Houston Rail celebrates 1st year

[RobertB]

I'm surprised nobody on this forum has posted to celebrate the first year of Houston's rail system (and please forgive/consolidate me if I just missed the posting). I haven't been keeping up with it much, myself, though I'll try to include it in my plans when I hit the beach this summer.

First, a congratulatory article:

Jan. 17, 2005, 9:36AM
Rail ridership breezes past other cities
Report has officials glowing, but critics point to total usage and high collision rate
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2995437

In the article, the MetroRail folks crow over their spectacular ridership numbers:

In fact, Houston's ridership is No. 1 in the country when measured by route mile, according to the APTA survey and calculations by the Houston Chronicle.

MetroRail's 4,053 average daily boardings per route mile rank way ahead of cities such as Baltimore (670), Philadelphia (930), Pittsburgh (980), Denver (1,200) and Dallas (1,290).
Sounds impressive, but the Houston line is very short -- just 7 1/2 miles. And the on-street construction along a busy road has led to a mind-boggling number of collisions -- a situation DART seems determined to avoid in their expansion plans.

But why listen to me -- I like rail. No, to really slam Houston's statistics, we need only turn to the anti-transit zealots. I normally hate linking to sites like this, but they point out some serious problems that the Chronicle chooses to gloss over -- like the 14% ridership drop at the end of the year attributed to "the holidays". They also talk about a curtailment in bus service that's far beyond DART's route adjustments -- if they're to be believed, which is not a certainty. Remember, there's a fine line between a compelling headline and a challenge to your opponent's credibility, and these folks come out far to the wrong side from the start.

Metro claims light rail success; Chron parrots the lie
http://www.lonestartimes.com/index.php?id=0,1505,0,0,1,0

One of the less inflammatory quotes:

The writer notes a huge increase of tram ridership, stopping at October, the peak, but says METRO attributes the fact that tram boardings have declined -10% in November and -4% in December, for a combined -14.4% in the past two months merely to the holidays is baloney! Coupled with massive declines in bus boardings since May 31, 2004, METRO is not being honest with Houstonians.
I suspect that the truth lies somewhere in between the rosy picture and the worst-case scenario.

And what's up with calling it a "tram"? Is that like when the GOP calls their opposition "The Democrat Party" as a way of being an irritating pain in the patootie?

[texman]

And what's up with calling it a "tram"? Is that like when the GOP calls their opposition "The Democrat Party" as a way of being an irritating pain in the patootie?

Well, I heard one rail critic call light rail a "toy trolley." I think its said like "tram" to put it down, make it sound unuseful and toyish. I really wish Houston would get its commuter rail up and running to all the suburbs. It could compliment the innercity light rail. About the chronicle though, I've heard alot of complaints (some from the Houston forum, anti transit websites) about them glossing over the facts, especially Lucas Wall.

[freewaytincan]

Oh critics say anything. In Houston, the rail opponents put out television ads that apparently made blatant lies about Dallas' system to discourage support of light rail for Houston.

[texman]

Oh critics say anything. In Houston, the rail opponents put out television ads that apparently made blatant lies about Dallas' system to discourage support of light rail for Houston.

How about this one (http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-dmnviewpoint.htm) by Wendell Cox?

[RobertB]

Oh critics say anything. In Houston, the rail opponents put out television ads that apparently made blatant lies about Dallas' system to discourage support of light rail for Houston.
I forgot that you live in the land of high humidity... do you recall what they said about us?

[CTroyMathis]

Don't say 'Wendell Cox' here! Just kiddin', but, the general naysay problemo is that unless a system doesn't already have 200 line miles or more worth of city/metropolitania geography covered - it doesn't work too well. DART/RTD/HMetro will sooth when they get to that point someday...

Tram isn't a bad word, either.

[freewaytincan]

I forgot that you live in the land of high humidity... do you recall what they said about us?

