Houston TX - Due to over-zealousness in trying to get rail, the Houston Metro is being forced to go with Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) over the much more expensive Light Rail Transit (LRT) system it had planned on. The KPRC-TV2 website reports on the change.
The primary reason is something I have long complained about, greatly inflating the projected ridership numbers to get funding. Now that the current line isn't meeting projections, the Feds are slashing the amount of available money to Metro on their rapid transit expansion which has forced them to take a more subdued approach to rapid transit and that is with BRT.
Houston is planning on doing this right however they are jumping the gun a little bit. The line will be constructed to accommodate LRT at a later date if the ridership numbers warrant the changeover. While Houston doesn't need to go as far as laying tracks on the bus-only roadway, it will as a symbolic gesture to show voters that it wants to get rail going as soon as it can.
The rail installation will actually cost more in the long term as 10 years from now, it will have to be dug up and new track installed. Pittsburgh did similar and all the prep of pre-laying streetcar rails was wasted as the tracks had to be ripped up and new tracks installed on the Palm Garden bridge. Houston should design the BRT line to accommodate LRT in the future but not waste money on adding tracks until the tracks are in fact needed.
This change from LRT to BRT is already causing a stir. Houston attorney Andy Taylor says the switchover is illegal and goes against the wishes of the Houston voters. I'm sure he's already prepping a lawsuit to force rail to go through even though it would mean a loss of the Federal funding since the Feds will not pay for a rail line in Houston now. In other words, rail or nothing and if a lawsuit is successful, it'll be nothing.
While I'm not going to really go into my thoughts regarding the legality of switching from LRT to BRT, I will say this. The original line should have been done as a BRT and switched over at a later point in the future if ridership warranted as the current rail line is lackluster at best. Metro blew it by vastly over-estimating the projected ridership numbers and now that projection has come back to haunt them.
This is a good sign that the Feds are at least starting to realize that cities are greatly inflating the projected ridership numbers to get rail funding when they can't really justify the line. Hopefully, Houston won't be just a single odd occurrence of fiscal discipline by the Feds and other cities that are planning rail with greatly exaggerated projected ridership numbers will be called on it.
The primary reason is something I have long complained about, greatly inflating the projected ridership numbers to get funding. Now that the current line isn't meeting projections, the Feds are slashing the amount of available money to Metro on their rapid transit expansion which has forced them to take a more subdued approach to rapid transit and that is with BRT.
Houston is planning on doing this right however they are jumping the gun a little bit. The line will be constructed to accommodate LRT at a later date if the ridership numbers warrant the changeover. While Houston doesn't need to go as far as laying tracks on the bus-only roadway, it will as a symbolic gesture to show voters that it wants to get rail going as soon as it can.
The rail installation will actually cost more in the long term as 10 years from now, it will have to be dug up and new track installed. Pittsburgh did similar and all the prep of pre-laying streetcar rails was wasted as the tracks had to be ripped up and new tracks installed on the Palm Garden bridge. Houston should design the BRT line to accommodate LRT in the future but not waste money on adding tracks until the tracks are in fact needed.
This change from LRT to BRT is already causing a stir. Houston attorney Andy Taylor says the switchover is illegal and goes against the wishes of the Houston voters. I'm sure he's already prepping a lawsuit to force rail to go through even though it would mean a loss of the Federal funding since the Feds will not pay for a rail line in Houston now. In other words, rail or nothing and if a lawsuit is successful, it'll be nothing.
While I'm not going to really go into my thoughts regarding the legality of switching from LRT to BRT, I will say this. The original line should have been done as a BRT and switched over at a later point in the future if ridership warranted as the current rail line is lackluster at best. Metro blew it by vastly over-estimating the projected ridership numbers and now that projection has come back to haunt them.
This is a good sign that the Feds are at least starting to realize that cities are greatly inflating the projected ridership numbers to get rail funding when they can't really justify the line. Hopefully, Houston won't be just a single odd occurrence of fiscal discipline by the Feds and other cities that are planning rail with greatly exaggerated projected ridership numbers will be called on it.
5 comments:
The rail installation will actually cost more in the long term as 10 years from now, it will have to be dug up and new track installed. Pittsburgh did similar and all the prep of pre-laying streetcar rails was wasted as the tracks had to be ripped up and new tracks installed on the Palm Garden bridge.
Sounds similar to what happened in Seattle. The light rail tracks originally installed were actually put in at the last minute and weren't done properly (I think it was electrical current seeping into the ground that was the problem), so they had to be ripped out.
PAT's problem was that they didn't insulate the rails from the bridge structure. After 10 plus years of buses running on top of the rails and contraction and expansion of the rails, some of the guages were out of synch as well so they even if the rails were laid properly, the rails would have had to come up and be relaid anyway.
Does anyone know what the projected and actual ridership numbers are? It would have been nice if the story mentioned this.
railbus63 said: Does anyone know what the projected and actual ridership numbers are? It would have been nice if the story mentioned this.
I'll see if I can dredge up the numbers on this one. I agree, it would be nice if the news reports actually stated these things but then again, the paper is very much in favor of rail in Houston so they'll downplay the problems as much as they possibly can.
By paper I mean the Houston Chronicle. They have a bigger backlog of articles than the TV station does which is who covered this report. I couldn't find anything in the Chronicle about this particular story.
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