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.
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.