Posted on 03/07/2004 5:02:00 PM PST by PeaceBeWithYou
After witnessing a weekend of self-congratulatory festivities marking the January 1st debut of Houston’s MetroRail transit system, the hometown newspaper’s editorial board could hardly contain its exuberance. “Viewed from any angle,” opined the Houston Chronicle, the kickoff celebrations were a sure “sign of good things to come.” To the board, itself a merciless campaigner for rail, the roughly 15,000 people in attendance suggested that a “large helping of crow” was in order for transit critics. Reports from Houston spread quickly causing the Arizona Republic’s editorial page to gloat “critics rail at light rail to no avail.” After all, what worked for Houston would surely also work for Phoenix. An Austin-based advocacy group went even further, hailing their favored transit mode’s “enthusiastic acceptance by the public” though also neglecting the role free tickets played in attracting inaugural weekend riders.
Declarations of this sort typified proponent reactions to the controversial “light rail” commuter train – a system that recently consumed $340 million of Houston’s congestion relief funds. Despite the laudatory responses, an ever-growing volume of evidence plays testament to a certainty for Houston: MetroRail may quickly become an anchor around the neck of the city’s transportation system rather than the traffic relief measure of its original intent.
The problems to date are widespread and growing. Before it even opened MetroRail already boasted the dubious record of five automobile-train collisions in barely a month of test runs, thus relegating transit police to blocking duty along the tracks for opening weekend lest another accident replace rail itself as the top evening news story. Constant technical glitches and another ten automobile-train collisions since service began have placed MetroRail on target for becoming the most accident-prone transit system in the nation.
Far from attaining public acceptance, the flow of passengers at the rail stations came to a crashing halt on Monday morning after the festivities. The first paying train departed with only a crew of reporters, did not gain any passengers until the third station, and remained sparsely ridden for the entire day. Aside from a brief Super-Bowl induced rider surge in early February, not much has changed since day one of paid services. Transit officials recently reported that the main parking lot serving their system has averaged only one-fifth capacity on workdays – a figure that is similarly reflected in dismal ridership totals for its first month of operation.
According to official reports from MetroRail, a total of 558,257 passengers road on the train during the month of January. Though rail proponents claimed the figures were proof of “success,” a closer examination reveals that those claims are premature. The figures for January include over 15,000 boardings during the inaugural weekend when free tickets provided an incentive for curious passengers. They also include inflated numbers from pre-Super Bowl festivities on January 29th through 31st when light rail carried about 120,000 passengers for game related events. Accounting for those two extraneous events that induced non-routine ridership surges and the actual monthly boarding figure would be something closer to 425,000 total or about 14,000 round trips (and thus only 7,000 passengers) a day. Either way, MetroRail’s current ridership figures, if sustained, put it on pace to carry somewhere between 5.1 and 6.7 million passengers for 2004 – only half of the 10 to 13 million originally estimated by some rail proponents. Even worse, MetroRail’s $23.5 million annual operating costs indicate that even with the overly optimistic 13 million passenger figure the system will still be $10 million in the hole at the current $1 fare. Barring a quick turnaround from the current pace, that figure may to fall over $18 million short from simply recovering its annual operating costs at the fare box, all to be taken from public monies.
As if its financial boondoggle status were not bad enough, light rail’s disastrous safety record has become something of a legend in Houston. Affectionately dubbed the “Wham-Bam-Tram” by local conservative activists, light rail has lived up to its nickname. A summary of the collisions and glitches to date reveals the extent of this growing problem:
CRASH 1: November 19, 2003 – Light rail is involved in its first accident, hitting the fender of an SUV as it turned across the tracks.While transit backers dismiss light rail’s shortcomings as temporary adaptation problems for commuters, the issue is substantially more fundamental. MetroRail’s tribulations derive almost entirely from an inherent yet neglected system design flaw: the operation of trains in mixed traffic. Whereas popular transit systems such as the Washington D.C. METRO use grade-separated tracks that do not intersect vehicular lanes, MetroRail runs in the middle of a major thoroughfare along side and in between automobiles. This design is something akin to placing 21st century bullet trains on 19th century trolley tracks and attempting to operate them in a pattern that requires stopping every six blocks.CRASH 2: December 16, 2003 – Train hits the bumper of a car as it pulls out of a driveway on Fannin at Southmore.
