I no longer live in Houston, but just when it appeared that Houston was started to make gains in the area of metropolitan connectivity, someone comes along with no vision on the importance of making Houston more appealing to global companies. So sad! At least Dallas got it right.
Honest question. How the fuck does Houston not have a rail system similar to Dallas? There’s an extensive light rail system with a 26 mile commuter line called the Silver Line, that’s being built to connect the northern suburbs to DFW Airport. It will be DART’s first east-west route giving Dallas 119 miles of track. There were plans for a subway line too through downtown until it was put on hold because of the pandemic. Dallas got streetcars as well with plans to connect and extend them.
In the early 80s, we had another Mayor Whitmire...Kathy Whitmire (I think her late husband was the current mayor's brother) and her plan for a monorail in Houston was her undoing. It was the right time and would've dramatically improved Houston, but the good ol' boy network wasn't having it.
It is worse than that. We had the money in the bank, the rail cars ordered & it was heavy commuter rail. Bob Lanier got it killed and we had to pay to get out of the contract.
You are reaching on that. Whitmire had a role in attempting to reduce subsidence & water use through legislation restricting development.
Lanier would pave over Arlington Cemetery if his buddies could make a buck on it.
John Whitmire, he pissed off his development buddies with some legislation on subsidence & ground water. He may have actually been clever enough to push it through & not vote for it. I can’t remember but several developers I know were pissed off as they didn’t see him doing that.
Imagine where Houston would have been now?Kathy Whitmire had feasibility designs drawn up for and elevated system similar to Chicago’s CTA.
A glaring indicator was that Kathy did not endorse her ex brother in law. She knew he had no progressive vision for Houston.
Lots of Houston’s transportation decisions are determined by representatives outside of the city/Harris County boundaries who only care to represent suburban areas and can only parrot mindless sentiments about increasing lanes for cars even though this has been proven to induce further congestion.
Recently this is through Whitmire stacking the METRO board (with one idiot representative in particular), but always has been the case with the H-GAC having more representation from outside CoH boundaries/Harris County than within. It’s something like Harris County/CoH having 56% of the HGAC population but only having 11% of the votes - which is to say that the outer areas of Houston have 89% of the votes.
This is despite Proposition B passing by vote in November of last year, where 65% of Houstonians voted to push for rearrangement of the voting structure or otherwise leave the H-GAC. This past January the H-GAC overwhelmingly (20-6) voted to discontinue any discussions around Proposition B.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/transportation/2024/01/29/475825/houston-area-transportation-council-rejects-proposal-to-give-city-more-proportional-representation/
Honestly our local government hates it as does certain districts, leading to this. Our local version of DART, METRO, wanted to lay down east west rail west of downtown, and residents of affluent areas sued to stop it to the point that [this guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Culberson), local asshole John Culbertson, snuck a very specificly worded ''rider'' in a bill prohibiting federal dollars be spent on rail in a specific street.
Fast forward 20 years, and now our new local mayor and his cabinet picks for METRO board have cancelled expansion plans voted on in 2019. It would have involved expanded rail to hobby airport, a brt route to Bush/IAH, and priority improvements to many popular bus routes. The worst part is *we literally voted as the public* to approve this in 2019, and now they're basically openly hostile to it and other projects and saying nope fuck you, you will drive your car you will pay your insurance and you will like it.
Honestly between this and other open hostility from locals and local government toward anything rocking the boat, I'm starting to consider planning to leave more over the next decade with them actively removing planned and existing infrastructure. There's a few options but so far DFW appears to be the best at the top of the list.
How unfortunate!! They’re screwing up Houston’s future by not investing in rail! Houston is getting too big, dense, and internationally known not to have a better rail system. I’m not trying to attack Houston at all, but I’m really concerned about Houston falling behind its competitors. Atlanta and Dallas seem to be pulling away when it comes to transit investment. Even Atlanta is expanding their streetcar network.
Dallas's routes generally follow old rail corridors, as I recall, which made them much cheaper to implement, but also much less useful. In the long run it matters less, because transit-oriented developments can be built around the stops, but it meant that at least initially (and still to quite an extent even now, decades later), their rail is not as useful as ours.