Actually, no, I didn't hear it firsthand; this was something like a year, a year and a half ago, but it was my brother who heard it, so it's not just a rumor.

[SpaceCityDood]

I like the rail, but...they are just playing dirty with the politics of it.

[gc]

^ How so SpaceDude?

[tamtagon]

The station locations along this initial phase seem excellent.

[The Great Hizzy!]

For the most part, yes, but there are a couple that constitute overkill, IMO:

Bell Station in downtown and McGowen in Midtown. Either McGowen is located to far north or HCC-Ensemble Theater station is too far south. I can understand the thinking behind the Bell Station location; there is a quartet of large parking lots surrounding it that has been proposed for high-density development for the last four or five years and it's likely that there will be just that sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, Main Street Square Station (MSQ) and the Downtown Transit Center (METRO's headquarters building and transit center) are only about three or four blocks away in either direction.

Preston Station is in an excellent location downtown because it intersects very close to Texas Avenue, where the proposed E/W Blue and Orange lines would intersect with the current Red Line.

[The Great Hizzy!]

And, BTW, the claim by some anti-rail forces that even with the relatively high boardings per mile on the rail line, you could buy the average rider a decent sedan for $20,000 is now significantly lower than their claims the day before the referendum in Nov. 2003, that being, "You could buy each potential rider a Ferrari."

That's some helluva depreciation! At this rate, you won't be able to buy the average rider a cup of coffee with what you're spending per rider. :rolleyes:

[RobertB]

And, BTW, the claim by some anti-rail forces that even with the relatively high boardings per mile on the rail line, you could buy the average rider a decent sedan for $20,000 is now significantly lower than their claims the day before the referendum in Nov. 2003, that being, "You could buy each potential rider a Ferrari."

That's some helluva depreciation! At this rate, you won't be able to buy the average rider a cup of coffee with what you're spending per rider. :rolleyes:
Strange how nobody ever applies that same equation to road projects. For the $250 million price tag of the Dallas High Five, you could give every citizen of Dallas $250 towards the gas they waste while sitting in traffic at the old intersection. Does that mean that the project shouldn't have been built?

And what does that say about the multi-billion-dollar silliness of a road tunnel under LBJ -- is that enough to let all the SUV owners trade down to a sub-compact? That would decrease the average vehicle length by about a third, so in theory you'd have 1/3 the traffic, right? Trade them all in for Smart cars (http://www.threepointmotors.com/smart/index.asp), and you can reduce traffic by half!

[tamtagon]

And, BTW, the claim by some anti-rail forces that even with the relatively high boardings per mile on the rail line, you could buy the average rider a decent sedan for $20,000 is now significantly lower than their claims the day before the referendum in Nov. 2003, that being, "You could buy each potential rider a Ferrari."

That's some helluva depreciation! At this rate, you won't be able to buy the average rider a cup of coffee with what you're spending per rider. :rolleyes:

That's always been my favorite knee-jerk reaction by the idiots complaining about the cost to build a transportation infrastructure. I'd like to know what kind of prize we would warrant through a tally of highway costs.

[Warren]

It seems to me that the calculation cost per rider on rail is accurate, and that the same calculation on users of the Dallas High-Five would show that it is far more cost efficient, as well as far more useful in reducing traffic congestion and reducing air pollution.

I mean, how many daily riders do you have on the Dallas High-Five in comparison to DART's rail line? And doesn't DART spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to move around, what, maybe 1% of the commuters, in comparison to the couple hundred thousand people that use 635/75 every day?

And what's worse is that the rail riders pay perhaps 5% of the cost, letting the riders of cars pay the other 95%, whereas the streets are largely paid for out of gas taxes?

I am all for building what makes sense, but it seems to me that DART is building fun trains at the expense of the poor who really needed the buses.

I have tried using DART, and the simple fact is that it works only for those who happen to be near the line, going to a place near a line. Otherwise it is 2x the time necessary to get anywhere, at best, in comparison to an auto. And it won't help much as the system gets bigger, because it means more transfers. I know ex-DART riders that gave up on DART when they lost their buses so wealthy suburbanites can ride the train into downtown from the north.

