Corrupt Bargain in Houston Light Rail Contracts (FR Original Find)

Metro has taken a significant step toward the construction of Houston's next four light rail lines.

Directors on Thursday authorized signing a five-year contract estimated at $60 million with STV Inc. of New York, the same consortium that shepherded development of the Main Street line, which opened Jan. 1.

Six firms competed for the project, which includes options for two two-year extensions. Dennis Hough, the Metropolitan Transit Authority's director of contracts, said STV and its 16 subcontractors stood out as the most qualified companies to continue oversight of light rail construction in Houston.

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STV Incorporated, to Citizens For Public Transportation, $3,000.00 03-JAN-03 http://204.65.203.2/public/216570.pdf

Stv Incorporated, to Citizens For Public Transportation, $25,000.00 26-JUL-03 http://204.65.203.2/public/230485.pdf

NOTE: Citizens for Public Transportation was the pro-Metro Political Action Committee that ran the referendum campaign for the light rail expansion that STV just got.

Go one way and you get 1%, go the other and you get 2%. Either way it's still a tiny margin of victory. In physical numbers the referendum passed by 8,963 votes in an electorate of 1.5 million. So just as I said - a turn of less than five thousand votes would have defeated the thing.

LOL! You're pathetic. Here are the actual totals, showing the 4% margin of victory. In physical numbers the referendum passed with 12,682 extra votes.

Results for City of Houston and HISD General Election

Did you flunk math in high school as well as civics?

So in other words, you have to go back 10 years to find the Greenway's financial difficulties. Take a look at it TODAY if you want a better picture. It's the main and only substantial highway corridor into and out of northeast Loudoun County, aka the fastest growing county in the United States. Housing developments have sprung up all along it and it's become one of the main commuter routes. I also notice that you truncated the excerpt you posted from that site, probably intentionally, at the precise spot where the article mentioned its successful footing today. Let's continue:

"Today, the Dulles Greenway has become more popular as Loudoun County has experienced its development boom. Traffic on the Greenway has certainly increased substantially since 1995. In the year 2000, on an average weekday the Dulles Greenway handled about 46,000 vehicles and on an average weekend day about 23,000 vehicles. The Greenway has been widened to 3 lanes eastbound for five miles from Exit 6 (VA 772 Ashburn) to the Main Toll Plaza. A project to add an additional westbound lane in the same area began in the Spring of 2001. Furthermore, tolls at the Main Toll Plaza have also come down to an average of $1.50 depending on whether or not you use Smart Tag and whether it is a weekday or weekend."

It should also be noted that your article is not from a professional or reputable transit source - it appears to be little more than an opinion that somebody posted on the internet. A quick search for better credentialed sites indicates that the project's bond rating is now strong, its finances are stable, and its users are skyrocketting.

LOL! You're pathetic. Here are the actual totals, showing the 4% margin of victory.

A victory in electoral politics is defined as 50% plus one vote. That makes 51% of the vote a one-percent margin of victory - the difference between the actual number and the minimum threshold to win. This is necessarily the cause because a lost vote off that 1% margin (meaning somebody switches to the other side) is also gained vote for the trailing position. Therefore if I convert 4,500 voters to my side I win.

In physical numbers the referendum passed with 12,682 extra votes.

The official canvas by the Harris County Elections Office says 8,963 with 100% reporting. http://www.harrisvotes.org/HISTORY/031104/Cumulative/031104_cumulative.htm

Since the areas were a bit larger then relatively speaking vs. Houston, the very longest trips might have been a bit over an hour. For example, the commuter line to Doylestown (county seat of adjacent Bucks County) from Philadelphia is about 35 miles long (it zigzags a bit, straightline distance is less), and takes around 75 minutes to travel on.

Geographically, the Houston region is and has always been larger. If you're gonna throw in passenger service to every surrounding county and other outlying towns though, I might as well include Beaumont, Columbus, Brenham, Conroe, San Felipe, Wharton and all the other cities and towns a county or two over that hardly anybody commuted from either then or now but were nevertheless reachable by passenger railways at one time. They range between about 30 and 100 miles away from Houston, give or take a few miles, which is the same for the extremities and outlying areas your system figures include for Los Angeles, Boston, and several other cities. The bottom line though is in narrowly defined streetcars proper, Houston appears to have been comparable with everybody else.

All this fuzzy math is making my head spin.

Hey, you're the one straining at gnats over whether to round up or down by less than a single percentage point. Then again, you're also the one who insists a victory described as "narrow" on the front page of every single media outlet that election night and in virtually every article about it since then was really "decisive." Not that you'll ever address that fact though, seeing as you flee when you know you are wrong. Oh well. I guess it can wait until the next time you stalk me onto an obscure Texas politics thread.

110 - "Sounds to me like it would be tax payer money wasted in Texas then."

You got it right off - the 'Wham Bam Tram' in Houston is averaging one accident every 3 days or so, and carries almost no passengers from nowhere to nowhere.