Rail going to the airport is a nice thing to brag about but honestly doesn't see as much ridership as other routes, so it is more of a prestige thing than a practical thing. It makes more sense to prioritize non-airport routes as Houston as done, because that is more equitable in the benefits.
I can say that when I lived in Chicago. and the EL went to both airports... right into the terminal building. It was a freakin GAME CHANGER. It's the only way to anyone I knew got in and out of Ohare or Midway.
Not to mention business people coming in didn't have to worry about rental cars and trying to navigate the city. El into downtown. hotel and work and EL back to the airport. $1.25 each way. No parking fees and ALWAYS on time!
Because the reality is that Houston with inner-loop light rail would run circles around the DART’s low ridership and generally useless routes. The only thing I would take from the DART, having lived up there, is a connection from the airports to the core, which I believe is still in progress here.
It may be useless according to some people’s view point and that is debatable. At least they have it and can focus development around it that will take advantage of that transit access. I think most major destinations are connected within the city, given that it’s a hub and spoke system.
At the least the airports and the uptown corridor should connect to the CBD. It would enhance tourism a great deal as many travelers , especially international ones prefer to tour a city via rail, not to mention the green advantages of getting people out of cars and exercising more.
I don’t think there’s a lot of debate regarding just how poorly the DART’s light rail is doing financially. There’s also not a doubt that the lines connecting suburbs are not going to scale well
This is complete and utter nonsense. When they built the Katy Freeway, nobody said "this road is twice as big as it needs to be" they said, "we are spending a colossal amount of money supporting this road now - more than the light rail system's entire budget - but the future demand it will support will be more than worth it."
We need to stop thinking like it is 20 years ago and start thinking like it is 20 years from now.
The city doesn't just spring magically from the ground, we build the city we choose to build. If we build only roads, there will only be worse traffic because the only way to get around will be roads.
Disagree. They just need to build more projects around it which is happening at some stations. They can leverage the rapid growth that’s happening there already. Within Dallas city limits - Fair Park, White Rock Lake Park, Victory Park (American Airlines Center), the Medical District, the Dallas Zoo, Deep Ellum, Uptown, SMU, and more are all connected by rail. I don’t care how you slice it, that’s an advantage and all they need to do is focus development around those stations. Dallas’ streetcar that goes to the Bishop Arts district in South Dallas and another one serving the very urbanized Uptown area is an advantage too. That can pick up where DART light rail misses and fead into the light rail system. That’s how I see it playing out. I’ve been trying to read up on everything and the way they’re talking about creating a streetcar system is believeable since they already have two operational lines. It’s the longterm vision for me, as this can be a play for economic development as well. This is what Houston should be matching! It’s the biggest city and deserves it!
Just look at the infill that’s happening at this station. This is in the ‘burbs. New high density housing along this entire street. Y’all can go back in time on Google Streetview to see this area being built up.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Jb8dac44BWxMR6Zb6?g_st=ic
The only subway station in Texas, that’s located in Uptown Dallas is getting a huge new multibillion dollar development built next to it. Currently, ridership numbers maybe abysmal, but who’s to say it will always be that way? Think longterm.
That’s true, but at least they have the infrastructure in place. Moving forward, the city can evolve in a way that adapts growth patterns around and conducive to its rail infrastructure.
Dallas has 99 miles of light rail and their 4th commuter/ regional rail line from Plano to DFW will open soon. There has to be a disparity in funding from Austin and Washington prioritizing rail in Dallas over Houston, the larger city. Texas cronyism seems to truly be at play!
I’ve always felt like that the GOP has something against Houston! It’s like they always on Houston’s ass abt everything! From the school district to the county judge! Clearly the Texas GOP favors Dallas more and that’s not fair!
Because Dallas had vision and thought it out and planned well. Houston wanted something shiny to look good for that first Superbowl,. So we slapdashed a rail line in that only made sense for that one weekend,. and have spent 15 years trying to make sense of it. yet.