It may be real cool for the attorneys who go to a plush office and now can live on the backs of the taxpayer while getting rid of their expensive parking space, but I am not sure that is a good thing for our society.

Just my two bits,
W

[msutton]

In intricate train system is necessary for Dallas to continue to grow beyond its current level as a mostly suburban-style city. You may know some ex-DART riders that gave up on it, but I've yet to meet one, though I know a great number of people who use the trains who never used the busses. All of whom live in Dallas proper. Many of whom gave up their cars, who never would have with busses.

No, the system is not perfect yet, but you have to start somewhere. If they stopped funding highways because the first part of one built didn't carry as many people as the passenger trains did back then, where would we be? The biggest problem, in my opinion, in America right now (perhaps the Sunbelt and California in particular) is people's general lack of foresight or care about the long-term. We could all do with more interest in building a future rather than carelessly doing what is most easy in the present.

[rantanamo]

We can never calculate the real cost of a highway project. Deaths, maintenance, lost productivity, stress, sprawl. All of that is impossible to calculate, but its a lot more expensive than any rail system could be. Its like the Chargers drafting Ryan Leaf. The true cost was well beyond his signing bonus and contract. That dude caused a lot of tension, grief, bad attitudes and fear in that organization. He looked great on paper and at the combines though. Turned a lot of heads.

[RobertB]

"Fun trains at the expense of the poor"? It seems to me that TxDOT and NTTA are building "Fun roads" at the expense of everyone who needs to breathe.

However, "Warren"'s post is among the better first-post anti-rail rants I've seen, and brings up several valid points for discussion. I hope he hangs around and engages in the discussion (without turning into a troll and landing on my Ignore List).

[Warren]

First, I'll take "one of the better anti-rail rants" as a compliment, but I must ask the question - was what I wrote an 'anti-rail rant'? Nowhere did I say that rail was evil, bad, or should be opposed on principle, but only that DART's rail system was inefficient and militates against helping the poor by inappropriately huge expenditures that could be better spent.

I would suggest that the best way to fix air pollution is to look at it from an engineer's perspective. (Well, okay, I confess. I'm an engineer.) First, where is the pollution coming from, and second, what various means do we have to fix it?

Uncontroversial estimates generally assign cars and trucks the responsibility for about half of all air pollution during the work week, the rest of the bulk coming from industrial sources.

Of that half, it is generally conceded that something like 80% of the pollution comes from a small portion of old automobiles driven by poor people and illegal aliens. (I’m big on open borders, so please don’t tar and feather me with some anti-illegal alien stuff.) Cars that are five years old or less are generally no problem compared with other sources.

Now, the electricity needed to make those trains go will generally come from electrical plants either in, or near, the metropolitan area, so don’t think that a train is pollution-free. It definitely is not.

To reduce pollution, the easiest solution is to pass laws about emissions, and then ENFORCE them, which means that cops have to be able to ticket, tow, and impound offending vehicles. I suspect that you could get measurably better air quality in a couple of months by merely enforcing the current laws, and do even better by changing the law so that poor people don’t get free money for driving old polluting cars, or get waivers because they are poor.

Now, if we look at spending a half-billion dollars a year, we can do a lot more. We can double-decker I-30, making it similar to I-35 through downtown Austin. Those going from Dallas to FW can take the top deck and reduce congestion for those who are on the highway for a shorter time. Everyone wins. The cost of a double-decker, four-lane highway would be about the same or less than a single lane of rail. There are many other interesting ideas, such as fixing dangerous intersections, but these are just examples.

The other point that I’d make is in response to the so-called incalculable cost of highway projects. Most of these are calculated and dealt with on a private basis. Wrecks, death, lost productivity, etc., are handled by insurance and private decisions to go to work a certain way. Note that gas fees paid by drivers would pay for all highways, if those gas taxes weren’t diverted to non-highway uses, so we do pay our own way.

