Texans for True Mobility Oppose METRO's Plan for Light Rail in Houston

Texans for True Mobility ^ | 9/25/03 | Chris Begala

[Frapster]

What's wrong with METRO's Plan?

Costs too much and does not relieve congestion:

By METRO’s own calculations, the initial 22 mile light rail component of this referendum will cost over $2.6 billion. The total 72.8 miles of METRO’s rail component found on the ballot will cost over $8 billion and move less than 1% of the trips in the Metro Service Area*.

Light rail may actually increase area congestion:

The rail could well add to congestion because it runs at street level, stops traffic and removes many lanes of roadway from our current system because most of the light rail is being built in the existing roadway.

It consumes funds needed to implement true congestion relief:

According to the Houston Galveston Area Council, METRO is currently scheduled to consume 48% of area transportation dollars through the year 2022 while moving about 2% of our traffic. Under METRO’s own light rail proposal, this imbalance would only get worse. We cannot afford to waste these precious public tax dollars.

We will not lose matching federal funding
if the light rail is not built:

The federal match of capital to be allegedly spent "on rail" can still be received if the money is spent on roads, technology, express streets, grade separation, bus expansion, commuter rail, or even (better planned) light rail.

Dallas already tried this experiment, and it has not worked:

Dallas has 44 miles of light rail, 34 miles of commuter rail, and a bus system, yet only 2% are riding all of this combined. Also, they are facing a $37M shortfall and have asked for federal assistance. Dallas has spent billions on three light rail lines, a commuter line, and an expanded bus sytem, and the census shows that fewer people rode public transit to work in 2000, than in 1990 before the billions were spent on additions and expansions.

The 25% General Mobility money is not protected:

METRO promised to protect the 25% of the METRO sales tax going to the City of Houston, Harris County, and neighboring towns, for roads. But METRO is very likely to experience major cash flow problems long before their plan is complete, and the 25% is simply not protected if consumed by operating losses or construction cost overruns.

METRO is already on highly unstable financial footing

An analysis of METRO’s budgets show that they have vastly overestimated their sales tax and federal grant revenues. METRO is likely to experience major cash flow problems in the near future and their precarious financial condition makes it inappropriate to ask voters to approve a massive, $640 million bond program, let alone embark on a $8 billion rail plan.

The plan is not structured to accommodate Houston’s growth:

If METRO’s plan passes, the first 22 miles of light rail is designed almost exclusively for serving downtown, even though only 7% of existing jobs are downtown, and 95% of the new jobs that will be created in Houston are not going downtown either. METRO says we need this new system to keep up with growth, but the majority of the growth will not be where the rail is being built.

Vast majority of proposed rail riders would come from buses:

Since the vast majority of rail riders (a very expensive system) will come from buses (a relatively inexpensive system), the METRO plan will make almost would have almost no impact on traffic and congestion and simply shuffle current riders to a new system, at great expense. In fact most riders will still have to take a bus to the rail, then ride the train, then take another bus when they disembark from the rail.

METRO's plan does NOT significantly expand bus service:

Contrary to METRO's claims, they would spend only 3.3% of the new funds on buses thru 2010, and absolutely no new funds from METRO Solutions goes to buses until 2006. In fact, most cities who build light rail, including Dallas, end up with a large increase in costs which results in cutting bus service and/or raising fares to support an expensive, inefficient rail system. Dallas recently increased the basic one-way fares from $1.00 to $1.25 and reduced train and bus service. By their own estimates, this will reduce ridership (boardings) by 5% to 7%. The result is that the person who has no choice and depends upon public transit pays more and gets less service, thus fewer people ride transit.

This wasteful expenditure
will ultimately cause a dollar for dollar tax:

If over $2 billion is wastefully spent on the initial 22 miles of light rail, which will not reduce congestion, it will deplete those limited funds available for other true congestion relief projects, and probably lead to a tax increase (i.e. property, gasoline, sales tax, and/or toll increases) to replace those wasted funds. We cannot afford to waste billions of transportation dollars on METRO's proposal, when it does almost nothing to solve our congestion problem.