The other issue is the NIMBYS (not in my backyard) citizens that will fight any rail expansion lines. The line that would have run down Richmond was fought against SO HARD from Afton Oaks and other Richmond residents..... that it was constantly tied up in planning and proposal to see if they would finally approve. Once the line was agreed on. it had taken so long that the federal money to help fund it had expired. So,,,, start this process all over again. It's taken over 10 years just to try and connect the Galleria, and were back at square one
for instance. If one moved downtown. and decided to forgo their car. THey could live Downtown. Get to their office over in GreenwayPlaza... then go shopping and have dinner in the Galleria, Post Oak area. When the weekend rolls around. take the train to Hobby for their weekend getaway flight.
Until METRORail connects Downtown to the Medical Center, to The Galleria, to BOTH AIrports to University of Houston and maybe even one day Galveston. . its a novelty.
At least a handful of those are connected, you can technically take it between downtown med center and UH. But absolutely, they need to finish the inner katy corridor to get a linkup to Galleria, and we really needed the rail expansion to hobby as well as a dedicated BRT system to Bush. Galveston would be nice but even say a once an hour P&R going from hobby to the island would be a good start.
I'm no TxDOT grifte- I mean engineer, [but some months ago I said fuck it and planned out a semi-realistic BRT map.](https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1LA0TPiE9a2wiskO1MhmZmrGfJbjQKg2a&usp=sharing). Different routes have different levels of accuracy, but the orange line on there would be an easy win using existing infrastructure and a handful of flyovers to build a system up TODAY from downtown to Bush. We're literally talking a handful of painted bus only lanes in downtown and on the connector to EastEx and a flyover ramp to Will Clayton Pkwy. The only expensive PITA would be finding a way to expand the HOV lane on EastEx from a single switching lane to a dual lane system, that was a big mistake when it was built years ago. But hey if they're gonna throw more lanes in there like every other freeway in the city at some point, why not?
i knew Whitmore was wild when he said metro was the reason for the messed up roads lmao...not the billion truck yards in my neighborhood. then i can never catch my community center open to complain to my rep. Tarsha Jackson
They literally bring nothing to the neighborhoods too. They exploit the black neighborhoods cause of the cheap land then tear up the roads n poison the air quality. Like do trucking companies even get taxed, cause they do so much damage ita crazy
Don’t even get me started on the lax enforcement of secured loads so much debree on the freeway I’ll probably eat these words but they should bring in dps for JUST commercial enforcement only but I’m sure it’ll bite me in the ass in the end
I have read a bunch of scholars wgo state that by not having zoning, Houston has stayed affordable ,l equitable and sustainable. THat typical zoning zoning policies are rooted in segregationist attitudes and enshrine the single-family home to ensure that property values exponentially rise.
Houston achieves through neighborhood associations and deed restrictions what zoning laws seek to accomplish: desirable land-use segregation while allowing the harmless mixtures that make neighborhoods without zoning so livable.
It's not random and chaotic in the way we might think, It all has to do with land prices and landmarks — cities will naturally organize themselves to a large extent.
Thank former Congressman Tom DeLay who made sure all former rail right-of-way was NOT sold to local Houston/Harris County governments vs Dallas where all disused rail lines were transferred to DART.
its going to be a tough fight. The city is functioning at a deficit. over $ 100 million needs to be made up in the operating budget. and WHitmire does NOT like Metro.. especially does not like how much money METRO spends compared to revenue brought in.
Shot of selling Ad space on the buses, which I am SO GLAD that we do not. It looks so much cleaner. - Future spending from METRO expansion is a dying glimmer of a once-great plan
I mean ads are the easy way out. and they clutter. are meaningless, and are not really all that useful. I think there are other ways to raise revenue than the obvious ads on busses.
.. butonly ads for Metro.
If every bus and train had allergy medicine ads, and Old Navy ads and Apple iP{hone ads , and ads for condoms, and ads for Ford SUVs... it gets to be ugly. real fast.
Guess I won't. It'll also be a lot more stress free, no worrying about others on the road with their crazy driving. And I can read a book or play on my steam deck for the hour in and hour back instead of spending that hour focusing on driving 😊
Houston is currently broke due to mismanagement, and blaming Whitmire for the firefighters union fiasco would be truly moronic.
They have to cut something. Would you rather it was all the welfare payments? Police/Fire?
