Crowds Force METRORail To Cut Service (Houston)

Click2Houston - KPRC Television ^ | January 30, 2004 | KPRC Television

[kittymyrib]

I had to check to see whether this was actually a Chronicle story since I would be surprised to see the cheerleaders for the train admit there was a problem. But I see this came from KPRC TV. Too bad they don't know the difference between "rode" and "road".

[wysiwyg]

Houston built a light-rail above ground in urban (cross-traffic) areas?

Yup. Can't build a subway here -- well, for enough money (as in Boston's "Big Dig") it could be done -- because of soft, shifting soil and most importantly, it would FLOOD. One section that I know of is below grade, but I can't wait to see what happens next time it rains really hard!

Of course, the stupid "Toy Train" shouldn't have been built at all.

What a waste...

[wysiwyg]

Too bad they don't know the difference between "rode" and "road".

The "writer" must be another product of the glorious government school system.

[yankeedame]

Some folks, I think playfully, (tried) to touch out to the train

Brilliant design, Metro.
================================

And somewhere,in some law office down town, a attorney, staring out the window, suddenly gets an idea....

[Flyer]

in some law office down town, a attorney, staring out the window, suddenly gets an idea....

As a tax payer that will have to cover the lawsuits I kindly ask you to HUSH!

. . . but I know the seed is already planted.

[basil]

The city of Houston sits at just about sea-level, and some parts of the city are actually below sea-level. It has been know for many years that Houston is slowly sinking.

Hey--an underground subway is a grand idea for Houston!

[Guvmint_Cheese]

The other option would be to build elevated, which costs less than below-ground transit, but still costs significantly more than at-grade. It would have prevented these accidents and maintain existing roadway capacity. But METRO was so desperate to put in rail, they had to do it as cheaply as possible, regardless of the potential impact on people's safety. They flat out screw up, and by not running the train through Downtown Friday (thank God), they effectively admitted it.

KILL THE CHOO-CHOO!

[padfoot_lover]

Yup, I have never seen Main Street so crowded before as yesterday. 9 out of 10 people I saw were definitely from out of town and already partying it up at noon.

[pax_et_bonum]

"Jeez - what do you hillbillies do when you see a microwave oven..."

What's a microwave?

[VOA]

...various attempts to attribute crowding on mass transit systems to unbridled immigration.

I wasn't saying that illegal immigration was the only cause of overloaded mass-trans...
but at least in metro Los Angeles, it contributes to the crush.
Here mass-trans is a largely a scheme to get middle-class taxpayers to subsidize a
mobile, cash-only, domestic work-force for millionaires.

When we have the usual MTA strike about every three years, the Los Angeles Times
is wall-to-wall with sob stories about undocumenteds who can't get to their jobs...
and if they can find a gypsy cabbie, they spend most of their wages on the fare.

I'm not knocking the undocumenteds...just pointing out that in this environment,
the mass-trans mess is made worse by an influx the system wasn't designed to handle.

Have you ever been on the Tokyo subway? There really aren't any appreciable
numbers of immigrants crowding up that particular system. They had "pushers" to fill the cars!

Absolutley true. Build it and they will come...

[Old Professer]

I'm not sure whether this calls for clowns, bulls, or more booze.

[Flyer]

I'm not sure whether this calls for clowns, bulls, or more booze.

Heck, we may as well have drunk clowns ridin' the bulls. Probably safer than the train.

[plsvn]

At least in Houston, with your water-table, I naively could see if the mass-trans planners would argue that putting the system below ground-level and keeping it from flooding would be prohibitively expensive.

Heck, the system is DESIGNED to be SHUT DOWN whenever there is at least three inches of water over the tracks.... heck, flat as it is here and heavy as some rain storms are here, whenever there's a chance of rain there's the probably the toy train will have to be shut down.

[GeronL]

How much did this thing cost the taxpayers again?? sheesh.. and I thought DART was bad.

My philosophy is this: If its a service that people want, let the private sector do it. If the people don't want it, why is the government doing it to begin with?

Privatize everything!!

[GeronL]

People were actually having to wait for the next train," said Steven Hypes, who road light-rail train.

If this reporter can't spell r-o-d-e, then I feel very sorry for Houston news junkies.

[GeronL]

the trains in Dallas have had some accidents but its not the trains fault usually... the buses, though.... the buses need to be watched carefully =o)

[Pan_Yans Wife]

You would think full trains was the whole goal of mass transit, get people out of their cars and on the train.

Most cities want people on the trains.

[GeronL]

Sell the subways

A very interesting article and history lesson, mostly about the NYC subways

[Ditter]

Hey you hicks, don't forget about us rednecks!

[Kay Ludlow]

Thanks! It is interesting, although it doesn't surprise me at all. A few years ago, (before the free rides) our local Transit Authority proudly declared that they had one of the lowest subsidy levels in the country - their riders paid nearly 70% of the costs of the bus system. So most public transportation systems have MORE than 30% taxpayer support (and I hear many are closer to 80%). When will it dawn on people that if we aren't willing to pay the price for something it means we don't want it? Nice bus stops and environmentally friendly buses won't change ridership one iota - every individual makes their own cost-benefit analysis about using public transportation and the usual result it that their time is too precious to spend twice as long (or more) to ride the bus/train/metro. In New York, where parking is expensive and the traffic is dreadful, you'd think it would be worthwhile to enough people to pay the costs of the subway - but that's not the case.