes to the estimates for both of these lines. Just 18 months ago, in a request for funding Metro filed with the FTA, it represented that the total cost of the University Line would be $1.57 billion, which is only about two-thirds of the current cost estimate. In 2018, Metro told HGAC the Inner Katy Line would cost $281 million, barely a third of the current estimate. So, there is no telling what these projects would actually eventually cost. ...

$188k per new rider + $11k/year!! "We could easily buy a car for every new rider and pay for their insurance, gas and maintenance for the rest of their lives, and not come close to spending this much money. ...

Metro’s updated ridership projections also projected that the end-to-end travel time on the University Line would be 1:28 during peak and that the buses would travel at an average speed of about 17mph. (p.17) This morning at 7:30AM Google Maps estimated that trip using the existing Metro service would take 1:29 and by car it would take 40 minutes. In other words, after spending $2.4 billion we would save transit riders one minute and someone in a car would get there 48 minutes sooner. ...

The plan currently calls for Richmond to be reduced to one lane each direction from downtown to Edloe. The left turn across Richmond at Edloe alone would be a nightmare. I think it is quite telling that the very people the project is supposed to serve are either ambivalent or vehemently opposed to it.

...

I have never seen this stark of a case against a public investment. Frankly, only a financial illiterate would support such an irresponsible expenditure of taxpayer money. And to make matters worse, after spending this reckless amount of money, few people would use the system and it would cause all sorts of collateral problems because it is so ill-conceived.

Fixed guideways are not the future of mobility. The paradigm of attempting to gather a large number of people on a single vehicle is rapidly becoming obsolete. The future is going to be door-to-door, on-demand service, which will eventually be provided autonomously and directed by AI controlled smart grids. Metro needs to be looking to that future, not building more white elephant projects. We already have enough of those."

Labels: Metro, transit, transportation plan

posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:54 PM 4 comments

Recent TxDOT study recommendations reflect new reality and introduce complications

This week we have another excellent analytical guest post from Houston Freeways author Oscar Slotboom!

In September TxDOT held public meetings for its preferred alternative for future improvements to Interstate 45 North Freeway from Beltway 8 to Loop 336 (south) in Conroe, and in October meetings were held for SH 225 and the East Loop.

Both studies recommended the addition of 4 elevated lanes (2 each way) to these freeways, with minimal or negligible right-of-way acquisition.

This can be interpreted as a new reality that it is no longer politically feasible to acquire right-of-way for freeway improvements in the Houston area. Of course, right-of-way acquisition for NHHIP was the main reason for the controversy which resulted in a two-year pause on the project, and then a revised schedule which delays completion to 2042.

Opposition to right-of-way acquisition is a tactic used by anti-highway activists to block freeway improvements. Of course TxDOT can go up with elevated lanes, which is the recommendation for the corridors of these studies. But this introduces complications.

Complications with Elevated Lanes

The first complication is cost. Elevated lanes are very expensive. There are two elevated lanes projects in progress on I-35 in San Antonio. The I-35 NEX Central project, awarded in March 2021, adds six elevated lanes to a 9.5 mile section in northeast San Antonio. The low bid was $1.515 million, or $159 million per mile. Highway construction costs have increased around 56% since March 2021, and the estimated inflation-adjusted cost is around $248 million per mile. The NEX South project, awarded in May 2023, adds six elevated lanes to a 4 mile section for $700 million, or $175 million per mile with an inflation-adjusted value of $186 million per mile. For comparison, complete reconstruction and expansion of the Gulf Freeway between NASA 1 and Galveston currently in progress costs around $60 million per mile, although it would cost more (up to $90 million per mile) when adjusted for recent inflation.

Using the $186 million value from this year and adjusting for fewer lanes in the Houston recommendation, we can expect elevated lanes to cost at least $125 million per mile and probably around $150 million per mile. When costs are high, it takes longer to get funding, and it's possible that full funding may never become available if construction costs become too high.

The second complication is access to elevated lanes. Access points to elevated lanes are more widely spaced than managed lanes at ground level. For example, the I-45 study recommends access at Beltway 8 and FM 2920, a distance of 10 miles without any entrances or exits (except for a connector to the Kuykendahl Park & Ride near Beltway 8, which would mainly serve transit vehicles). Long elevated structures also make emergency services access more difficult and complicated. In the case of SH 225, many trucks are making pickups and deliveries in the area, so many would not be able to use elevated lanes.

I-45 Study Recommendation

Elevated lanes are shown in the center of the freeway on a single structure. Generally speaking, the existing freeway configuration and footprint would remain unchanged. The elevated structure would replace the existing reversible HOV lane between Beltway 8 and FM 1960, resulting in a net gain of 3 lanes, and appears to replace the two existing "diamond" lanes north of FM 1960, resulting in a net gain of only two lanes (at a very high cost). As I mention in my detailed comments below, I think there is an opportunity to add a new general purpose lane in one direction, since the columns for the elevated structure don't require the full width of the HOV lane and the diamond lanes.

In addition to four elevated lanes, the study recommends other less expensive improvements to frontage roads and intersections. However there is no specific mention of completing the interchange at SH 99 (Grand Parkway), which is probably the most pressing need in the corridor. Realistically, I don't think we'll see any work on the elevated lanes until the adjacent section of NHNIP south of Beltway 8 is fully completed. The sections between Beltway 8 and Loop 610 are scheduled to be completed between 2034 and 2042.

CLICK HERE to view my detailed public comments for I-45

Alternative 2 (At Grade) would be better

I support the addition of managed lanes to Interstate 45. However, alternative 2 (add lanes at grade) would be a better preferred alternative because it

1. Provides better access to the managed lanes for drivers and emergency vehicles

2. Would probably be less expensive

TxDOT should consider a hybrid approach, bringing the managed lanes to ground level where right-of-way acquisitin is feasible. TxDOT should also recognize that the managed lanes will probably not be built before the 2040s, especially considering that NNHIP section 1 is scheduled to be completed in 2042. By the 2040s, the existing pavement may be nearing the end of its service life, so major reconstruction may be required, which would make adding lanes at grade a more feasible option.

Access to managed lanes is insufficient

For the recommended alternative, page 18 in the presentation script shows managed lane access at Beltway 8 and FM 2920. (The park and ride entrance/exit will not be suitable for most drivers.) The distance between Beltway 8 and FM 2920 is 10 miles, which is an excessively long distance without access. As I suggest above, the managed lanes should be brought to ground level at some point in this section for access.

An additional general purpose lane can and should be added

Between Beltway 8 and FM 1960, the existing HOV is 20 feet wide, and 24 feet including barriers. The depiction on page 17 of the presentation script suggests that the support column is much narrower than 24 feet. This leaves unused space. The support columns for the managed lanes should be offset to one side, leaving sufficient space for the addition of one general-purpose traffic lane on the main lanes. This lane can be added to the northbound or southbound direction, whichever direction would get the most benefit from an additional lane.

The same principle applies north of FM 1960. The two diamond lanes use around 24 feet of width, and the elevated structure columns need only around 10 to 12 feet. The elevated structure should be offset to one side to allow the addition of a general purpose lane in one direction.

Grand Parkway Interchange

There is no mention of the Grand Parkway interchange in the presentation. Completion of the interchange including all missing connection ramps should be a short or medium-term priority. In fact, it should be among the highest priority projects.