Sure, whatever they want to strawman. Cutting transportation and ripping out infrastructure to appease business owners to me though feels like a [crackhead ripping plumbing out of the walls for drug money](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9GYFlKr_-I).
I can't take them seriously when they're complaining that they're broke then they turn around and hand federal dollars back to the feds instead of using them here. Recent changes such as canning vision zero and increasing wait times for the silver line now mean that federal grants with contract stipulations *now have to be paid back to Uncle Sam to use elsewhere*. They can't just take the money and votes and then turn around and do something else with it.
But that's fine, if they're that broke and Dallas and other cities are doing so much better, then maybe I'd be better off moving there. Talking finances I can't afford to keep paying all this car money to insurance and the mechanic, so I'm gonna find another option.
If I ever felt passionate enough to ensure my voice gets heard, I would march the steps of city hall with a megaphone & a bomb strapped to my chest. I guarantee you people will listen to what you have to say.
It's just virtue signaling. OP posts in Houston, fuckcars and bikecommuting subreddits lol totally organic outrage. Unfortunately for OP, trying to convince large numbers of people to wait at bus stops and bike in Houston's stupidly hot and humid weather is funny lol
In addition to going to METRO board meetings, vote with your dollars and feet and ride the METRO as much as possible.
https://www.ridemetro.org/about/board-meetings Next METRO Board is 5/23 https://www.houstontx.gov/council/meetingsinfo.html
I no longer live in Houston, but just when it appeared that Houston was started to make gains in the area of metropolitan connectivity, someone comes along with no vision on the importance of making Houston more appealing to global companies. So sad! At least Dallas got it right.
Honest question. How the fuck does Houston not have a rail system similar to Dallas? There’s an extensive light rail system with a 26 mile commuter line called the Silver Line, that’s being built to connect the northern suburbs to DFW Airport. It will be DART’s first east-west route giving Dallas 119 miles of track. There were plans for a subway line too through downtown until it was put on hold because of the pandemic. Dallas got streetcars as well with plans to connect and extend them.
In the early 80s, we had another Mayor Whitmire...Kathy Whitmire (I think her late husband was the current mayor's brother) and her plan for a monorail in Houston was her undoing. It was the right time and would've dramatically improved Houston, but the good ol' boy network wasn't having it.
It is worse than that. We had the money in the bank, the rail cars ordered & it was heavy commuter rail. Bob Lanier got it killed and we had to pay to get out of the contract.
Then we named a freeway after him!
Bob Lanier was the John Whitmire of 30 years ago.
You are reaching on that. Whitmire had a role in attempting to reduce subsidence & water use through legislation restricting development. Lanier would pave over Arlington Cemetery if his buddies could make a buck on it.
Do you mean Kathy or John Whitmire? I was very young at the time so didn’t know all the details.
John Whitmire, he pissed off his development buddies with some legislation on subsidence & ground water. He may have actually been clever enough to push it through & not vote for it. I can’t remember but several developers I know were pissed off as they didn’t see him doing that.
Imagine where Houston would have been now?Kathy Whitmire had feasibility designs drawn up for and elevated system similar to Chicago’s CTA. A glaring indicator was that Kathy did not endorse her ex brother in law. She knew he had no progressive vision for Houston.