CRASH 3: December 19, 2003 – MetroRail collides with a pickup truck turning left from Main at Alabama. A light rail crash safety drill was occurring a few blocks away at the time of the accident.
CRASH 4: December 20, 2003 – Light rail crashes into a Ford Explorer making a left turn from Fannin at John Freeman in the Medical Center.
CRASH 5: December 30, 2003 – MetroRail collides with a passenger car exiting a private driveway along the tracks on Fannin.
CRASH 6: January 9, 2004 – Light rail collides with a passenger car turning left at Fannin and Binz. The driver was apparently confused over the difficult to read lighted no-turn signs along the route.
CRASH 7: January 19, 2004 – A light rail train collides with a suburban attempting to make a left turn off of Fannin at Dryden. The intersection contains notoriously confusing turning lane signs switch to no-turn signs when a train is present.
CRASH 8: January 23, 2004 – A light rail train obliterates a Union Pacific maintenance truck and severely injures its driver on a test track that runs parallel to the UP track. The train involved in the collision was also traveling at approximately 60 mph on a “test” run – a speed not even remotely approached during the stop-and-go operations of street use that average just over 12 mph.
CRASH 9: January 26, 2004 – MetroRail collides with a passenger car attempting to make a left turn off of Fannin at Southmore in the Museum District
CRASH 10: January 27, 2004 – Light rail hits a Toyota minivan attempting to turn left on McGowen from Main.
CRASH 11: February 5, 2004 – A train collides with an automobile turning left off of Fannin at Dryden in the Medical Center. This intersection is the sight of an earlier accident where confusing lighted no-turn signs may have contributed to the crash.
CRASH 12: February 15, 2004 – MetroRail hits a flatbed truck alleged to have run a light while crossing Pierce near downtown.
CRASH 13: February 19, 2004 – Light rail involved in an accident with an armored car pulling out of a bank parking lot near Fannin and Southmore
CRASH 14: February 21, 2004 – Train collides with a van turning left at Fannin and Montrose.
CRASH 15: February 24, 2004 – Train crashes into a car turning left at Fannin and Dryden – the third collision to date near this intersection.
Electricity Failure 1: January 4, 2004 – A power failure near Reliant Park shuts down the light rail system in its vicinity forcing riders to leave the stalled trains through emergency exits after 18 minutes without air conditioning. The power failure exposed another design flaw in the system by shutting down crossing gates along roadways for the duration of the outage. The result: when MetroRail ceases to move so does everyone else in a car nearby. A frustrated driver and a Metro bus reportedly broke through two of the gates during the outage.
Electricity Failure 2: January 17, 2004 – A small fire at a power station shuts down a lengthy segment of the light rail system for over an hour and a half. Stranded passengers had to be carried by bus to their destinations
Electricity Failure 3: February 6, 2004 – A delivery truck reportedly clipped one of the relatively low-hanging high voltage trolley cables between the Wheeler and Rice stations. Light rail obtains its power from a modern day version of a “troller” – a device invented in the 1880’s that makes electrical contact with open wires suspended overhead. The accident happened at about 9:30 AM and took until 1:30 PM to be repaired. Reports from the scene indicate that it may have taken up to half an hour for repair crews to respond to the downed wire.
Super Bowl Shutdown: January 29-February 1, 2004 – Light rail was originally sold to Houstonians under the claim that it would help carry passengers with ease at major sporting events such as the Super Bowl, yet during the event’s festivities many streets proved too crowded to safely operate the trains. As a result transit officials shut down large segments of the light rail line into downtown, leaving thousands without an easy access to transportation. Persons trying to enter and exit downtown had to wait up to two hours despite the trip’s length of only a few miles.
