Posted on 12/02/2002 10:34:56 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Having a few train lines at a few billion dollars to serve a few hundred passengers is stupidity.
You have swallowed some utopian crap that makes you think trains are the answer to everything that faces this country, and it's total hogwash.
They have their place, but only after a thorough cost/benefit analysis conducted by people other than utopians.
Again, you simply do not know the Houston Chronicle or how it operates. Many papers would likely permit an opposing viewpoint on this issue, but when it comes to rail, not the Houston Chronicle.
They are notorious for screening their letters to the editor when it comes to the subject of rail. Write a pro-rail letter and it gets published the next day. Write an anti-rail letter and it is likely to never get published at all. Those that do make it in are only moderately anti-rail or get watered down heavily in the editing process before being printed.
If you doubt me look at their archives for an attempted rebuttal of their position on rail by Congressman Tom DeLay a few years ago. The Chronicle published a staunchly pro-rail editorial that also smeared DeLay for blocking federal funding from Metro. DeLay attempted to respond in a letter defending his action and criticizing rail. The Chronicle printed the letter with a second editorial on the opposite page calling DeLay names and accusing him of being a liar when he said, in the letter they printed, that the expenditure would have been wasteful. Over the weeks that followed they ran 2 or 3 more editorials referring back to DeLay's attempted rebuttal, each of them smearing him personally and pushing the rail agenda. Simply put, a rail opponent cannot even get a fair word into the debate as far as the Houston Chronicle is concerned.
A variety of transportation systems is fine, but that doesn't mean we have to install every single type of transportation known to man just because it is there. Some types work better than others in Houston and some don't work at all.
With rail the fact of the matter is that it simply doesn't work in Houston. It is not economical. It is not efficient. It does not operate well. It does virtually nothing to combat traffic congestion, and in fact in many cases it makes it worse.
Unfortunately Houston has learned this the hard way and, if the current line gets developed, will learn this the hard way a second time over. We had a rail system for over 70 years that was one of the most extensive in the nation by 1927. It was not efficient, nobody liked it, and it sucked up huge deficits every year. The invention of cars and busses, and later freeways, spelled the end for rail in Houston. Rail did not go without a fight though - they used city government to try and make themselves a monopoly for decades past their prime. In 1924 they even got the city charter amended to ban taxi cabs because they competed better as a means of transit. It was gone by 1940 though because rail simply didn't work.
Well, from what I can see, rail-opponents can be such frothing-at-the-mouth extremists that it ought to be a hilarious battle. Stir the pot and watch what flies! The People of Houston will figure out what they want in the end.
You take many assumptions with those you do not know. Study the Houston transit issue if you wish. As evidenced by that memo, you will likely find the rabids tend to occupy a spot on the Houston Chronicle editorial board rather than among our ranks.
The People of Houston will figure out what they want in the end.
Possibly, but for the most part the people of Houston, just like the public as a whole, are fickle. They were duped into banning taxi cabs in 1924 by the monopolist transit agency and paid for it with a shoddy rail system that they all but abandoned barely a decade later.
And what should we call those who support rail and are willing to smear and stifle any honest debate?
Actually, Jitneys were banned in 1924, when Houston Electric was allowed to introduce its first bus route. (Electric utilities often owned the streetcar lines.) However, in the Great Depression, FDR was anxious to put people to work building roads, so in 1935 Congress passed the Public Utilities Holding Company Act and the utilities had to get rid of their streetcars.
It's actually a shame that a stinking socialist like FDR killed off your streetcars. The Galveston-Houston Interurban looks like it was very technologicly advanced for its time. Had Houston the foresight to have kept and maintained/upgraded it, you'd have a worthwile system already in place.
They were banned after a massive propaganda campaign by Houston Electric in late 1923 following a decade of Houston Electric-induced city ordinances severely limiting their operation on the streets of Houston in order to eliminate the streetcar's main competitor from the market. Houston Electric, by the way, was not the utility you suggest it to be. It is short for Houston Electric Railway Company, the name adopted by Houston City Street Railway in the 1890's when they converted the streetcar lines to electricity.
However, in the Great Depression, FDR was anxious to put people to work building roads, so in 1935 Congress passed the Public Utilities Holding Company Act and the utilities had to get rid of their streetcars.
Houston Electric was not a utility though. It was a franchised streetcar company. It got rid of its streetcars in the late 1930's because they were not economically viable. They converted their entire system to bus routes, which they've used ever since.
It's actually a shame that a stinking socialist like FDR killed off your streetcars.
Check your history again. FDR did nothing of the sort. Capitalism killed off our streetcars after two decades of trying to extend their life artificially by protective statutes from the city.
The Galveston-Houston Interurban looks like it was very technologicly advanced for its time. Had Houston the foresight to have kept and maintained/upgraded it, you'd have a worthwile system already in place.
Again you've show you have not the slightest clue as to what you are talking about. The old interurban line went out of business back in the 30's as automobile transit came to dominate. As for maintaining it, the old galveston causeway is still there and is still the main train line onto the island. Several rail lines from Galveston to houston are still there as well. The only interurban segment to have completely dissappeared is the part inside the loop where I-45 runs now, and other rail lines along side it still connect to the old causeway. Aside from railroad track realignments, the only thing gone from the interurban are the cars. Some investor even tried to restart it about a decade ago. He had a passenger train running for a couple years between Galveston and Houston along virtually the same route and over the same causeway. But the thing went belly up. Know why? Because it wasn't economical, just like light rail isn't economical in Houston.
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