It is a dangerous, expensive waste and boondoggle, by people who don't understand life in Houston. When I owned a house in Houston, I bought one close enough to work so that I could take the bus. (3.6 miles). It took me 2 transfers and 2 1/2 hours to make that trip.

114 - "What is your point?"

Sorry, If you don't see it - more and more transport is shifting away from diminishing rail lines to trucking. Not the opposite, as a percentage of total shipments. Total freight shipments are increasing, for both truck and rail and getting more and more specialized. Sorry, you can't increase your service by decreasing the number of rail milage or road milage either. No new rail lines are being built.

As a traffic manager, I spent years matching the load to the mode to give the best freight management by all modes, air, ship, barge, rail, truck, delivery service, messenger, to give the best service at the cheapest cost.

Mass transit in Houston is abominable, and will not work until Houston starts building up, instead of out. Houston is unique compared to other cities - it is new - it is designed for cars - it has no natural boundaries (Gulf of Mexico (75 miles south), Mississippi River 400 miles east, Rocky Mountains 1000 miles west, and North, well ...).

Houston is made up of numerous mini-city 'centers'. It is really spread out, and full of houses, suburban houses, with lawns and driveways and cars. It is not full of giant apartment buildings. There are very few. And what apartments there are, are generally limited to 2 stories.

New York has little tiny stores and apartments jumbled together, piled on top of one another. Everything can be had within 'walking' distance. In houston, the population lives in houses 3 to 5 times the size of a typical NY apartment, and everything is 'driving' distance.

NYC was built in the 1700-1800's - no one had cars. Houston was built in the 1900's when everyone had cars. Wham-Bam-Trams are not the solution to the mass transit problem in Houston.

Houston needs a paradigm shift in mass transit thinking, not a return to thinking a century or two old.

Sorry, If you don't see it - more and more transport is shifting away from diminishing rail lines to trucking. Not the opposite, as a percentage of total shipments. Total freight shipments are increasing, for both truck and rail and getting more and more specialized. Sorry, you can't increase your service by decreasing the number of rail milage or road milage either. No new rail lines are being built.

Well, I suppose I could either choose to believe you, or the tons per mile figure published by the railways every year. Yes, actually, you can grow your business even as you chop the weaker parts off at the knees. The greatest revolution in rail shipping has been the replacement of 2/3 of box car traffic with intermodal trailers and containers. This latter business does not require branchlines, which is mut of what has been pruned. The other great revolution has been the unit train hauling 115 ton cars of coal, aggregate, grain, and chemicals. Rail cars have gone from 50 tons to 70 tons to 100 tons to 115 tons during the past 45 years, and trains have gotten much longer as well, with 10,000-15,000 tons in 100-150 cars being typical, as opposed to 5,000 tons from years gone by. It goes without saying that your line capacity can be vastly increased by hauling more cars in longer trains with greater payload per car even as your total number of trains falls and you reduce your mileage.

For example, the main line across Pennsylvania's famous Horseshoe Curve handles as much tonnage as 50 years ago but in half the trains and despite the deindustrialization of the rust belt. Many lines out west handle much much more than ever before, which has necessitated hundreds of miles and double and triple tracks being constructed, and with more to come.

Lastly, main lines can be abandoned because two lines which worked at 2/3 of their maximum capacity 45 years ago can be combined into one line working at 2/3 of its capacity with the increase in train size and weight.

So yes service can be increased under the circumstances present today.

Here's some costs for our latest highway which may or may not get built around here.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/transportation/8519884.htm?ERIGHTS=6550458327843281561philly::annoying@annoying.com&KRD_RM=5ppstqlpsrmqsropllllllllls|Noneof|Y">http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/transportation/8519884.htm?ERIGHTS=6550458327843281561philly::annoying@annoying.com&KRD_RM=5ppstqlpsrmqsropllllllllls|Noneof|Y

"PennDot's announcement ends for now all design work and land purchases for the proposed nine-mile, $456 million highway from Montgomery Township to Doylestown."

This is a brand new 4 lane highway (2 lanes each direction) through a fairly undeveloped area that runs with the predominant topography (i.e. the road is going down a valley). PennDOT has owned a fair amount of land on the right of way for a while (few or no houses and business will have to go to build it), and the large interchage at one end is already built. No major interchanges or structures en route. $50 million per mile for a basic road through woods and farms and subdivisions. The area the road is being built through is hopelessly congested, and the highway will proabably be pretty full the day it opens with the growth going on up there. Traffic will probably be around 100,000 per day on this segment (we don't have all-day heavy use around here). The entire road will "bring in" $7.7 million in gas tax per year at that rate (actually, most of the people who use it are already clogging local roads nearby, so its not liek the money will really be new, but lets pretend). At a 30 year life, the money brought in won't even be half of just the present construction value, let alone paying for interest, maintenance (much more intensive up here with snow and freeze-thaw cycles), and police and lost property taxes. This is typical for roads in this area.