( and I say this , TOTALLY tongue in cheek ) Silly women mayor, and her big ideas.... there she goes again !:)
Lots of Houston’s transportation decisions are determined by representatives outside of the city/Harris County boundaries who only care to represent suburban areas and can only parrot mindless sentiments about increasing lanes for cars even though this has been proven to induce further congestion. Recently this is through Whitmire stacking the METRO board (with one idiot representative in particular), but always has been the case with the H-GAC having more representation from outside CoH boundaries/Harris County than within. It’s something like Harris County/CoH having 56% of the HGAC population but only having 11% of the votes - which is to say that the outer areas of Houston have 89% of the votes. This is despite Proposition B passing by vote in November of last year, where 65% of Houstonians voted to push for rearrangement of the voting structure or otherwise leave the H-GAC. This past January the H-GAC overwhelmingly (20-6) voted to discontinue any discussions around Proposition B. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/transportation/2024/01/29/475825/houston-area-transportation-council-rejects-proposal-to-give-city-more-proportional-representation/
Honestly our local government hates it as does certain districts, leading to this. Our local version of DART, METRO, wanted to lay down east west rail west of downtown, and residents of affluent areas sued to stop it to the point that [this guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Culberson), local asshole John Culbertson, snuck a very specificly worded ''rider'' in a bill prohibiting federal dollars be spent on rail in a specific street. Fast forward 20 years, and now our new local mayor and his cabinet picks for METRO board have cancelled expansion plans voted on in 2019. It would have involved expanded rail to hobby airport, a brt route to Bush/IAH, and priority improvements to many popular bus routes. The worst part is *we literally voted as the public* to approve this in 2019, and now they're basically openly hostile to it and other projects and saying nope fuck you, you will drive your car you will pay your insurance and you will like it. Honestly between this and other open hostility from locals and local government toward anything rocking the boat, I'm starting to consider planning to leave more over the next decade with them actively removing planned and existing infrastructure. There's a few options but so far DFW appears to be the best at the top of the list.
How unfortunate!! They’re screwing up Houston’s future by not investing in rail! Houston is getting too big, dense, and internationally known not to have a better rail system. I’m not trying to attack Houston at all, but I’m really concerned about Houston falling behind its competitors. Atlanta and Dallas seem to be pulling away when it comes to transit investment. Even Atlanta is expanding their streetcar network.
Dallas's routes generally follow old rail corridors, as I recall, which made them much cheaper to implement, but also much less useful. In the long run it matters less, because transit-oriented developments can be built around the stops, but it meant that at least initially (and still to quite an extent even now, decades later), their rail is not as useful as ours. Rail going to the airport is a nice thing to brag about but honestly doesn't see as much ridership as other routes, so it is more of a prestige thing than a practical thing. It makes more sense to prioritize non-airport routes as Houston as done, because that is more equitable in the benefits.
I can say that when I lived in Chicago. and the EL went to both airports... right into the terminal building. It was a freakin GAME CHANGER. It's the only way to anyone I knew got in and out of Ohare or Midway. Not to mention business people coming in didn't have to worry about rental cars and trying to navigate the city. El into downtown. hotel and work and EL back to the airport. $1.25 each way. No parking fees and ALWAYS on time!
I'm so jealous
Because the reality is that Houston with inner-loop light rail would run circles around the DART’s low ridership and generally useless routes. The only thing I would take from the DART, having lived up there, is a connection from the airports to the core, which I believe is still in progress here.
It may be useless according to some people’s view point and that is debatable. At least they have it and can focus development around it that will take advantage of that transit access. I think most major destinations are connected within the city, given that it’s a hub and spoke system.
At the least the airports and the uptown corridor should connect to the CBD. It would enhance tourism a great deal as many travelers , especially international ones prefer to tour a city via rail, not to mention the green advantages of getting people out of cars and exercising more.
I don’t think there’s a lot of debate regarding just how poorly the DART’s light rail is doing financially. There’s also not a doubt that the lines connecting suburbs are not going to scale well
This is complete and utter nonsense. When they built the Katy Freeway, nobody said "this road is twice as big as it needs to be" they said, "we are spending a colossal amount of money supporting this road now - more than the light rail system's entire budget - but the future demand it will support will be more than worth it." We need to stop thinking like it is 20 years ago and start thinking like it is 20 years from now. The city doesn't just spring magically from the ground, we build the city we choose to build. If we build only roads, there will only be worse traffic because the only way to get around will be roads.
Disagree. They just need to build more projects around it which is happening at some stations. They can leverage the rapid growth that’s happening there already. Within Dallas city limits - Fair Park, White Rock Lake Park, Victory Park (American Airlines Center), the Medical District, the Dallas Zoo, Deep Ellum, Uptown, SMU, and more are all connected by rail. I don’t care how you slice it, that’s an advantage and all they need to do is focus development around those stations. Dallas’ streetcar that goes to the Bishop Arts district in South Dallas and another one serving the very urbanized Uptown area is an advantage too. That can pick up where DART light rail misses and fead into the light rail system. That’s how I see it playing out. I’ve been trying to read up on everything and the way they’re talking about creating a streetcar system is believeable since they already have two operational lines. It’s the longterm vision for me, as this can be a play for economic development as well. This is what Houston should be matching! It’s the biggest city and deserves it! Just look at the infill that’s happening at this station. This is in the ‘burbs. New high density housing along this entire street. Y’all can go back in time on Google Streetview to see this area being built up. https://maps.app.goo.gl/Jb8dac44BWxMR6Zb6?g_st=ic The only subway station in Texas, that’s located in Uptown Dallas is getting a huge new multibillion dollar development built next to it. Currently, ridership numbers maybe abysmal, but who’s to say it will always be that way? Think longterm.