As opposed to drivers who are willing to pay our own way, mass transit is 95% taxpayer funded. Moreover, supporters of it (like Rantanamo) want to claim that we have all of these incalculable costs, but fails to recognize that mass transit has similar costs (2x the lost time in travel, for example), but doubles the error by ignoring that highways have incalculable benefits as well, such as the availability of fresh groceries from various parts of the world, quality of life gained by those who like to live like humans, instead of bees, etc.

And please, don’t tell me that you enjoy your time on the train doing productive things like reading the paper. Look around you next time you are on the train, and you’ll see some people having a good time, and others with a blank stare on their faces, but count the number of people who are really using the time productively. And don’t count out the fact that many people have hands-free phone kits and are highly productive while in cars. And we can be fully productive when we get to work, having taken half the time to get there.

My general conclusion about rail is that those who want them just want them. There isn’t a good reason to have rail that isn’t ideological. If the goal is to reduce air quality, enhance the ability to provide transit to the poor, or reduce traffic congestion, rail in DFW isn’t the solution to any of those problems. But if you think, by golly, world-class cities gotta have rail, I can’t argue with that kind of reasoning.

I remain open to changing my mind on this, and quite frankly, I would enjoy changing my mind on it. The political wind is on your side, and it would be nice to be on the winning side. I just don’t see it. Show me how rail decreases congestion or air pollution better than any other solution of similar cost, and I’ll join your team.

Warren

[incrediculous]

Now, the electricity needed to make those trains go will generally come from electrical plants either in, or near, the metropolitan area, so don’t think that a train is pollution-free. It definitely is not...To reduce pollution, the easiest solution is to pass laws about emissions, and then ENFORCE them.

Dude, a single electric light rail train carrying dozens (if not hundreds) of people, produces 99 percent less carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions per mile than a single automobile.

Electricity generating power plants are massively more efficient and air-quality friendly than personal vehicles. To suggest that enforcing emissions standards would improve air quality on any significant scale similar to that of electricity-based rail transit, is a tail-pipe dream.

American Public Transit Association. 1993 Transit Fact Book, Washington, D.C., 1993.

[antoinekhuu]

Freeways create suburban spawl while rails encourage urban living.

[Warren]

"Dude, a single electric light rail train carrying dozens (if not hundreds) of people, produces 99 percent less carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions per mile than a single automobile."

That is simply false. Period. To calculate efficiency and make real-world comparisons, one must look at all of the energy required, from taking the fuel out of the ground, refining, moving it to a car and moving a person one mile. The same is true for moving a person one mile in a train. Trains are run on electricity generally produced by fossil fuels.

It is generally accepted by anyone doing any kind of research on this that the gas engine ranges from 15% to 30% efficiency (with the upper end only achieveable by hybrids). FYI - Fuel cell equipped autos may get into the 60% efficiency, but that isn't done yet in production.

Since nothing can be more than 100% efficient, no transit system can be more than about 4x the efficiency of a car. The most efficient electricity generation in the world is in an electric dam, where a generator can get into the 90% efficiency, and then you have to move the electricity around. I would be very surprised if the DART rail system has a wells-to-wheels efficiency greater than 85% or so, and I'd not be surprised at all if it is was less than 80%.

Of course, the real question is not what the most fuel efficient transit is, but the most economically efficient fuel system. Who cares if a train can move four people a mile for the same amount of fuel as an automobile can move one, when the train car costs $5 million dollars, runs on a billion dollar track, and costs several million dollars to run? There is more to it than mere fuel efficiency.

Does anyone reading this post spend the money necessary to live the most efficiently that they can in regard to energy? Of course not. We live in a way that makes sense economically. Most people could raise their personal efficiency by riding a motorcycle, but they prefer the safety of a car (or train). Many people prefer the low cost of riding a bike to work, particularly in many other parts of the world, though a bike is very fuel inefficient (because it depends on the highly inefficient human body).