Managed Lanes and Major Interchanges

The presentation script page 17 states "Improvements at the interchanges with Beltway 8 North, State Highway 99, Hardy Toll Road, and State Highway 242 would be needed in order to accommodate the proposed elevated managed lanes."

It's not realistic and probably financially prohibitive to rebuild these interchanges. The managed lanes should go over the top of these interchanges so these interchanges can remain intact.

SH 225 and Loop 610 East Recommendation

While the I-45 north corridor is mostly the same in terms of existing design along its full length, the SH 225 and Loop 610 study area has a wide variety of situations, including the ship channel bridge. My main complaint is applying a "one size fits all" recommendation for expensive elevated lanes, when a variety of design approaches could solve problems better and more quickly at a much lower cost. The study presentation shows two elevated structures, one in each direction with two lanes between the main lanes and frontage roads. See my public comments for specific concerns, and my suggestions for less-expensive and more-effective improvements.

CLICK HERE to view my detailed public comments for the SH 225 and East Loop

I support the study recommendation for additional lanes, but I have the following concerns about this presentation.

1. The information presented in incomplete, neglecting many unique features of the study area.

2. The recommendation for elevated lanes appears to be applied for the entire study area, but the needs of the corridor vary widely and a "one size fits all" blanket recommendation for expensive elevated lanes is not going to cost-effectively meet the needs of the study area.

More details about complaint #1, lack of details in presentation

1. There is no mention of the IH 610 ship channel bridge, or how managed lanes would be integrated into the bridge. I realize there will be a separate study for the bridge, but the bridge should have been mentioned.

2. There is no specific mention of the interchange at IH 610 and IH 45, only mention of "improve interchanges" on presentation page 18. This is probably the most pressing need in the study area, especially for northbound IH 45 traffic which is chronically congested.

3. There is no mention of the interchange at IH 610 and SH 225, only mention of "improve interchanges" on presentation page 18. This interchange was designed to accommodate the westward of extension of SH 225, but of course the extension was cancelled. It needs to be rebuilt to meet actual needs.

4. There is no mention of sections which need special design consideration, for example IH 610 between IH 45 and SH 225.

5. There is no mention of bottleneck points which cause congestion. This includes

a. Lack of auxiliary lanes on northbound IH 610 at IH 10. This contributes to congestion on northbound IH 610.

b. The high incline/grade of the existing ship channel bridge, which slows trucks and can cause a snowball congestion effect on other vehicles.

c. Merging and weaving traffic on IH 610 between IH 45 and SH 225.

More details about complaint #2, recommendation for elevated lanes

1. Elevated lanes are very expensive. For example, the four-mile-long I-35 NEX South Project in San Antonio was awarded in May 2023 for $700 million, or $175 million per mile. The I-35 northeast project (awarded before the recent inflation in construction costs) is $1.514 billion for 9.5 miles, or $159 million per mile. I realize the I-35 project has six elevated lanes, but four elevated lanes will also be very expensive. Estimating $120 million per mile of elevated lanes is $1.7 billion for the 14-mile-long SH 225 section, without even considering the cost to bring the existing lanes to modern standards or any improvements to IH 610. High cost means this can't be financed for a very long time (20+ years), or maybe funding will never be available.

2. Are elevated lanes actually needed on all freeways in the study area? For example, are elevated lanes needed on SH 225 between Beltway 8 and SH 146?

3. One reason for the elevated lanes recommendation seems to be to minimize right-of-way acquisition. However, vacant land or low-value commercial property (e.g. parking lots) is prevalent on much of the SH 225 corridor. Why is there a blanket recommendation for elevated lanes when there are long sections where right-of-way can easily be acquired, for example on SH 225 between Pasadena Blvd. and Beltway 8? A hybrid approach is more sensible and less expensive, keeping the new lanes at freeway level when feasible and using expensive elevated structures only when necessary.

4. Eliminating the "Add General Use Lanes" conceptual alternative was a mistake (reference presentation page 16). For most of SH 225, there is existing right-of-way available to easily add one general purpose lane to have 4x4 main lanes. This could be done at a vastly lower cost than elevated lanes and should better meet the needs for much of the corridor, for example between Beltway 8 and SH 146.

5. For IH 610, right-of-way is normally available for some widening (although not enough ROW for four new lanes). Could needs be meet at a far lower cost by adding one general purpose lane in each direction, plus auxiliary lanes where needed?

6. Has any truck origin-destination data been obtained for this study? Due to the large number of industrial facilities and warehouses in the study area, it seems to me that many trucks are making pickups or deliveries. Elevated lanes are not suitable for local truck traffic because these trucks need access to entrances and exits.

7. There is no mention of how elevated lanes in the study area will be transitioned at the freeway endpoints of the study area. For example, as of now there are no plans for new lanes on any connecting freeways, including IH 610 west and north of the study area, IH 45, IH 10 and SH 146. Connections between elevated lanes and Beltway 8 will also be difficult.

Additional comments

A blanket recommendation for super-expensive elevated lanes is not the best way to meet the needs of the study area in a reasonable amount of time at an affordable cost. There is a variety of different conditions and needs in the study area, and recommendations need to be tailored to the needs. Here are some better ways to meet the needs at a lower cost. Improvements should start at the interchange at Loop 610 and IH 45, and then progress eastward and northward.

1. The interchange at Loop 610 and IH 45 should be improved to eliminate bottlenecks, especially for northbound IH 45 traffic.

2. The section of Loop 610 between IH 45 and SH 225 should be expanded to separate traffic flows to minimize weaving and merging. For example, traffic connecting between IH 45 to SH 225 should not intermingle with Loop 610 traffic. This will require dedicated lanes, similar to the design of Loop 610 between IH-10 west (Katy Freeway) and US 290.

3. The interchange at Loop 610 and SH 225 should be redesigned to meet current needs, including the connecting lanes mentioned in item 2 above.

4. The IH 610 bridge should be rebuilt with more lanes and a lower incline to minimize slow truck traffic.

5. Auxiliary lanes should be added to Loop 610 at IH 10 to minimize backups caused by connecting vehicles.

6. SH 225 between Loop 610 and Beltway 8 should get new lanes. The western section, from Loop 610 to Pasadena Blvd., may justify elevated lanes. However, new lanes should be built at the existing freeway level where sufficient right-of-way already exists or can easily be acquired.

7. SH 225 between Beltway 8 and SH 146 needs 8 general purpose lanes, which can be realized at a low cost. Parts of this section already have 8 general purpose lanes.

8. Right-of-way should be acquired when displacements are minimal, or displacements are lower-tier commercial facilities like warehouses. The section of Loop 610 between IH 45 and SH 225 needs more right-of-way to accommodate separated traffic lanes to minimize merging/weaving.

Why not a hybrid approach, with elevated lanes where needed and freeway-level lanes elsewhere?

Much of the SH 225 corridor has vacant land or low-value commercial property along one or both sides. Does it make sense to build expensive elevated lanes when the impact of expanding the freeway width is minimal? I don't think so. That's why I would prefer to see a hybrid alternative which uses elevated lanes only where ground-level widening has a large impact. The freeway corridor should be widened with new right-of-way where the impact is low or minimal. This reduces construction cost, and also provides access to the new lanes where the new lanes are built at freeway level.

