Posted on 03/07/2004 5:02:00 PM PST by PeaceBeWithYou
I don't blame the train for the moronic drivers that crash into it. Houston is home to the worst drivers in the country.
Did you write that story?
No. But when I saw it, I thought that it was pretty obvious that whoever did write it had spent some time on the Action America web site. After all, I was the person who coined the term "Wham-Bam-Tram" on the Texas FR page, when I suggested that we come up with a catchy phrase to use as often as possible, in the hope of getting it heard by some of the media types that were going to be in town for the Super Bowl. It seems that it is indeed catching on, at least locally. I'm still waiting to hear it used on a national newscast. Imagine the egg on the faces down at City Hall, if that should happen.
Regardless of all the warnings about not standing on the top rung of a ladder and other safety precautions, people still fall off of ladders. But, if a new model of ladder came out and it became clear that the number of people falling off of that particular model of ladder was 5 to 10 times greater, per ladder sold, than any other model of ladder, the manufacturer would immediately recall the ladder, even before determining what the problem was with the ladder, to try to forestall any potential liability suits, especially class action suits. Failure to issue a timely recall would demonstrate negligence and that would dramatically increase the amount of any judgment. It's called cutting your losses.
But, since the Wham-Bam-Tram is a train that is publicly owned, instead of a privately owned ladder company and the Houston taxpayers, instead of Metro officials, will be responsible for paying the cost of any judgment against Metro, the Metro board just keeps the Wham-Bam-Tram in service, causing more and more accidents, making it much more likely that class action suit will be filed and significantly running up the eventual cost of judgments in such suits. It should be noted that at this time, the Wham-Bam-Tram is having accidents at a rate at least 6 times higher than any other city that has implemented light rail. But, at only 7.5 miles, it is also much shorter than the light rail lines of those others, so the rate per mile is even higher.
To protect the taxpayers, it's about time to start a petition for a special referendum, to do two things: Take the Wham-Bam-Tram immediately out of service, until the problem with it can be determined and repaired and
The Wham-Bam-Tram is a class action suit just itching to happen and if the city and Metro won't protect taxpayers from such an obvious threat, then taxpayers will have to protect themselves, by ousting those responsible.
on average, over four million people ride the subway every day in New York, about equal to the total population of Los Angeles and exceeding the total populations of Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc.
Of course, I wish that I had another option besides the N (Never) and R (Rarely) trains. Time to move to Brooklyn Heights to catch the 2.
Liberals love mass transit - - for the simple chattering class. You won't find Kerry, Kennedy, or any of the other champagne socialists riding on stinking, lousy, graffiti-painted, spit-all-over-the-floor mass transit.
What is even more interesting is that the motoring citizens of New Orleans have little problem navigating St. Charles Avenue and the French Quarter with a streetcar that shares the same space as private vehicles.
People in New Orleans know that if you are making a Left Turn on St Charles Ave. that you must look for both vehicles and streetcars before proceeding. The concept is quite simple and people in Houston must learn the same as the people in New Orleans.
Yes! There are some great parodies that could be done with the Houston METROrail (I think this was discussed briefly on the TX forum). Things like putting little painted cars on the side of the train like a WWII bomber plane with its hit tallies. I think one suggestion was to change the electronic sign on the front of the train that tells the destination to "River Styx." Of course, an obligatory Lee P. Brown photo would have to be superimposed onto the driver seat.
Not necessarily. The most recent string of accidents has happened with other types of collisions and they come from a serious design flaw. There are several locations along the track where normal traffic lights and special train signals give simultaneous conflicting directions (for example the regular light will be green at the same time that a train approaching sign is lit). It's been two months and metro hasn't even considered putting them in synch with each other.
This piece of crap is an obvious liability for the City, and when combined with the $1.5 BILLION (and growing) pension fund shortfall -- well, things don't look terribly rosy for Houston.
BTW, are we a "world class city" yet??
I think it's pretty obvious that The Houston Review is waging a campaign of biased journalism that the media usually reserves for SUVs. Only the big bad local boogeyman that they've chose to demonize is the light rail system.
Good grief, look at that list of accidents. It's all "A light rail train collides with this... A light rail train collides with that" when it looks to me that, more often than not, it's the moronic driver of the other vehicle who's at fault. Dazed and confused idiots trying to make illegal left turns, or backing out of driveways without looking to see if anything was coming down the street --- cripes, anything could hit an idiot like that: bus, another car, truck, bicycle.
How come Houston has so many idiots on the roads?
What did y'all do... give driver's licenses to the illegal immigrants?
Sheeeeeesh, revoke those licenses and keep those morons off the streets.
Make 'em ride the MetroRail and only let competent drivers operate automobiles. It'd be a lot safer for everybody.
You blame the problems with a design on the users. Were you in private industry producing a product, you would make a luscious target for a lawsuit. The job of the designer is to PREVENT problems and minimize the risks. Fixed rail transit systems have been around for a hundred years. The design requirements are well understood. So if it isn't done correctly, blame the designers. Unfortunately for fixed rail as a transportation mode, if there are problems with a fixed rail design, they are hideously expensive to reverse because of their size and cost, indicating yet another inherent flaw with the transit system you advocate.
One of the inherent risks in fixed rail transport systems is the enormous mass of the vehicles, which demands careful design to prevent collissions. Of course, that is more expensive AND disruptive to other modes of surface transportation. That latter problem was clearly illustrated in the discussion of how Houston had to shut the system down during the Superbowl, indicating yet another cost of fixed rail systems you have yet to confront (and carefully chose to ignore in your response). Note also the risks associated with single point failure, the power outages, when the system comes to a total halt. Automobiles, or buses for that matter, have their accidents and breakdowns too, but because it is a multipath system are capable of being re-routed around the problem. Yet another reason buses and jitneys are a better mass transit solution than fixed rail. Buses are vastly cheaper to buy, more reliable, more flexible, and employ more people, BUT they too have a single point failure mode, union work stoppages.
How come Houston has so many idiots on the roads?
The designers of the system knew that there were idiots on the roads before they built the system. The job of the designer is to account for stupidity because it is a factor in any mode of transportation. Fixed rail carries inherent risks that do even more to prove that they are not worth their outrageous costs. Buses are a far better solution.
There is NO SUCH THING as an idiot-proof design.
Hang the lawyers.
They argue for "smart growth" (sending everyone downtown on commuter systems and in high-density living). I say we need smarter growth. A decentralized work sector means that we won't have some of these congestion problems.
Even Mayor Bob-White has asked downtown companies to look at letting their employees work at non-downtown offices because of the closure of Spur 527 (59 exit into downtown closed for 3 years).
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