It is economic efficiency that matters here, and we can add the sociological impact of governmental interference in natural human habitat as one of many secondary negative considerations. The fact is that roads have always existed without any government aide.

It is also true that the best-run railroad (A.P. Hill's Great Northern Railroad) never used eminent domain or government grants to survive, and made a profit until being sold to Amtrak, and it immediately lost money the next year. So it could be done, and was done, but not by government forces. It is also generally acknowledged that the NYC transit system could pay its own way if they raised rates, but the system as it works now is still at 90% farebox recovery, and the ruling body thinks that the congestion reduction is worth the 10% subsidy. That argument can be raised and discussed, but the same argument can't be made in DFW, where the usual debating strategy is for someone to say, "Hey, I used to live in Chicago, and they had rail, so DFW should as well."

If rail is the best method to serve those who pay the bills (auto and truck drivers), then building a railroad or using bus systems is the right thing to do. But when you have a couple of the most dangerous intersections inthe U.S. within DART cities, the best use of that money is to fix those intersections so they don't routinely kill people, or expand road systems so as to reduce stress on those areas where congestion is worst.

To the person claiming roads create urban sprawl, I must say that he has it backwards. It encourages sprawl to create a handy way for the attorneys who work downtown to live in north Dallas and let the masses pay for their transit to and from work. DART's rail system lives to support sprawl. Not all systems work this way, but DART requires surburbanite support, so that is what it does. Doesn't do much for the poor, but hey, since when is that a priority?

I would also point out that Paris, London, Munich and many other European cities have lost 30% and more of their urban population over the last 30 years, in spite of the tremendous transit systems in place there. Some people like to live like insects in a hive, but many others do not. Often it is a phase of one's life to live one way or another. Historically, families like the suburbs, but young adults and older ones like the city life. The key is to allow the market place to answer the needs of people, but it works much less well when a bunch of power-hungry politicians grab a half-billion dollars a year to serve their egos and edifice complex.

You think that Jerry Jones helped DART get going for the benefit of Dallas, or for the benefit of his sports efforts?

Warren

[incrediculous]

To calculate efficiency and make real-world comparisons, one must look at all of the energy required, from taking the fuel out of the ground, refining, moving it to a car and moving a person one mile. The same is true for moving a person one mile in a train. Trains are run on electricity generally produced by fossil fuels.

Obviously. Trains aren't magic. Do you think I'm an idiot?

Re-read my quote, and note that I actually cited a source. One electric train produces 99% less air pollution than a single car. Why? Because power plants are immensly more efficient at generating power and filtering their exhausts than vehicles.

Your line about open-mindedness was bs.

[incrediculous]

But when you have a couple of the most dangerous intersections inthe U.S. within DART cities, the best use of that money is to fix those intersections so they don't routinely kill people, or expand road systems so as to reduce stress on those areas where congestion is worst.

Expanding roads actually increases congestion. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it's true. Freeway creation and expansion creates barriers between people and their destinations, increasing the number of passenger-miles traversed a day. It also facilitates sprawl, which again encourages people to live further away from their daily destinations, inducing congestion.

It's a vicious cycle. A new freeway may relieve congestion temporarily, but within a few years congestion will return. A well-designed urban community with a balance of transportation alternatives (walking, personal vehicle, bus, rail), is far more sustainable and accommodating to growth.

Sprawl is simply not sustainable. I've plugged this book before on here, but I'll do it again. A Road to Ruin by Dom Nozzi.

It takes more than just converting a few freight rail lines to passenger light-rail to make this work. It takes a reconception of development standards: smaller-setbacks from the street, fewer parking spots, mixed-use zoning, smaller development plots, and a more tightly knit road grid.