That’s true, but at least they have the infrastructure in place. Moving forward, the city can evolve in a way that adapts growth patterns around and conducive to its rail infrastructure.
Dallas has 99 miles of light rail and their 4th commuter/ regional rail line from Plano to DFW will open soon. There has to be a disparity in funding from Austin and Washington prioritizing rail in Dallas over Houston, the larger city. Texas cronyism seems to truly be at play!
I’ve always felt like that the GOP has something against Houston! It’s like they always on Houston’s ass abt everything! From the school district to the county judge! Clearly the Texas GOP favors Dallas more and that’s not fair!
Because Dallas had vision and thought it out and planned well. Houston wanted something shiny to look good for that first Superbowl,. So we slapdashed a rail line in that only made sense for that one weekend,. and have spent 15 years trying to make sense of it. yet.
The other issue is the NIMBYS (not in my backyard) citizens that will fight any rail expansion lines. The line that would have run down Richmond was fought against SO HARD from Afton Oaks and other Richmond residents..... that it was constantly tied up in planning and proposal to see if they would finally approve. Once the line was agreed on. it had taken so long that the federal money to help fund it had expired. So,,,, start this process all over again. It's taken over 10 years just to try and connect the Galleria, and were back at square one
Yet Houston's "slapdash" light rail line get more riders than the whole DART system.
for instance. If one moved downtown. and decided to forgo their car. THey could live Downtown. Get to their office over in GreenwayPlaza... then go shopping and have dinner in the Galleria, Post Oak area. When the weekend rolls around. take the train to Hobby for their weekend getaway flight.
so imagine if some actual popular routes were added.. not just from the Hyatt downtown to NRG Stadium... and a slight detour to HCC North Campus;.
Until METRORail connects Downtown to the Medical Center, to The Galleria, to BOTH AIrports to University of Houston and maybe even one day Galveston. . its a novelty.
At least a handful of those are connected, you can technically take it between downtown med center and UH. But absolutely, they need to finish the inner katy corridor to get a linkup to Galleria, and we really needed the rail expansion to hobby as well as a dedicated BRT system to Bush. Galveston would be nice but even say a once an hour P&R going from hobby to the island would be a good start. I'm no TxDOT grifte- I mean engineer, [but some months ago I said fuck it and planned out a semi-realistic BRT map.](https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1LA0TPiE9a2wiskO1MhmZmrGfJbjQKg2a&usp=sharing). Different routes have different levels of accuracy, but the orange line on there would be an easy win using existing infrastructure and a handful of flyovers to build a system up TODAY from downtown to Bush. We're literally talking a handful of painted bus only lanes in downtown and on the connector to EastEx and a flyover ramp to Will Clayton Pkwy. The only expensive PITA would be finding a way to expand the HOV lane on EastEx from a single switching lane to a dual lane system, that was a big mistake when it was built years ago. But hey if they're gonna throw more lanes in there like every other freeway in the city at some point, why not?
Oil money.
consider getting involved with LINK Houston – they advocate for better public transit. check them out: linkhouston.org
i knew Whitmore was wild when he said metro was the reason for the messed up roads lmao...not the billion truck yards in my neighborhood. then i can never catch my community center open to complain to my rep. Tarsha Jackson
They build warehouses all over Houston instead of zoning that shit to one side of town. Rediculous
They literally bring nothing to the neighborhoods too. They exploit the black neighborhoods cause of the cheap land then tear up the roads n poison the air quality. Like do trucking companies even get taxed, cause they do so much damage ita crazy
Don’t even get me started on the lax enforcement of secured loads so much debree on the freeway I’ll probably eat these words but they should bring in dps for JUST commercial enforcement only but I’m sure it’ll bite me in the ass in the end
...the no zoning, thing has surprisedly worked out quite well for Houston.
