Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Why Houston Metro is a failure


The screenshot above is my option for public transportation to work. If you're not familiar with my previous blogging I typically do this when I start work in a new location just to see if Metro can get me where I need to go.

So, in order to get to Greenway Plaza (on the Southwest side of Houston) from the Addicks Park n' Ride (the Northwest side of Houston and the closest to my house) I have to go downtown, change buses and then head back out to 59.

So the answer is obviously no, at least not in a logical manner. In other cities transportation systems there would be something from the Addicks P&R over to the NW transit center which would then go down to Greenway. I recently got back from Madrid, and I could get within a 1/2 mile of almost anywhere I wanted to go with a 5 day tourist pass and public transportation. The same went for London, Paris, Dublin, Seattle, Honolulu and, of course, New York.

Of course, none of these (truly world class) cities were wasting time building at-grade light rail whose primary design function was to socially engineer people toward a certain, preferred, lifestyle. Houston Metro is less about transit, and more about new urbanism and smart growth.

This is why they fail.

2 comments:

Kevin Whited said...

Something of an aside....

But your work is not all that far from mine now (Galleria area). We'll have to grab lunch one of these days.

Cory said...

Yes, plenty of good places to eat around here. Went to Collina's today. Had a decent (not great) Rigatoni Bolognese.

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