Dallas' light rail seems to be moving development in the right direction, with mixed-use communities like Mockingbird Station and the new Park Lane development. However, we still have a long way to go before walking could ever be considered a viable transportation alternative in Dallas.

[tamtagon]

It seems to me that the calculation cost per rider on rail is accurate, and that the same calculation on users of the Dallas High-Five would show that it is far more cost efficient, as well as far more useful in reducing traffic congestion and reducing air pollution.


The first error I see is omitting the user costs associated with passing through the High-Five intersection. In addition to the $250 million (+/-) it took to build the impressive interchange, individual vehicular cost must be included to gauge value for the money. Additionally, to compare a highway intersection with an 18 mile length of light rail is not valid.

It's valid to compare the entire construction cost of Central Expressway from Plano to the CBD to the entire construction cost of DART Rail from Plano to the CBD. To calcualte value for the money and cost per user, all user expenses must be included. With the train ride, construction, operation, maintanence and fare are summed and divided by the number of people riding the train. With the highway, construction, road & vehicular maintainance, gasoline, insurance and vehicular depreciation must be summed and divided by the number of people riding down the road.

Cost per rider, LRT versus individual vehicle, the train is unquestionablly the better value for the money.

[Warren]

Your comparison remains one-sided. The whole point of money is to be able to easily compare things. The problem is that the comparison between rail and roads is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Your rail is stuck in one place. Your cars are stuck on the rail. Cars go on 635, off of 635, and take kids to school, take trips to grocery stores, etc. There is no direct method of really comparing these very different things.

On the other hand, we can look at the simple fact that the highway system is paid for by users, and the cars that are used on them. The rail system is paid for by....drumroll please....the same people (the car drivers). And those who use the rail system constitute a very, very small number of people in comparison to the number of people who use the highway system - a good estimate might be 20k riders per day on all of DART, compared with what, at least a half-million people using 635 every day?

More than that, one can see that, assuming you wanted to do this boondoggle, the train could be replaced by a guided bus at a tenth of the cost. And of course, the real problem with a guilded bus is that, well, it just ain't sexy enough for the politicians, and doesn't have the fan base of the railroad buffs. Merely servicing the need doesn't seem to be of much import.

A quote from a 1993 ATPA propaganda piece doesn't cut it. I gave specific facts about where pollution comes from, and no one has suggested that any one of those facts is wrong, but somehow, reducing air pollution by getting rid of highly polluting autos is apparently impossible, because, well, the ATPA says so. No, it is politically not as much fun to deal with an illegal alien, or a poor person. People claim racism if the person is black, and whoever is enforcing the law gets tarred. The fact remains - the vast majority of air pollution from cars comes from a very small number of vehicles that are readily identifiable. (And we could increase productivity in this country by waiving all cars from all emissions/safety tests if the mfr would certify that they are good for some reasonable time, the first three or four years, let's say. But that's another issue.)

And again, Incredulous makes a claim that is simply impossible, saying, "One electric train produces 99% less air pollution than a single car. Why? Because power plants are immensly more efficient at generating power and filtering their exhausts than vehicles."

Wrong. That's just a garbage quote with nothing to back it up. Show me a source with some data. Again, I gave you specific numbers that you can go look up. Modern cars emit far less pollution than those built 40 years ago. I have seen a quote by one person that my old 1969 Mustang emitted more gas fumes sitting in the driveway than my 2002 Lancer. I am not sure that the comparison is that severe, but it is a fact that downtown Dallas has half of the pollution in it than it did fifty years ago, and that halving is due to sprawl (decreased usage of downtown), and better cars. (Don't let DART take credit for it, since the trend was there prior to the creation of DART, and DART hasn't changed the trend.)

As for the idea that sprawl is unsustainable - this is an ideological statement. The urban transit system, relying on Other People's Money to fund 90%+ of its cost, is sustainable only with the transfer of wealth from the suburbanites. How is this sustainable? The pre-automobile city is no longer being made for a reason, which is why so many of the older cities with downtowns are dying. There are certainly some exceptions, but the global rule is that most people don't want to live like ants. Sprawl spreads out people,and their pollution, which, I repeat, has a lot to do with making downtown Dallas a more patable place to breath.