Labels: mobility strategies, transportation plan

posted by Max Concrete @ 9:27 AM 2 comments

More on METRO's Uptown BRT failure, wealth moving south, forensics reality, TX beating CA on homelessness, and more

A few smaller items this week:

• More on Houston's BRT Failure with the Uptown Silver Line. Yet they're just going to pretend it didn't happen and plow ahead with the $1.5B Universities BRT line reducing Richmond to one lane each direction?!? 😠

"A Houston bus rapid transit route over dedicated bus lanes is attracting less than 10 percent of the riders that were projected for it. The Silver Line opened in August 2020 with the expectation that it would carry 14,850 weekday riders, but in fact it is carrying less than 900 riders per weekday, about 6 percent of projections... 

One reason why ridership is low is that the line is slow. Schedules say that it takes 27 minutes to go 4.7 miles, which is an average of 10.4 miles per hour. The city’s regular local buses go much faster than that. Metro must have missed the memo that setting aside dedicated lanes to bus rapid transit is supposed to make the buses go faster, not slower.

This is just another example of why transit agencies shouldn’t spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on fixed transit infrastructure. No one can accurately foresee future transportation patterns, so relying on forms of transit that can be kept flexible — meaning buses sharing lanes with other traffic — is the safest and most cost-effective way to go."

• NPR: What can California learn from Texas about addressing homelessness?

"In the last decade, the number of people who are homeless in California has soared, rising more than 40%. Meanwhile, in Texas, they're seeing the opposite trend, with homelessness dropping by nearly a third."

• An excellent oped by ⁦Charles Blain rebuffing the police union’s bizarre attack on the head of the Houston forensics lab.
• A $100 Billion Wealth Migration Tilts US Economy’s Center of Gravity South (no paywall link) - Some 2.2 million people moved to the Southeast in just over two years. That’s roughly the population of Houston.

• “Israelis will come to Texas and feel like they're rockstars”

"Jews and Israelis who may feel uncomfortable at the rise of anti-Semitic sentiments among those in New York and California might find solace in states like Texas. Despite rising attacks and hate crimes on both sides of the American coast, the Lone Star State has remained unabashedly pro-Israel and open to business for those looking to relocate or expand their companies. 

“People just love Israel here,” explained Toba Hellerstein, Executive Director of the Texas-Israel Alliance. “They just love Israelis, love Israel, and Israelis will come here and feel like they're rockstars… There is a real romanticism, whereas in other states you have some ideas around Israeli startups and also have political reasons that make them less interested in working with Israel, in Texas you don’t have that.”

Labels: aviation, crime reduction, homelessness, Metro, migration, perspectives, transportation plan

posted by Tory Gattis @ 4:41 PM 8 comments

The epic failure of METRO's Uptown BRT, housing costs vs fertility, YIMBY righteousness, and Honolulu rail-fail

 A few short smaller items this week:

• I've been saying this for a long time: Higher Rent, Fewer Babies? Housing Costs and Fertility Decline. Lots of good graphs in this one. As economies grow and people get wealthier, they want more space per person, and if they can't afford it, they shrink their family size to compensate. Nobody wants to raise a family in a 2 bedroom apartment anymore. Hat tip to Howard.
• Atlantic: Why YIMBY Righteousness Backfires (no paywall link) - Treating suburbanites as hateful snobs will not make them more welcoming of newcomers. Concluding summary excerpt:

• Bill King: Ridership For The Uptown BRT Is 5% Of What Metro Projected. What an epic failure by METRO, even taking into account the pandemic. Yet they're just going to pretend it didn't happen and plow ahead with the $1.5B Universities BRT line reducing Richmond to one lane each direction?!? 😠
• A massive rail-fail in Honolulu: white elephant $5 billion light rail line opens with ridership at TWO percent of capacity! Why does government keep wasting mountains of money on these projects?!

Labels: fertility, home affordability, Metro, rail, transit, transportation plan, YIMBY

posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:59 PM 1 comments

Induced Demand debunked

I've wanted to write for a while about "induced demand", the specious argument that expanded roads just fill up with new traffic so why should we bother?

Two articles below debunk the induced demand argument in their own ways, but here's my own TL;DR summary: Which type of infrastructure should government invest in: transit almost nobody will use, or lanes everybody will use? Induced demand is a false argument. Nobody says "don't build a new airport terminal or runway - it will just fill up with new flights" or “don’t build a new port terminal – it will just fill up with ships” (🙄 eye roll)

The first is from the well-known Matthew Yglesias: What does "induced demand" really amount to? - We should build infrastructure that people use. Key excerpts:

"The New York Times recently did a big feature grounded in induced demand theory headlined “Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix Traffic. So Why Do We Keep Doing It?” which skirted around the kind of obvious answer that we do it because it lets more people drive to more places.

In other words, I think the idea of induced demand is just somewhat less paradoxical than people make it out to be.

Consider the traffic impact of a mass transit project rather than highway widening. In the aforementioned Los Angeles, a project is currently underway to extend the little stump of a purple line in the map below and extend it west to Beverly Hills, then down Wilshire Boulevard into Santa Monica and to the Pacific Ocean. This may never happen due to the usual litigation and delays, and it’s conceivable that once completed the project will be a low-ridership white elephant. But let’s stipulate that it gets built and that lots of people take advantage of this transit option. 

Well, what happens next? 

• Some of the people riding the new Wilshire Metro will be making trips they wouldn’t otherwise have made, taking advantage of new opportunities and making their life better. 

• Some of the people riding the new Wilshire Metro will be making trips they otherwise would have made by car, reducing traffic. 

• But now that there’s less traffic, some people throughout Los Angeles will make trips they otherwise would not have made due to fear of traffic jams, bringing the system back to congested equilibrium.

In other words, “Ambitious Mass Transit Projects Don’t Fix Traffic. So Why Do We Keep Doing Them?” ...

But “inducing” extra demand would be part of the point — the only thing worse than a new highway project that only causes people to drive more would be a new highway project that didn’t cause people to drive more and wasted a bunch of money." 

Most new demand on expanded roads comes from new population, new employment and economic activity (some or all of which may have been attracted by enhanced transportation infrastructure), traffic rerouted from neighborhood streets or congested roads, or travel that has shifted in time to the benefit of the traveling public now that more capacity is available to undertake activities during desired travel times.  

...

Since approximately 2005, U.S. vehicle travel per person has not grown and the amount of travel on roads with newly increased capacity attributable to additional or longer induced trips is likely modest. The National Household Travel Survey documents declining trip rates as telework, e-commerce, and other communications substitution opportunities further dampen travel demand growth pressures, particularly for urban households. If travel expanded to fill all capacity, we would not have any low-volume highways.  

More importantly, characterizing induced travel as bad or wasted is a misrepresentation of the value that people derive from engaging in travel. It’s not just wealthy folks making superfluous trips. Residents having access to better jobs or businesses with better selection and lower prices isn’t bad. Businesses having access to a bigger labor pool and potential customer and supplier bases because people can travel farther in a tolerable amount of time isn’t bad. Making supply chains work better isn’t bad. Getting emergency vehicles where they need to go faster isn’t bad. Pulling cut-through traffic out of neighborhoods to travel on a safer highway facility isn’t bad. Having more direct and less congested—and thus environmentally greener—trips isn’t bad. Enabling parents to get home and share a meal with the family isn’t bad. Using transportation infrastructure to shape development or improve economic competitiveness isn’t bad. Being able to engage in social interactions and recreational activities isn’t bad, and contributes positively to physical and mental health.