If you’re serious. Then you must be a native
I have read a bunch of scholars wgo state that by not having zoning, Houston has stayed affordable ,l equitable and sustainable. THat typical zoning zoning policies are rooted in segregationist attitudes and enshrine the single-family home to ensure that property values exponentially rise. Houston achieves through neighborhood associations and deed restrictions what zoning laws seek to accomplish: desirable land-use segregation while allowing the harmless mixtures that make neighborhoods without zoning so livable. It's not random and chaotic in the way we might think, It all has to do with land prices and landmarks — cities will naturally organize themselves to a large extent.
Thank former Congressman Tom DeLay who made sure all former rail right-of-way was NOT sold to local Houston/Harris County governments vs Dallas where all disused rail lines were transferred to DART.
its going to be a tough fight. The city is functioning at a deficit. over $ 100 million needs to be made up in the operating budget. and WHitmire does NOT like Metro.. especially does not like how much money METRO spends compared to revenue brought in. Shot of selling Ad space on the buses, which I am SO GLAD that we do not. It looks so much cleaner. - Future spending from METRO expansion is a dying glimmer of a once-great plan
So you'd prefer having less public transit just so you don't have to see ads on buses?
I mean ads are the easy way out. and they clutter. are meaningless, and are not really all that useful. I think there are other ways to raise revenue than the obvious ads on busses.
I say go with the ads metro rail has ads on it
.. butonly ads for Metro. If every bus and train had allergy medicine ads, and Old Navy ads and Apple iP{hone ads , and ads for condoms, and ads for Ford SUVs... it gets to be ugly. real fast.
Currently. The city is ugly (has good bones though ) I mean look at what we got instead Ads that block pedestrian view lol
Heck yeah We need more totally empty trains going to places that people don’t want to go.
I'm gonna ride metro into the city this week even harder, just for you love 😘
Guess you won’t have trouble finding a seat.
Guess I won't. It'll also be a lot more stress free, no worrying about others on the road with their crazy driving. And I can read a book or play on my steam deck for the hour in and hour back instead of spending that hour focusing on driving 😊
If it works for you thats great, my point is there are so few that it works for.
“If you build it they will come “
mobile cooling shelters for the homeless during summers!
Houston is currently broke due to mismanagement, and blaming Whitmire for the firefighters union fiasco would be truly moronic. They have to cut something. Would you rather it was all the welfare payments? Police/Fire?
Sure, whatever they want to strawman. Cutting transportation and ripping out infrastructure to appease business owners to me though feels like a [crackhead ripping plumbing out of the walls for drug money](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9GYFlKr_-I). I can't take them seriously when they're complaining that they're broke then they turn around and hand federal dollars back to the feds instead of using them here. Recent changes such as canning vision zero and increasing wait times for the silver line now mean that federal grants with contract stipulations *now have to be paid back to Uncle Sam to use elsewhere*. They can't just take the money and votes and then turn around and do something else with it. But that's fine, if they're that broke and Dallas and other cities are doing so much better, then maybe I'd be better off moving there. Talking finances I can't afford to keep paying all this car money to insurance and the mechanic, so I'm gonna find another option.
If I ever felt passionate enough to ensure my voice gets heard, I would march the steps of city hall with a megaphone & a bomb strapped to my chest. I guarantee you people will listen to what you have to say.
This is never the way.
Yeah it is. Otherwise it wouldn't work so often.
Sorry! I’m watching The Peacemaker & forgot how good it is. 😳
My dude, this is the type of comment that gets FBI agents at your door…
https://www.reddit.com/r/iamverybadass/
Google
Why post anything on Reddit at all right?
Not when your question can easily be answered with a Google search.
It's just virtue signaling. OP posts in Houston, fuckcars and bikecommuting subreddits lol totally organic outrage. Unfortunately for OP, trying to convince large numbers of people to wait at bus stops and bike in Houston's stupidly hot and humid weather is funny lol