We don’t need rail to be a “world class city”
or for economic development:

Dallas has rail, but was dropped from consideration for the Olympics long before Houston. On the other hand, San Antonio landed a huge Toyota plant after voting down their light rail system. Austin also voted down light rail, and has Dell, Motorola, and a large amount of new business development and entrepreneurs. Consider our energy industry, the Medical Center, the Port, NASA – we Houstonians have built a thriving, wonderful city without a light rail system that does not reduce congestion. Congestion is the real threat to growth, and this plan does not address congestion.

(* Rail construction costs, operation and maintenance costs, contingency costs and debt service..)

[Frapster]

If you live in Houston in particular - stop by the site and get informed.

[Support Free Republic]

A Recall AND a Fundraiser? I'm toast.

Let's get this over with FAST. Please contribute!

[Frapster]

Bumpety bump bump

[Blood of Tyrants]

They are trying to get a similar poorly conceived plan here in Tennessee to run from Lebanon to Nashville (about 27 miles). The problems are, 1) that public transportation in Nashville is practically non-existant, once you get off the train, you will most likely still be several miles from work, 2)the Lebanon-Nashville roadway is one of the least congested, 3)few people will even ride it because it will be neither quicker nor more convenient, 4)many people will STILL have to drive 6 or 8 miles just to get to the train station.

[BUSHdude2000]

Already Voting Against Rail Bump.

[longtermmemmory]

Miami made a metro system. Promptly after completion. Downtown took a dump. However, more parking construction relieved the problem. duh.

These metro systems need to be agressivly voted down. Its an effort to eliminate private cars.

Architects need to have some serious education in PRIVATE not collective ownership. It seems every architct I deal with is a supporter of the DNC/socialists. It seems any professionals personal politics matter.

[longtermmemmory]

in order for a rail system to be useful, the city would have to be MORE DENSE!!

[RobbyS]

Dallas already tried this experiment, and it has not worked: Dallas has 44 miles of light rail, 34 miles of commuter rail, and a bus system, yet only 2% are riding all of this combined. Also, they are facing a $37M shortfall and have asked for federal assistance. Dallas has spent billions on three light rail lines, a commuter line, and an expanded bus sytem, and the census shows that fewer people rode public transit to work in 2000, than in 1990 before the billions were spent on additions and expansions

Many people are in love with their private autos, which fits with their house in the suburbs that they oppose the using of transportation dollars for any other purpose than streets and highways. Many others have no choice because there is no public transportation. The result is that there are more cars than will fit on the roads, a fact that is evident to anyone who has to use I-35E during the rush hour. Improvements to this corridor would cure the problem if they had been made today, but when they are finished they will already be inadequate. Denton County has just bought into the idea of a rail system that will patch into the Dallas system. Will it eliminate traffic jams along I-35E? No. The question is, however, what can we do instead? The answer is: Not much.

Our personal experience with trasnportion in Germany showed us that given a choice people will prefer the privat Auto every time, but that a very high use of bus and rail, which takes pressure off the road net, is possible. Will it may for itself? No, but neither does the private car.

[Barney Gumble]

Although I was eager for a public transportation system, the Metro Rail isn't the way to go. It's going to stop a lot of traffic and who can ride it in its current state? People who live near the one rail?

Who in Houston actually kid themselves that they would get the Olympics. No industrial city will get the olympics. Please, it was just an excuse so "Out of Town" Brown could spend millions of taypayer money. He built 3 new stadiums in about 4 years! That's unheard of! What was wrong with the Compaq center? No corporate boxes

[Dog Gone]

The Houston light rail project is merely a scam by politicians and real estate developers. A few people and businesses will profit, at the great expense to the rest of us.

The metropolitan area covers about 2000 square miles.