...

Overplaying induced demand arguments as a pretext for discouraging roadway expansion or presuming travel demand can be accommodated by investing in alternative modes can be disingenuous and ill-informed. The presumption that directing resources to transit, bike, or pedestrian options can meet the mobility needs of all people and goods seldom works out as a real solution that is financially sustainable, environmentally superior, or offers comparable mobility, accessibility, or other benefits.

That yellow highlight is my favorite, crisply articulating all the benefits of expanded highways. Keep it in mind next time you hear silly "induced demand" arguments being thrown against new projects.

Labels: costs of congestion, mobility strategies, transit, transportation plan

posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:51 PM 7 comments

TX Transportation Update - legislature, projects, NHHIP, Inner Katy MaX lanes, Austin should convert rail to BRT

This week we have an excellent detailed update on multiple Texas transportation projects from Oscar Slotboom (bold highlights mine).

---

Texas Legislature

The regular session ended on Memorial Day. Transportation-related issues were mostly low priority, and the Senate focused mainly on a few important long-term funding bills.

Houston-specific issues (no bills passed):

• SB 2515 would have required HCTRA to use its revenue for road improvements only, but the bill made no progress after introduction. SB 1727, signed into law in 2021, placed some restrictions on the ability of Harris County to harvest toll money for non-transportation purposes. Generally speaking, the legislature had little interest in toll issues, passing only two minor bills relating to billing and preparation for icy conditions.
• Texas Central high-speed rail received much less attention than in previous sessions, with only three bills filed and none making much progress. With Texas Central moribund, the project opposition did not put effort into anti-project bills.

Bills approved (statewide):

Three bills provide long-term funding for TxDOT into the early 2040s. This is especially important since recent inflation has extended project timelines, with NHHIP now scheduled for completion in 2042.

• HB 2230 extends Proposition 1, which provides funding from surplus money in the rainy day fund. Amount is variable depending on oil prices, and is usually $1 to 2 billion per year. Expiration is extended 8 years from 2035 to 2043.
• SCR 2 extends proposition 7, which provides $2.5 billion plus a percent of auto sales tax each year. The $2.5 billion is extended 10 years to 2042, and the auto sales tax funding is extended 10 years to 2039.
• SB 505 imposes a $200 annual road use fee on electric vehicles, in recognition that electric cars don't pay any fuel tax for road maintenance. Although this will generate a small amount of revenue in the near term, it could become a substantial revenue source in the future.
• HB 3297 ends vehicle safety inspections on December 31, 2024. But emissions testing will continue, so in Houston we still need to take our cars to a testing center.

Inner Katy Managed Lanes

In May I provided an update on the status of the Metro's Inner Katy (Loop 610 to downtown) BRT. A TxDOT presentation on May 18 says that construction on the separate managed lanes could begin in 2026 or 2027 (page 19). This is good news! However, there is much work still to be done, including environmental clearance, so 2026-2027 seems optimistic. There is not yet a recommended design option, but all the documents suggest that an elevated structure in the center of the freeway is the leading candidate. Future public meetings will influence the recommended design. The scope of the project includes reconstructing the main lanes and increasing the minimum vertical clearance to 18.5 feet. (It is currently around 15'4"). This will be an expensive project.

Big Projects in Dallas and Austin move ahead of NHHIP

While NHHIP has been engulfed in controversy, the $1 billion I-345 project in Dallas and the $5 billion I-35 project in Austin are moving forward and are now scheduled to be completed much sooner than NHHIP, even though planning for both the Dallas and Austin projects started much later than NHHIP. Dallas City Council recently unanimously approved TxDOT's plans to sink the elevated I-345 freeway into a trench. The DEIS for I-35 in Austin was released in February and TxDOT is moving toward construction as fast as possible. While there has been plenty of controversy for both the Dallas and Austin projects, local officials did not file lawsuits or request federal reviews.

Project	Planning Started	Work Starts	Scheduled completion
NHHIP	2004 2010 detailed	2025	2042
I-35 Austin	2013 preliminary 2020 detailed	2026*	2032*
Dallas I-345	2016 preliminary, 2020 detailed	2028 or 2029*	soonest 2033

*Schedule tentative and subject to change.

So if I-35 and I-345 continue to progress as expected, they will be completed in 2032 or 2033. Only three small sections of NHHIP are scheduled to be complete at that time (including I-69 south of I-45, and the I-10/I-45 interchange). The vast majority of work including downtown work and all of I-45 north of downtown would be just getting started or not even started.

Austin's New Plan for Light Rail

In April 2022 Austin's original light rail plan including a subway was estimated to cost $10.3 billion, with the tunnels costing around $1 billion per mile. Those estimates were before recent severe inflation in construction costs.

Austin's revised plan (map with data) is now entirely at street level, running in the middle of streets just like Houston's MetroRail. Depictions of the new plan look very familiar to Houstonians. Costs, however, remain outrageously expensive.

• 9.8 miles, all at street level, taking away traffic lanes
  For comparison, Metro rail is 23 miles, all at street level, and Dallas has a 93-mile system mostly on dedicated right-of-way including a subway
• Project cost: $4.5 to $4.8 billion, $459 to $490 million per mile (!)
  Cost includes a new bridge over Lake Lady Bird and startup costs such as a train maintenance facility. The original Red Line in Houston, opened in 2004, cost $43 million per mile, and the Green and Purple lines, opened 2015-2017, cost $153 million per mile.
• Speed: 13.6 miles per hour from north to south; 14.9 miles per hour from north to southeast.
• Estimated weekday ridership: 28,500

Depiction of Austin's plan. This design looks familiar to Houston's.

Fixation on Rail: Austin is Repeating Houston's Mistake

Houston's $1.41 billion Green and Purple lines have very low ridership, easily handled by bus rapid transit (BRT). If the lines had been built as BRT, they could have easily reached Hobby Airport with the $1.4 billion budget, likely with plenty of money left over. The Silver line BRT cost $46 million per mile and the University line is expected to cost $63 million per mile.

If Austin uses BRT instead of light rail, the cost per mile would be drastically reduced. They could build the unfunded extensions shown in the map, and provide service to the airport with no transfer. They could also potentially use the savings to build a tunnel under Lake Lady Bird instead of an undesirable new bridge. Once again, fixation on light rail causes money to be wasted and transit service to be limited.

Labels: governance, MaX Lanes, mobility strategies, rail, transit, transportation plan

posted by Max Concrete @ 3:58 PM 0 comments

BRT Should Use Shared Not Dedicated Lanes, HTX #1 real estate market, college grads flee the superstar cities, cutting zoning reduces housing costs, and more

A few smaller misc items this week: 

• BRT Should Use Shared, Not Dedicated Lanes. Everything in here absolutely applies to the planned METRO Universities BRT line, especially on Richmond inside the loop. 'Lite BRT' would be a great option for that line.

"Dedicating two of the six lanes on major streets in Chandler, Mesa, Scottsdale, and Tempe exclusively to buses would be a complete waste, says a new report released last week by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club and two other groups in the Phoenix area. Each of the lanes that Valley Metro would take for buses typically move roughly three to four times as many people per day as would have taken the bus before the pandemic, and bus ridership has fallen by 50 percent since the pandemic. ...