If you want to reconfigure human existance, first recognize that ordinary persons have individual goals that are just as valid as yours. In recognizing this fact, you will find yourself without the moral high ground necessary to make people live the way that you do. Sprawlers like myself are just fine with you living your life, and I don't even have a problem with you doing it in a collective fashion and forcing your close neighbors to pay for the services that you, as a neighborhood, all use. But making everyone in four or more counties pay for the catastrophic implosion that is the Dallas urban commercial center and its misguided transit system (which prioritizes rich suburbanites getting into downtown more than getting the poor to their jobs), is something entirely different.

Let's start with something fairly innocuous. I have made this point that DART goes out of its way to take care of well-heeled downtown employees who are mostly professionals with cars, taking them from north Dallas suburbs intot downtown. It appears to me that such a service is an ENCOURAGEMENT to sprawl. By using tax dollars to make the life of the suburbanite easier, you subsidize his decision to live far away from his work in an unsustainable way. In other words - without a tax subsidy, he'd never pay the full round-trip cost of something like $40, but thanks to the lower and middle classes paying for his trip, this little piece of corporate welfare allows him to live where he wants and still work in downtown Dallas. Without this subsidy, he might decide to either move into Dallas proper, or move his office closer to home. Either decision would lessen the burden on the transit system, lower congestion and raise air quality (since he probably uses a park-n-ride lot).

So, I eagerly await the explanation of how this system is going to save Dallas from sprawl, when it is so clearly exasperating the problem.

[RobertB]

The key is to allow the market place to answer the needs of people, but it works much less well when a bunch of power-hungry politicians grab a half-billion dollars a year to serve their egos and edifice complex.

You think that Jerry Jones helped DART get going for the benefit of Dallas, or for the benefit of his sports efforts?
Edifice complex? That sounds like TxDOT and their unlimited line of credit -- approved by the voters under the guise of building roads in underserved communities like the colonias of South Texas. If you need an example of "power-hungry", let's look at NTTA, with its strong-arm tactics against the communities in its path, threatening their mobility if they don't sign on to a toll road whose tolls will never be removed.

In fact, it's hard to reconcile the epithet "power-hungry politicians" with anything other than TxDOT, the regional toll authorities (Austin's is as bad as or worse than ours), and the politicians at the local, state, and Federal level who divvy up pork-barrel highway projects using politics first and need second. Look at the folks in Alaska -- they didn't even want the bridge the Feds foisted on them. You're talking about a half-billion dollars a year? Two years of that would fully fund the Orange Line with a quarter-billion left over. But that half billion isn't enough to fund just two highway projects -- the $350+ million High Five and the $300+ million (before utilities) SH 161 through Grand Prairie on a route that is never more than three miles away from SH 360.

Speaking of which, you want to talk about projects that take money away from poor? SH 161 cuts through the heart of Grand Prairie's most impoverished neighborhoods, destroying the businesses and churches that have tried to bring the area together. When it's completed, the area between SH 161 and SH 360 will be completely isolated from both Grand Prairie and Arlington. Eventually, it'll become Strip Club Central, and what's left of the neighborhoods will be left to rot. And over 300 million of my (and your) tax dollars will be responsible.

You also talk about billions for rail and then throw out the idea of double-decking I-30 as though it would be relatively easy. You even mention Austin's I-35 double-deck project as an example. The fact is that the TRE (all the way from Dallas to FW) cost $250 million, IIRC, and that the Austin deck is more usually brought up as an example of why double-decking is a BAD idea.

Back to more concrete fallacies, you can't seriously expect legislation to remove all cars over 5 years old from the roads. Those non-point-source generators of pollution will persist, as will the larger culprits like the Midlothian cement plants. But the electricity that runs the DART trains is pretty clean now... and will get cleaner. It's a heck of a lot easier to build a clean electric generating plant than it is to impound all the old cars in Kaufman County.