As with streetcars, MetroRail’s constant stopping prevents trains from completing a journey in a reasonably efficient time. The current 7.5 mile journey takes 35 minutes at an average of 12.8 mph, or roughly the top speed of a Segway Scooter. Three Chronicle reporters recently experienced this flaw the hard way by timing the train against busses and automobiles. MetroRail runs 50% slower than both alternatives and also costs more when parking and fares are considered – all facts that leave little room for wonder about the system’s dismal ridership.
The fifteen accidents to date stem in large part from automobile driver error yet one cannot help but question that their frequency, and thus some culpability, results from a common sense failure in rail design. This circumstance may be demonstrated through a simple comparison. Few will deny that a cliff-side highway with no guardrails poses a danger in its own right to drivers who steer off the road and into the ocean below. Though the error in steering is itself a fault of the driver, the absence of a cliff-side guardrail provides a substantial contributing factor to the accident. The proximate cause for each accident is a negligent design that makes that particular stretch of road accident-prone and an abnormally high frequency of accidents would provide more than ample testament to that design flaw.
Houston’s at-grade light rail exhibits its own abnormally high accident rate and that alone, even with driver error, is cause to seriously reexamine the system’s design. Though light rail supporters, such as the militant smart growthers at Austin’s “Light Rail Now!,” tend to dismiss their favored transit system’s inherent hazard to traffic as the product of Houston having the “nation’s worst drivers” (after all, no wrong could ever be committed by a transit system in their minds), the real issue at hand is once again the fundamentally bad idea behind light rail itself: at-grade mixed traffic operations. Putting a full sized passenger train in the middle of vehicular traffic makes about as much sense as installing a lane of vehicular traffic down the toy aisle at Wal-Mart. It has about as much logic to it as trying to land passenger jetliners on an interstate or conducting navy war exercises at a popular snorkeling spot. All of these situations create inherently dangerous conditions for users who are patently ill-suited for simultaneous interactions. Since the problem stems from design, simply writing tickets every time somebody gets hurt and simply sticking an oversized deer-whistle-for-humans on the front of a train will never lessen accident frequency.
Similar problems will continue to impede the success of MetroRail so long as transit advocates refuse to reevaluate their system’s design. At the unfortunate insistence of these same persons and their corporate cronies who profit from transit construction contracts, Houston voters narrowly approved a substantial light rail expansion before having an opportunity to see phase one in action. An opportunity, though small, presently exists to achieve this end: separate the grade for any and all expansions of MetroRail and take passenger trains off the streets. Instead of bestowing unearned and premature declarations of success on the new system, officials must come to grip with the fact that fundamental flaws exist and correct for them before a 7.5 mile boondoggle in downtown becomes a 60 mile folly for the entire Houston region.
There is, however, such a thing as a design review with a risk assessment wherein statistically acceptable risks are quantified. This system clearly fails acceptable criteria for safety. Such design criteria for fixed rail are well enough understood that it is likely the planners knew there would be problems and did it anyway, knowing that the public wouldn't want to pay for a system that was expensive enough to have prevented them. Once it was built, the public will have to pony the cash to fix it, bringing the total cost to a level even higher than what they would probably have rejected.
Such callous gambits with lives and property are inductive to tyrranical governance. Single point control architectures, in this case, governing the free movement of individuals, are inherently likely to attract corrupt control freaks. One wonders why you like them.
Think of all the money that could be saved operating Metrorail if there were NO fare. Just get on the thing for free. Ridership would increase and if the stated reason is to get cars off the road (or at least reduce the number downtown) that would be accomplished.
Yes taxpayers would be subsidizing rail; we are anyway (Federaly and locally). We just argue over how much subsidy there should be.
Put banner advertising on the side and small advertising posters inside every car and that "subsidy" could pay for itself.
Free rail cars and advertising in rail cars is nothing new. Boston's Green Line cars are FREE above ground/outbound and they have advertising.
Now Mayor Bob-White and others are considering a subway (in a swamp!) for future lines. One word: Quagmire.
No problem, we just rename it "Metro Subway".
At some point in Mayor Leepy Brown's reign of error "synchronized lights" came to mean turning all the light green at the exact same instant (not staggered), requiring a driver to launch out of the "starting block" at 40-45MPH to be able to catch at least 2 or 3 lights green.