Instead of dedicated lanes, the report recommends the Valley Metro experiment with “lite BRT,” which means running frequent buses in shared lanes and coordinating traffic signals so everyone can minimize the number of stops they have to make. If these modest improvements significantly increase ridership, Valley Metro could experiment with other improvements, but if they don’t, “then it is unlikely that . . . dedicated lanes and traffic signal priority would do any better.”

• The Denver FasTracks Failure. 

"In 2004, Denver voters approved spending $4.8 billion building six new rail transit lines, and the first line opened ten years ago. This was soon followed by four more to the gushing praise of various outsiders.

Inside Denver, however, people are beginning to realize that the whole thing was a miserable failure, suffering massive cost overruns and never attaining its ridership projections. The West line, which had its tenth anniversary last week, never carried as many passengers as were projected in its first year. It’s too bad that the reporters who are questioning this now weren’t asking the same questions in 2004."

• More Evidence that Cutting Zoning Restrictions Reduces the Price of Housing. Point for Houston!

"Policymakers have debated whether allowing more market-rate—meaning unsubsidized—housing improves overall affordability in a market. The evidence indicates that adding more housing of any kind helps slow rent growth. "

• Houston tops U.S. as most active real estate market within the last decade, new report finds
• NYT: Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too (link gets past paywall). Educated workers are increasingly migrating away from the country’s most expensive major metros — and have been since before the pandemic. Really good in-depth article. Lots of stats/graphs. Tide is really turning against the expensive coastal cities, even with educated workers.
• Reason: Texas Ranks 19th in the Nation in Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness. We should do better.

Labels: development, economy, home affordability, Metro, rail, rankings, transit, transportation plan, zoning

posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:22 PM 0 comments

Is the 18yr rebuild of 45N actually a good thing or will it kill downtown? Plus what's wrong with NYC?

 A couple items this week:

• Chronicle: Nearly two decades: The long, long journey ahead for $9.7B rebuild of I-45. It is a crazy long schedule (see graphic below). What I can’t tell from this schedule is if the extended length is specifically because TXDoT wants to minimize disruption? Generally speaking, faster projects are more disruptive with more lane closures. Maybe they’re stretching it out so they don’t have to do that? If they’re not, that would be my advice to TXDoT: commit to keeping all existing lane capacity open throughout the construction process, even if that requires stretching the schedule. One silver lining of the rise of remote and hybrid work during the pandemic is that it may actually help employers endure the construction without moving because their employees can be more flexible about what hours and days they come in. If that can help reduce and stretch out rush hours, it can minimize the pain. I got quoted in this one:

“Past freeway projects typically only affected one or two spokes at a time, and downtown employers just dealt with it since it only affected a portion of their employee base,” said Tory Gattis, a senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, which advocates for business-focused downtown development. “But with the normalization of remote and hybrid work, as well as this project affecting all the freeways coming into downtown, it could definitely be the tipping point to major employers following Exxon to the suburbs or just going more remote so their employees won’t have to fight their way downtown as often.”

• NYT: What’s the Matter With New York? Krugman keeps writing defensive articles about failed Blue city policies, but they’re not very convincing. He does support my case on housing though:

“For the middle class, however, living in New York really is hard to afford — not so much because of taxes, but because of housing costs. Here’s a very rough indicator (I’m sure that experts can produce a more accurate measure, but the conclusions surely won’t change): Zillow says that the median apartment rent in New York is $3,500, about $1,500 more than the median rent in, say, Dallas. Since median household income in New York is about $70,000 a year, the “housing tax” middle-class families pay for living in New York is on the order of 20 percent of their income, several times as large as the difference in actual taxes. And if you want to buy a house, the price gap is similar: Dallas is about 40 percent cheaper.

...

A major reason developers don’t build more housing in the New York area, and hence the reason living here is expensive, is that they aren’t allowed to thanks to zoning, land-use restrictions and — especially in the suburbs — community opposition.

In other words, never mind the lurid right-wing fantasies: NIMBYism, not crime or taxes, is the New York area’s main problem."

Krugman argues the high NY taxes are manageable, but the most upvoted comment strongly disagrees:

"Former Prosecutor, NYC:

I beg to differ Mr. Krugman. Taxes are killing NY and in a big way. You see, my wife and I are senior citizens in upstate NY about 1.5 hours north of NYC. Forty years ago we built our house and raised our 5 children. We love our home. We want to die here. But, NY State has made that impossible. Our property and school taxes are out of control. Yes, we do receive enhanced STAR but it is not enough. Our pensions and savings are not enough to keep up with the rising costs of taxes here in NY. In January we get our property tax bill that included the town, county and fire taxes. Then in September, the dreaded school tax bill comes and it’s a killer. Every senior citizen I know has moved out of NY and headed to Florida, Tennessee and the Carolinas. We worked hard, paid out taxes and are being forced to sell our dream home. Is that right? Is that American? Is that constitutional? It sure doesn’t feel like NY is trying to save Seniors. AND, the poor young people who want to buy our home or live in the area are burdened with the same problem, taxes. Lots of taxes. We don’t own a mansion. We don’t live large. We don’t have fancy cars. We live a modest life and want to stay near our children and grandchildren. I love NY Mr. Krugman but NY doesn’t love me or any senior citizens who want to stay, contribute and live out our lives in the state we love. But, its impossible. Other states are way more affordable and unfortunately, we are being taxes out of our home and must move. Un American"

Labels: affordability, downtown, home affordability, mobility strategies, taxes, transportation plan

posted by Tory Gattis @ 4:36 PM 4 comments

Texas vs. 'induced demand' and tolls

Today is the official 18th (!!) anniversary of Houston Strategies, with the first post on March 8th, 2005. This is the 1,391st post (again, !!). I had no idea it would go anywhere near this long when I started, and I have absolutely no idea how long it will continue to go into the future. No matter how long that is, one thing I do know is - with the legacy limitations of blogspot - it will still have this old-school 2005 web page format, lol. I just hope my readers focus on the content rather than the aesthetics ;-)

This week I have an excellent re-post from Bob Poole at Reason's Surface Transportation Innovations on induced demand:

Experts Spar Over Induced Demand and Urban Freeway Expansion  

I-35 through downtown Austin is massively congested much of the day. That’s hardly surprising since both Austin and Texas have been growing by leaps and bounds for several decades (with no end in sight), while I-35 through central Austin still has not had a significant expansion since 1974. Trying to accommodate today’s traffic flow with the capacity of 50 years ago is like trying to put 10 pounds of potatoes into a 5-pound sack.

Yet opponents of expanding I-35 in Austin raise the concept of “induced demand,” which some refer to as the “iron law of freeway congestion.” The idea is that it’s pointless to add capacity because the improved traffic flow will (only) lead to more vehicles choosing to use the freeway, yielding renewed congestion.

One of those who raised this argument is professor and engineer Kara Kockelman, who teaches transportation engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. In a recent piece by Kelsey Thompson of KXAN, Kockelman said that roadway improvements can lead to people changing their behavior, such as living further out in the suburbs or making trips during peak periods that they used to make at off-peak times. “By opening up I-35,” she told KXAN, “what we do is increase the attractiveness of that corridor for longer distance travel.” Also, after a long construction period, “There’ll be a lot of pent-up demand just waiting to get onto that road when it fully opens,” Kockelman added. That’s all true, but it’s not the end of the story.