And just to cap things off... where on earth did you get the idea that Jerry Jones is a fan of DART? He funded the Irving pullout vote so that he could have that juicy tax money for himself. He failed, and is in the process of moving his team to the largest city in America without a public transit system.

[tamtagon]

Sorry for the hunt & peck set up of this reply, but it's what I have time for!

Discussions like this - across every appropriate level - are vital to effect a better standard of living. Not everyone needs agree except that making life better is the goal. With that friendly, can-we-all-just-get-along? preclusion out of the way....


Your comparison remains one-sided.... There is no direct method of really comparing these very different things.

The comparison is yours as well as this thread's initial direct comparison between the cost of the Dallas High-Five and rail:


01-08-2006 11:54 PM It seems to me that the calculation cost per rider on rail is accurate, and that the same calculation on users of the Dallas High-Five would show that it is far more cost efficient, as well as far more useful in reducing traffic congestion and reducing air pollution.

I've only pointed out the elementary steps necessary to derive a valid analysis of cost per rider costs. I'm certain a statistically valid comparison is possible.

DART is funded by municipal sales tax. If you buy something within the boundaries of a DART member city, you're contributing toward the transportation infrastructure. Car drivers and non-car drivers pay for DART.

Question - does the gasoline tax collected only go toward roadway construction? I have the impression that the money goes to general funds of the state and federal govt. I dont know....


but it is a fact that downtown Dallas has half of the pollution in it than it did fifty years ago, and that halving is due to sprawl (decreased usage of downtown), and better cars.
--how many people lived downtown 50 years ago?
--how do you want to define downtown?

I'm going to guess that the population within 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles, 4 miles etc of downtown (Main @ Akard) has never been greater than it is today. The overall importance of the Elm-Main-Commerce corridor (traditional downtown Dallas) has most certainly diminished over time, as has the overall importance of the entire Central Business District. As the Metroplex grew into a massive suburban population center, there was no need for the CBD to grow in proportion to the metro population. The governments spent billions upon billion of dollars to start up a highway system allowing people to get around in cars.

Question, who paid for the beginnings of the highways? It certainly was not just the people using cars. And at what point did a gasoline tax become the source of paying for more roads and highways?

[FoUTASportscaster]

States get back around 90% of their gas tax back to the states. If you look back at the Federal Transportation Bill in September, you'll see that as the case. Therefore it is very safe to assume that all the money doesn't go from the users to the roads and highways the users use.

[2112]

I make crayons.

[electricron]

It is economic efficiency that matters here, and we can add the sociological impact of governmental interference in natural human habitat as one of many secondary negative considerations. The fact is that roads have always existed without any government aide. Warren

Governments have been building improved roads for thousands of years.
They don't necessarily pay for themselves.

Highways in America are usually paid for by highway taxes, of one sort or another. But not the roads and streets. County governments issue bonds to pave county roads. City governments issue bonds to pave city streets. Those bonds are not repaid by highway taxes, those bonds are repaid by property taxes.

So, using your argument, if we only had highways paid for by highway taxes, how would you get from your home to US 75, or IH 35? Lets assume you live in Plano at the intersection of Park Lane and Independence. Well, your streets, Park Lane and Independence are dirt roads. On a rainy day, you'll be stuck in three feet mud 100 feet from your front door. How do you get to the highways that are paid by highway taxes? Then once you get to downtown Dallas, how to you plan to get to your office? The city streets in downtown Dallas aren't paved either. You'll need hip huggers to wade through six feet deep muck on a rainy day.

Highway taxes pay for less than 1% of all roads and streets in America.
But 80% of all traffic uses that 1% for at least a part of the trip.

http://www.lightrailnow.org/myths/m_000010.htm

By the way, highway taxes is a form of "subsidy" too.