Mayor Bob-White pledged during his campaign that he would see that the lights were synchronized (again, he neglected to mention). It was practically the first thing he did when he took office. Since it was accomplished in a couple of weeks (think they looked up the paperwork on how the lights used to run?) one has to wonder why Mayor Brown didn't go ahead and implement this change last year when one or more of the candidates were talking about it.
That said, the lights aren't yet all synched downtown AND something that does not get mentioned much:
At some intersections, the approaching rail line will set the lights to "green" (red for the crossroads) and I don't think they've factored this into the synchronization yet. I guess it would be asking to much to have the Metrorail actually have to wait at a traffic light (then again Metro Bus drivers run red lights all the time and bully drivers with their buses).
The local broadcast Fox news did a series of reports on the rail and even showed video of an intersection where cars are permitted to turn left and are REQUIRED to be ON THE RAIL (the rail co-exists with a turn lane). Those turns are moderated by a protected turn light. The video showed the Metrorail blasting the horn forcing the car in front (which was legally there) to make an illegal turn into oncoming traffic.
Outside of downtown, the lights can be really bad (I am talking so far out of downtown that you are "out of the (610) loop" (a couple of miles out of downtown at least < /sarcasm >). The lights elsewhere in Houston can often to be found 180degrees out of phase (leave a light that goes Red-to-Green and the next intersection will be Green-going-to-Red). This is observed on Westheimer and Richmond in non-rush hour traffic.
CRASH 3: December 19, 2003 – MetroRail collides with a pickup truck turning left from Main at Alabama. A light rail crash safety drill was occurring a few blocks away at the time of the accident.
CRASH 4: December 20, 2003 – Light rail crashes into a Ford Explorer making a left turn from Fannin at John Freeman in the Medical Center.
CRASH 5: December 30, 2003 – MetroRail collides with a passenger car exiting a private driveway along the tracks on Fannin.
CRASH 6: January 9, 2004 – Light rail collides with a passenger car turning left at Fannin and Binz. The driver was apparently confused over the difficult to read lighted no-turn signs along the route.
CRASH 7: January 19, 2004 – A light rail train collides with a suburban attempting to make a left turn off of Fannin at Dryden. The intersection contains notoriously confusing turning lane signs switch to no-turn signs when a train is present.
CRASH 9: January 26, 2004 – MetroRail collides with a passenger car attempting to make a left turn off of Fannin at Southmore in the Museum District
CRASH 10: January 27, 2004 – Light rail hits a Toyota minivan attempting to turn left on McGowen from Main.
CRASH 11: February 5, 2004 – A train collides with an automobile turning left off of Fannin at Dryden in the Medical Center. This intersection is the sight of an earlier accident where confusing lighted no-turn signs may have contributed to the crash.
CRASH 12: February 15, 2004 – MetroRail hits a flatbed truck alleged to have run a light while crossing Pierce near downtown.
CRASH 13: February 19, 2004 – Light rail involved in an accident with an armored car pulling out of a bank parking lot near Fannin and Southmore
CRASH 14: February 21, 2004 – Train collides with a van turning left at Fannin and Montrose.
CRASH 15: February 24, 2004 – Train crashes into a car turning left at Fannin and Dryden – the third collision to date near this intersection.
Do drivers in Houston have a habit of making turns or pulling out into traffic without first making sure that it's safe to do so? Every one of these accidents was the fault of the driver of the vehicle that the light rail train hit. I know that some of these light rail trains can be relatively quiet, but how can you miss seeing something that large coming down the street toward you unless you're just not paying attention?
It was sweet to see that confirmed by the Houston Chronicle, which has long supported light rail.
The light rail was poorly designed and it is going to continue to set records for traffic accidents. I'm surprised there hasn't been a fatality yet, but that's coming, without a doubt.
Didn't used to have homeless bums sleeping in the libraries. We do now (check out Downtown Houston or even Westchase? on Westheimer near the Galleria).
Check out just about any street corner where you will find people demanding to be allowed to wash your windshield.
During the 1980s when the oil biz went bust I never saw these things.
Homeless people didn't even hang out in downtown Houston after dark much before the rich nightclubbers started dropping their cash there.