At about the same time, another transportation expert, Steven Polzin of Arizona State University, published an article on Planetizen, “Induced Travel Demand Induces Media Attention.” He points out that in fast-growing states, most new highway demand comes from population growth and new jobs, not from “induced” travel. Second, he notes that vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita have leveled off in the past decade, so traffic congestion will likely not grow as fast in coming decades, other things equal. Third, Polzin points out that trips accommodated by an expanded highway can provide a number of benefits, such as:

• Residents getting access to better jobs and businesses with better selections and lower prices;
• Businesses having access to a larger labor pool, and larger customer and supplier bases;
• Enabling emergency vehicles getting where they are needed faster;
• Pulling cut-through traffic out of neighborhoods; and,
• Enabling parents to get home in time for family meals and activities.

Some of those benefits might not be long-lasting, especially as places like Austin continue to grow. But neither expert mentioned a way to make the expansion benefits last longer: add market-priced lanes instead of free lanes, so the pricing will enable high-value trips to take place even during peaks when the free lanes are getting jammed. Those can be personal trips (to the airport to catch a plane, getting to day-care in time to avoid late fees), enabling express buses to run consistently faster and more reliably, and letting emergency vehicles get where they’re needed quickly, for example. Kockelman mentions toll roads but not express toll lanes. In Houston and especially Dallas/Ft. Worth, the express toll lanes are popular and much-used. But even there, where they have proven their usefulness and popularity, regional plans for a whole network of express toll lanes have been thwarted by the Texas state legislature, which has banned any new Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) support for tolled projects, and any new long-term public-private partnerships (P3s) financed by toll revenues.

TxDOT’s earlier concepts for I-35 in Austin called for adding express toll lanes (also known as priced managed lanes). But as I noted in the August 2022 issue of this newsletter, due to the legislative ban, TxDOT’s current plan is to spend $4.9 billion of taxpayers money to add “non-priced managed lanes” to I-35 in Austin. In plain language, that means old-fashioned, ineffective high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. Based on past history, if built, those lanes will likely be either too empty (wasting costly pavement) or too full (fam-pools, cheaters). Without pricing, there is no “management” of HOV lanes.

In a recent presentation in Ft. Worth, I pointed out that TxDOT’s current plans to add HOV lanes to I-35 in Austin, I-35 in San Antonio, and I-635E in Dallas total $8.1 billion. On average, revenue-financed highway projects like express toll lanes need only 20% from the state DOT with all the rest financed based on toll revenues. Were those three projects carried out via revenue-financed P3s, TxDOT would save 80% of that $8.1 billion to spend on other projects statewide. That ought to appeal to legislators from smaller cities and rural areas. And it would produce a much more effective and long-term solution for the antiquated I-35 through Austin.

Labels: MaX Lanes, mobility strategies, toll roads, transportation plan

posted by Tory Gattis @ 4:07 PM 2 comments

Update: TxDOT highway construction inflation

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

---

In July I blogged about the cost of highway and transit construction in Houston, and I mentioned that highway construction costs were showing a sharp upward trend, consistent with infrastructure cost increases nationwide.

More data became available at the December TxDOT Commission meeting with a presentation on the subject of inflation. Video of the presentation and discussion is online, agenda item 6B. The screenshot below from the presentation shows that between September 2021 and October 2022 the Highway Cost Index (HCI) increased by 27.6%, with most of the increase occurring between March and October. During this period the consumer price index was up 8.6%.

All projects receiving bids have an estimated cost in the TxDOT UTP, which schedules projects based on available funding. As reported at 1:29:30 in the video, bids for the period Sept 2021 to Dec 2022 exceeded the UTP estimate by $1.9 billion.

In recognition of the inflation, TxDOT raised the estimates of project cost above the UTP estimate. They call this "mark to market". However, if you look at the following chart in the presentation, low bids (orange bar) are also exceeding the "mark to market" letting estimate (gray bar).

As discussed at 1:34:00, the revised project costs for the remaining eight bid lettings for fiscal year 2023 is $8.5 billion compared to $7 billion in the UTP, for an expected cost increase of $1.5 billion.

As noted at 1:30:20, bids are exceeding estimates the most on large projects which have long construction periods. It is believed that contractors are bidding high to protect themselves in case inflation remains high during the multi-year timespan of large projects. That's a well-known problem with inflation. When it becomes established and embedded into people's behavior and thinking, it becomes more difficult to bring the inflation rate back down.

No Houston projects have been affected so far, mainly because there have not been any large projects in metro Houston which received bids in the last 6 months. At the December meeting, TxDOT rejected a $510 million low bid on a large project on Interstate 30 northeast of Dallas which was 23% above the mark-to-market estimate of $414 million.

So far, TxDOT has been able to use reserve funds to cover the inflation for most projects, with the Dallas project the only major casualty. But reserve funds won't last forever. Unless prices go down, there will be consequences, mainly projects being delayed or placed on indefinite hold as available funding can no longer cover the cost of planned projects. As for NHHIP, it was originally estimated at $7 billion, then upped to $9 billion, and the report of Monday's local agreement is now listing it at $10 billion. The 20-month delay has pushed back the start for years. The first project (I-69 in Midtown) is listed for bidding in June 2024, and the first very large job (over $1 billion), Interstate 10 on the north side of downtown, is currently listed for bidding in 2027. Of course those dates are subject to change, and the cost when bids are received years in the future is dependent on future values of the HCI.

The good news is that TxDOT officials are optimistic the inflation rate has peaked and is now in a downward trend. The HCI is a lagging indicator. As is visible in the first chart, it started to go up after the CPI started to go up. Now that the CPI has been flat for several months, the HCI should follow the same path within a few months. And if highway construction contractors can get confidence that their costs are under control, the all-important psychological influence may start to be more favorable for better bid pricing.

There's no readily available data for public transit construction cost, but it's virtually certain that costs are up by a similar amount for Metro's priority projects, the Inner Katy BRT and the University Line BRT. I'm not aware any official updated cost data for Metro projects. Recent online reports (1, 2) have focused more attention on the absurdly high cost of building rail transit in the United States. Metro's Red Line north extension appears to be years in the future, after the priority projects. When we get a new cost estimate for these three projects, we can expect a big increase.

Labels: transportation plan

posted by Max Concrete @ 4:04 PM 0 comments

Why Houston is better with TIRZs, our lack of zoning held up as a model for the country, 45N expansion gets support, professionals migrating to TX, and more

Before getting to some smaller items, I want to comment on the Chronicle's investigative report on TIRZs (tax-increment reinvestment zones).  While I'll admit they can be a bit of a mess and even a bit wasteful, what the reporters miss is that if the TIRZs were dissolved and the money sent to the City instead, it would just get gobbled up by the public employee unions long before it can do any good in any lower-income neighborhoods outside the TIRZs. As the pieces note, every mayor comes into office thinking they will go after the TIRZs, then realize they can make them work for the city as a whole by delegating projects to them (like improvements to Buffalo Bayou and Memorial parks), and shift City budget money to those neighborhoods outside the TIRZs. Finally, I think Houston's core (and the City as a whole) would be in a much more precarious position if it wasn't for the TIRZs making strong investments in Uptown, Downtown, Midtown, the Med Center, and other key districts to keep them attractive to employers and high-income professionals.