Even the biggest plan proposed by Metro would have less than 75 miles of track at a cost of $8 billion serving 1% of commuters, nearly all of whom ride buses today.

We would actually save money by buying each rider a new Lamborghini.

[Flyer]

Derail Metro Ping!

As always, a FReep mail will get you on or off this Houston topics ping list.

---

[Frapster]

A 'thanks for pinging your list' bump.

[daviddennis]

If customers prefer the private auto, why not simply give them more roads instead of extraordinarily expensive systems that only a 2% or so of the local population will use?

People in Germany have much denser cities and it costs a lot more to keep cars there. That's why public transit can succeed there, while it's a dismal failure everywhere in the US but New York.

I don't think Americans would stand for making cars as expensive to run as they do in Germany.

D

[Allegra]

Who in Houston actually kid themselves that they would get the Olympics. No industrial city will get the olympics. Please, it was just an excuse so "Out of Town" Brown could spend millions of taypayer money. He built 3 new stadiums in about 4 years!

I think (but I am wrong a couple times a year...) that those stadium proposals were voted in through a referendum called Proposition 1 under Bob Lanier. It passed by a razor-thin margin.

But you're right about the current Metro line under construction. The reason used for that was the potential 2012 Olympics. C'mon, how viable is a line from downtown to Reliant Park? They're snowing us with that one. And not one person with any brains thought Houston was going to host the Olympics. (Thank goodness.)

The whole mass transportation plan needs a much more extensive look than it's getting. We need to defeat this current proposal and let some people who know what they're talking about take the whole idea back to the drawing board.

[RobbyS]

The reason why only 2% of the people use public transportation is that it does not help them get to and from their work or to where they want to shop. More than a decade ago, Lewisville chose not to buy into DART because its people did not want to spend the money, since the roads were at that time adequate. But now the city has grown by leaps and bounds and even an idiot can see that it will take twenty years just to build a road net that would handle the traffic TODAY. And cars are multiplying like tribbles. But the idea has got hold that everyone should have his own car. One day my wife and I were driving along 635, a heavily congested loop and she was observing that hardly any cars had two or more persons in this. Later driving north onf I 35 We saw that this was true of most of the cars moving north with us. Man, many of these were SUVs, so we have the fact of all these large cars carrying just one person. My wife and I flew into Pittsburg on our way to Europe via her homtown in WV. We rented a car and then dropped it in Philadelphia. When we got out I was exhaused from fighting the traffic and this was the middle of the day. The next day we landed in Frankfurt and again rented a car. We got on the Autobahn and drove north toward Cologne. After about five minutes I turned to my wife and asked her: "Where are all the cars?" because in the very urbanized area between the airport and Mainz, the numbers of cars was nothing like what I had experienced driving into Philadelphia. I know tourists are scared of driving on the Autobahen, but despite the high speeds and occasional staus that will back up traffif for miles, it is nothing like driving in the States in a majority urban area.

[Servant of the 9]

This fight has been going on for 25 years.
Is there no way to kill it forever?

Perhaps a State Constitutional Ammendment baring commuter rail/light rail in Harris County?

So9

[RobbyS]

In favor of Free enterprise? Well, there is a movement to promote more toll roads in this area. I am in favor of it. If I have to pay to ride a train, then I should have to pay to drive on a motorway.

[GOPcapitalist]

Is there no way to kill it forever?

Yeah. It's called abolishing METRO.

[Servant of the 9]

Is there no way to kill it forever? Yeah. It's called abolishing METRO.

I think the light rail proposal preceded and was the excuse for the Metro we have today.
There was the Houston Socialist Bus Service, but they had no taxing authority.
Abolishing Metro will just send them back to find a new way to fund it.

So9

[rustbucket]

The Houston light rail project is merely a scam by politicians and real estate developers. A few people and businesses will profit, at the great expense to the rest of us.

You nailed it. The long commute times aren't in the central city. Why build something just within the 610 loop and expect it to handle Houston's transportation needs for the next 10 years?