Enforcement of vagrancy and loitering laws would put an end to that problem. Public urination is a crime (and certainly urinating in a railcar is illegal). Downtown Houston smells of pee and puke these days. It wasn't this way a decade ago. The rich drunks are among those peeing and puking by the way.
Miller Outdoor Theater is right next to the zoo and it is free (except for when privileged parties are permitted to charge for public access to a private park). Do you see streetwise thugs and homeless people at the Theater Under The Stars performances? And drinking is permitted at these events.
True, any rail system can't swerve out ouf the way of some bonehead who cuts them off.
Like I said before, get those idiots off the streets, revoke their licenses and make 'em ride the MetroRail.
THEY'RE the ones who are a menace to public safety, no matter what else is on the road.
But why do YOU care, since you would never drive, being such a fan of trains as you are, I'm sure you're no hypocrite.
Nope, we'll get you a nice black shirt so you can help those trains run on time.
It concerns the Houston METRORail. . .
. . . but I bet you already knew that.
Did you not read the full article, Willie? The entire purpose of the passages preceding AND following the list of wrecks was to discuss exactly why they are so frequent and assess exactly what role a BAD DESIGN on the train system has played in that frequency!
If you built a bridge and a motorist drove his car off the side every other day don't you think it would be fair to ask questions about a design flaw in that bridge? I certainly do and still would even if it was shown that every single one of those people who drove off the side were morons. It's called DESIGN FLAW and Houston's metrorail has it big time.
Indeed there isn't. There is however such thing as a design that minimizes risk and idiocy. There is also such thing as a design that is negligent. A 300 foot tall observation tower without any rails on the top deck, for example, is a negligent design even though one would have to be an idiot to step off the side.
Same goes for metrorail in Houston. There are several places along the line where drivers are SIMULTANEOUSLY given conflicting signals on what to do. The intersection light is green at the same time a "train approaching" sign is lit, and several of these so-called "illegal" turns have occurred at the intersections where this serious problem exists.
Not entirely true. Several of those accidents (such as the reoccurring ones at the same intersections) happened in negligently designed portions of the system. There are several intersections where the train track intersects the left turn lane and drivers were simply still in that lane when the train came along and hit them. There's a small lighted sign that supposedly closes off those lanes when a train is near (sometimes they come on at the same time a green light is showing, thus giving simultaneous conflicting information to the drivers). No matter how you look at it, making intersection lanes that suddenly turn themselves "on" and "off" to traffic and non-regular intervals is dangerous. Also - despite what the media has reported, a strong case may be made that metrorail and NOT union pacific was at fault in the case involving the test track wreck. Union Pacific was performing scheduled maintanence work on the tracks that run parallel to metro's and is allowed to drive its trucks onto closed tracks for maintanence work. Metro just happened to be joyriding its trains at speeds far in excess of anything they even remotely achieve on the streets and hit the maintanence truck. Think about it another way: if you were driving on an interstate where a scheduled maintanence crew was performing repair work a few feet away from moving traffic and you had advance notice of that crew's presence, would you fly by at your vehicle's top speed without regard to their presence? And if you sped through there hitting one of them do you think it would be fair to assign you the blame or the repair guy? Do you think it would be fair to say "well, he stepped outside of the orange cones and got into the path of my vehicle so it's not my fault I hit him" even though you knew it was a work zone and you knew that cars are supposed to operate at substantially reduced speeds and with substantially greater caution in workzones? THe law places the blame in motorist-repair crew collisions heavily upon motorists for a reason and it places that blame virtually exclusively on speeding motorists for an even stronger reason: workmen have an inherently risky job that requires them to conduct repairs in close proximity to moving vehicles that will almost always severely harm or kill them if they come into contact with one. If metrorail was a car it would be as guilty as they get in the union pacific collision. So why not with a train?
...which is in itself a major reason why high speed passenger trains should never be placed on the same grade as motor vehicles. The two transportation systems are inherently INCOMPATABLE. Separate the grades and build all the rail you want. As long as its cost effective I may even support you! But putting a train in the middle of a street is idiocy, pure and simple.
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