Moving on to a backlog of smaller items, mostly from my Twitter feed:

• You may find it hard to believe, but Houston has the shortest CBD commuting times of the major metros due to a high-capacity freeway and HOV lane network with great coverage (Chart 5, page 7).
• Harris County/Houston #2 behind Maricopa/Phoenix in total population growth over the last decade. Mapped: A Decade of Population Growth and Decline in U.S. Counties
• Texas #1 for gaining rich young professionals from other states: States Losing (And Gaining) The Most Rich Young Professionals – 2022 Edition 
• "According to Nolan Gray, one of the reasons Houston is among the most affordable, diverse and economically dynamic cities in America is because it never adopted zoning." 'Houston's lack of zoning fueled its growth and should be copied elsewhere'
• Texas is their #1 destination: Young people earning $100,000 or more are fleeing California and New York—here's where they're going
• Video: "Of all the Texas cities - most of which I'm very bullish on - the one that is probably going to have the biggest success story for the next 30 years is by far Houston." Hat tip to George.
• The City Without Zoning: "For the most part, Houston’s positives are linked to its lack of zoning, and its negatives are essentially unrelated to zoning."
• The Search for Intelligent Life Is About to Get a Lot More Interesting: "In 2018, Frank attended a meeting in Houston whose focus was technosignatures... seek out signs of technology on distant worlds, like atmospheric pollution... “That meeting in Houston was the dawn of the new era, at least as I saw it,” Frank recalls."
• Public comment submitted on raising I10 at White Oak Bayou: this project seems unnecessarily disruptive and expensive to keep the freeway open a relatively tiny handful of days every few years, especially given that 610 provides a natural alternative when I10 is blocked by flooding. Additionally, when the city is flooding badly enough to put I10 underwater, most households and businesses are hunkered down anyway, reducing demand. There are better places to deploy TXDoT's limited resources.
• "The planned rebuild of I45 in Houston drew the largest number of comments, 382 of the 1,685 TxDOT received through a month-long public comment period. Of those, TxDOT said 299 were supportive of the project while 66 were opposed." (source)
• "Houston prioritizes the ease and cost of building housing above almost all else. As a result, residents with money have a higher standard of living and those without have more humane sheltering options. Cities with other priorities sacrifice on both of these." -John Arnold
• Texas #5 state for racial equality, and #1 for states with a significant Black population share. Hat tip to George.
• Houston is the largest metro below the national average for salary needed to buy a home. Map: This is the Salary You Need to Buy a Home in 50 U.S. Cities
• The American Conservative: How Zoning Paralyzed American Cities: "America should learn from no-zoning Houston, says Gray...What proved crucial to rejecting zoning was Houston’s allowance of deed restrictions, whereby neighbors can voluntarily opt into zoning-like restrictions and design standards...And while neighbors get a say over their neighborhood, Houston as a whole is still allowed to grow. It builds housing at 14 times the rate of its peers and, in the process, has become one of the most affordable and diverse cities in the country.""

• In Houston "Livable Places is updating city regulations to create more housing options in neighborhoods where deed restrictions allow." Nice illustrations to explain it to the public.

Labels: affordability, census, deed restrictions, development, growth, home affordability, inequality, infrastructure, land-use regulation, mobility strategies, rankings, transportation plan, zoning

posted by Tory Gattis @ 7:13 PM 0 comments

Comparing the inflating costs of Houston highways vs. transit

This week we have another always-excellent in-depth analysis guest post from Houston Freeways author Oscar Slotboom. This one is long but very worth it.

---

The Chronicle recently published an Associated Press article "Inflation taking toll on infrastructure projects", listing huge cost increases for all types of infrastructure projects and reporting that the roughly 25% increase in highway funding in the recent federal infrastructure bill has already been consumed by inflation.

"The cost of those projects is going up by 20%, by 30%, and just wiping out that increase from the federal government that they were so excited about earlier in the year.”

Building public transit trains and tunnels in the United States had become absurdly expensive even before the recent inflationary surge. Tory recently mentioned the 78% increase in the estimated cost of Austin's planned light rail, from $5.8 billion to $10.3 billion, with the tunnel section now projected to cost $978 million per mile. Other crazy-expensive projects include a rail tunnel extension in San Jose projected at $1.5 billion per mile, $521 million per mile for a mostly-elevated rail line in Honolulu, and Maryland's Purple Line light rail which is 4.5 years behind schedule and sustained a $1.4 billion cost increase to $210 million per mile.

Let's take a closer look at the costs and inflation for some transit and highway projects in Houston.

Overall Cost vs. Construction Cost

The desired metric for cost evaluation is overall project cost, including not only construction but also environmental studies, engineering, project management, utility adjustments, and right-of-way acquisition. Press reports normally include overall cost for transit projects. For highways, only construction cost is typically readily available. Highway project development (pre-construction) cost has historically been in the range of 20 to 25% of construction cost, but has recently risen to 29%. (Item 7A in May 2022, 1:43) I'll use the 29% cost factor to estimate the overall cost of highway projects.

Metro Light Rail

The original Red Line, which had good pre-Covid ridership, opened in 2004 and now seems like an unbelievable bargain at $44 million per mile, especially since it included complicated sections through downtown and the medical center. Around 10 years later, cost had exploded to $143 million per mile for the 2013 Red Line North extension (328% higher) and $153 million per mile in 2015 for the new Green and Purple Lines (351% higher), all having much lower ridership than the original Red Line.

	Opened	Cost millions	Length miles	Cost per mile millions
Original Red Line	Jan 2004	$324	7.5	$43.6
Red Line North Extension	Dec 2013	$756	5.3	$143
Green and Purple Lines	May 2015, final section Jan 2017	$1410	9.2*	$153

*Includes shared track in downtown

There is no recent data for Houston since there have been no major transit projects since 2015. In 2018 the cost of new light rail was averaging around $202 million per mile nationally, and is surely higher now. Extension of the Green or Purple Line to Hobby Airport is included in the MetroNext Plan. A 2018 plan document listed the project at an unrealistically low $881 millon for 7.3 miles, $120 million per mile, for the Purple Line option and $900 million for 6.4 miles, $141 million per mile, for the Green Line option.

The Hobby Airport extension for the Green and Purple lines is now listed in the most recent H-GAC document (May 2022) at $2.678 billion. Length is listed at 7.4 miles, which would be $362 million per mile (page 70). However, the length seems suspicious, since I come up with 10.6 miles, which would be $252 million per mile. The planned Red Line 5.9 mile north extension was listed in the 2021 document (page 77) at $1.561 billion but is now listed in the 2022 document (page 70) at $1.098 billion for 5.9 miles, $186 million per mile, which seems low. These numbers are in the column for year-of-expenditure cost, which is inflated to the project construction year, and both are listed for year 2040, which seems too far in the future. While we can't make any per-mile cost comparisons from the H-GAC numbers, it is safe to conclude that the cost is going up and will be much higher than the numbers used to get approval of MetroNext.

Silver Line Bus Rapid Transit

Houston's first BRT line opened in August 2020 with a reported cost of $192.5 million, which presumably includes the $57 million elevated connector along the West Loop and the nicely landscaped reconstruction of Post Oak. Funded by the Uptown district, it is built to high standards to enhance the area's image. Tory and I are proponents of BRT as an alternative to light rail because BRT provides all the benefits of light rail with far greater flexibility (for example buses can use it and then proceed onto HOV lanes) and at a much lower cost, around one-quarter to one-third of light rail. Cost-wise, the Silver Line delivers, coming in at $46 million per mile. But it had bad timing of opening during the Covid-induced public transit ridership collapse and its ridership, most recently 741 boardings per weekday, is far below projections. As Tory has mentioned, it is preferable to have a low-cost ridership bust instead of the high-cost bust that we have with the Green and Purple lines light rail.