Notice the cost of this road is over half the cost of your 37 mile 20 lane monster in Houston. That's what a little bit of earthwork at $25 per CY will do to you!

All that being said, this road is desperately needed and should have been built 30 years ago. No thank you environmental whackos.

sorry - no wonder you are screwed up in your thinking. Service doesn't increase, capacity increases.

A mess hall has much greater capacity, not much greater service.

As for your 'intermodal' shipments - remember that ever single intermodal truck shipment requires at least two truck shipments.

If your thinking were correct, we would only need to have one way streets, and in the morning, they could go one way, and in the evening they could go the other way. Our roads could carry far more traffic that way.

I suggest that you replaice your car with a train.

All this fuzzy math is making my head spin.

Hey mac. Let me explain the situation we face in Houston.

The Dims in charge of City Council control city limits and thus the makeup of the electorate within the city. They keep the majority of the city voters Democrat by not annexing Republican suburbs that ring the city. Not surprisingly perhaps, there was pretty much a linear correlation last fall between those voting Democrat and those voting to extend the train system we have. There are more Democrats within the city limits, so the extension passed. Also, the vote on the extension was conducted before the present train system started operating and before voters could see what problems it had and how few riders. Perhaps Metro didn't want an informed electorate.

The present train system and its planned extension do a terrible job of addressing Houston's commuting problems. If you want to address commuting, you put the train lines between the major work centers and where the workers having commuting problems live. That is not where they put the train or plan to put the extension. The present system basically runs from one sports stadium to another and serves very few commuters. We needed it like a hole in the head. I'll let you figure out who might have benefited from it.

As currently envisioned, the train system will not seriously address the city's commuting problems for at least the next 15 or 20 years. But loads of money will be spent on a system for the inner city that moves slower than buses.

I'm going on my 30th year of having to fight traffic on Interstate 10, the major highway through the western side of Houston. Three lanes on each side, plus a single, alternating direction, high occupancy lane in the middle, plus feeder roads. The much needed expansion of this freeway was fought for years by the wackos. This section of freeway handles more than 210,000 vehicles a day. In contrast, a similar 3-lane Highway 101 freeway through Eureka, California, without the high occupancy lane in the middle, handles 30-35,000 vehicles a day. It's not fair.

I'm not taking a position on the Houston Metro expansion RB, just setting the record straight as it pertains to legitimate contractors making publically disclosed contributions to support projects that they will have a chance to bid on.

You might think GOPcapitalist is an honest broker on this issue, but he's lied about every aspect of the STV involvement in the process and I called him on it. Even this so-called original find of his is a blatent ripoff of a TTM piece from last October.

I'm not taking a position on the Houston Metro expansion RB, just setting the record straight as it pertains to legitimate contractors making publicly disclosed contributions to support projects that they will have a chance to bid on.

Fair enough. I wasn't aware of the STV contributions. Their contributions and subsequent selection by Metro may well be legal as you say if they were indeed public knowledge.

Other companies and industries have different standards. The private company I work for does not permit even the appearance of possible tit-for-tat impropriety.

Since it is painfully obvious that you are in over your head, please allow me to chime in.

GOPcapitalist didn't "ripoff" anything from TTM; he's been writing on this topic for quite some time, before TTM ran the article (which, if you have the sense to notice, was actually a "ripoff" from the Houston Review). And, if you had the cognitive capacity to comprehend the few lines of text in the original post, you would understand that the "find" was not the contributions reported in the Houston Review and previously commented on by GOPcap, but the fact that the contributor was rewarded with a contract, as predicted by the article in question and by GOPcap on numerous occasions (on FR and in correspondence).

While I am duly awed by your exhaustive knowledge of CFR, you should be aware that a contribution made in exchange for a guaranteed outcome is most certainly unethical, if not illegal.

And, though a certain sense of noblesse oblige requires me to respect your groping attempt at educated debate, the crass tone and illegibility of your uninformed stabs leaves me slightly nauseous. You accuse GOPcap of “lies,” yet every claim he’s made has been backed up, and every charge you’ve crudely lobbed has been refuted. I’m sorry you missed out on high school civics and are thus ignorant of the meaning of “margin of victory,” but that is your difficulty. Before attempting to interject yourself into another argument for which you are woefully unequipped, please do try to educate yourself a little. You could start with a dictionary.

Call me a cynic, but I suspect that, like a rat shunning the sunlight, you will shy away from any rudimentary self-improvement, preferring instead to remain a professional troll, which creature dwells in the sewers alongside welfare queens, transit-crats, repo-men and other parasitic scum.

you should be aware that a contribution made in exchange for a guaranteed outcome is most certainly unethical, if not illegal.

STV was one of six contractors bidding on the project, thus the outcome was not guaranteed as you falsely suggest. Their contribution was legal and ethical as it was publiclly disclosed months ahead of the Metro Bond referendum.

On the other hand the public still doesn't know who funded the multi-million dollar campaign against the Metro expansion, do they?

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