Status	Opened August 2020
Overall cost (millions)	$192.5
Length (new construction)	4.2
Cost per mile (millions)	$45.8

University Line Bus Rapid Transit

The anti-highway Chronicle was quick to report on cost increases for NHHIP in the May 2022 H-GAC 4-year transportation plan, but (no surprise) they did not mention a large cost increase for the University Line.

The 25.3-mile bus rapid transit University Line is a priority project for Metro. Estimated at $1.56 billion in a 2018 Metro document, is now listed at $2.135 billion (page 12), up 37% to $84.4 million per mile, which is 84% higher than the premium-design Silver Line. (The official Metro page has no cost information.)

This cost is shocking considering the simplicity of two-lane BRT construction. Around 8 miles will be built on the clear strip of land adjacent to the Westpark Tollway, about as simple as it gets, and the rest will run on streets like the Silver Line on Post Oak, which will involve more complexity and street rebuilding. As we'll see below, TxDOT can build major freeway expansions for around $60 million per mile and smaller freeways for around $30 million per mile.

Freeways, Tollways, and Streets

TxDOT has detailed online data for the highway cost index which is updated monthly. The chart below from the official page shows that the Texas Highway Cost Index has increased slowly over the last 10 years. At the end of 2021 the index was up 28.3% since 2012, a compound annual rate of 2.5%, only a little higher than the CPI rate of 2.1% during this period. This relatively low rate of highway cost inflation has kept highway construction affordable. However, we can see a very strong upward trend in recent months, consistent with the press report mentioned at the top of this post. No Houston projects have been adversely affected so far, but projects in Austin, El Paso, and San Antonio sustained big increases.

For its financial planning, TxDOT uses a highway cost inflation rate of 4%, which is close to the observed rate for the period from 1998 to 2017, which had highway cost inflation of 4.3% per year compared to the CPI of 2.2%.

For TxDOT projects, there has not been much work on freeway main lanes in Houston in recent years, but of course drivers on the Gulf Freeway always see orange barrels, like they've been seeing since the freeway opened in 1948. Projects around Houston are used to determine typical freeway costs.

Let's start with a regular street project financed by Harris County, all-new construction of Gessner to the standard design with 4 lanes and a median between West Road and Fallbrook Drive. Estimated cost is $8.1 million per mile.

Status	Under construction
Construction cost (millions)	$10.07
Estimated overall cost (millions)	$13.0
Length	1.6
Estimated cost per mile (millions)	$8.1

The extension of the Fort Bend Parkway toll road is the simplest freeway/tollway possible, 4 lanes and no frontage roads. The overall cost may be inflated due to right-of-way acquisition. Overall cost is $27.1 million per mile.

Status	Under construction
Overall cost (millions)	$43.3
Length	1.6
Cost per mile (millions)	$27.1

TxDOT recently completed rebuilding and widening of 12.5 miles of Interstate 45 south of Huntsville. The estimated overall cost is likely higher than the actual cost since there was negligible right-of-way acquisition for this project.

Contracts Awarded (1 2)	2017
Status	Completed 2021
Construction cost (millions)	$247
Estimated overall cost (millions)	$319
Length	12.5
Estimated cost per mile (millions)	$25.5

Work is just underway on a major expansion in Huntsville to widen Interstate 45 to 10 main lanes and rebuild the frontage roads. Estimated overall cost is $59.7 million per mile.

Contract Awarded	September 2021
Status	Under Construction
Construction cost (millions)	$208.3
Estimated overall cost (millions)	$268.7
Length	4.5
Estimated cost per mile (millions)	$59.7

There are six contacts in progress on the Gulf Freeway between NASA 1 and the causeway (1 2 3 4 5 6). The estimated cost of $61.6 million per mile is probably higher than the actual cost since these projects had very little right-of-way acquisition.

Contracts Awarded	2016 to 2020
Status	Under Construction
Construction cost, 6 contracts (millions)	$978.4
Estimated overall cost (millions)	$1262
Length	20.5
Estimated cost per mile (millions)	$61.6

Construction of the new SH 146 freeway through Seabook and Kemah is a complicated project with very long elevated structures and a new high bridge over the Clear Lake channel. This project had substantial right-of-way clearance, so the estimated overall cost of $71 million per mile could be lower than the actual cost.

Contract Awarded	July 2018
Status	Under Construction
Construction cost (millions)	$214.2
Estimated overall cost (millions)	$277
Length	3.9
Estimated cost per mile (millions)	$71.0

SH 146 construction, December 2020

NHHIP

Of course, NHHIP is going to be much more expensive than the typical projects mentioned above. NHHIP is not just a freeway, but also an urban improvement project (sinking two miles below ground and retiring the Pierce Elevated) and it includes the managed lanes which will be used for public transit. NHHIP involves substantial right-of-way acquisition, highly complex utility and excavation work through downtown, very complex interchanges, widening throughout the corridor, and has $2.1 billion in property compensation and remediation (page 10). With the current cost estimate of $9.7 billion, the 26.4-mile project (EIS page 3-14) averages $367 million per mile. At a 6/24 H-GAC meeting, TxDOT Houston manager Eliza Paul warned that we can expect more cost increases. While this is expensive, it provides a tremendous amount of infrastructure compared to transit projects. Compare any section of NHHIP to a light rail line or BRT line, and the amount of end product provided by NHHIP completely dwarfs any transit project. Trips served will also dwarf transit. And NHHIP has managed lanes, which will likely carry more transit patrons than light rail lines.

Conclusion

And the winner for best value is...freeways! If we estimate the current cost of light rail at $200 million per mile, major freeway expansion at around $60 million per mile costs only about 30% of the cost of light rail. Medium-size freeway expansions and small new freeways or tollways (e.g. Fort Bend Parkway) cost about $25 to $30 million per mile, around 15% of the cost of light rail. The Silver Line bus rapid transit, $46 million per mile, delivered good cost savings compared to light rail (albeit with low ridership so far), but the estimated $84 million per mile cost of the University Line is high.

The freeway/tollway value proposition is hugely enhanced by the number of trips served, with busy freeways generally serving between 100,000 to 300,000 trips per day at any single point, and the busiest freeways such as the Katy Freeway over 300,000 at any point. The most recent data from Metro for May 2022 reports weekday boardings (entire line, not a specific point) at 29,841 for the Red Line, and the still cringe-worthy low ridership for the Green Line at 3483 and Purple Line at 3307. The Silver Line BRT had 741 daily boardings.

The highway construction cost index grew at a rate of only 2.5% per year over the last 10 years, with longer-term increases back to the 1990s around 4% per year. While there's no readily available statistic for transit construction costs and we don't have any recent data for Houston, there was a tripling of light rail cost between 2004 and 2015 (a compound rate around 12% per year). Severe cost escalation of transit projects around the country indicate an ongoing serious inflation problem with major transit projects.

Now, we just need to hope the recent infrastructure inflation surge is short-lived.

Labels: infrastructure, Metro, mobility strategies, transit, transportation plan

posted by Max Concrete @ 6:29 PM 1 comments