BIKE: Re: Rail Issues (2)

[Nawdry]

At 10/26/2004 11:45 , Patrick Goetz <pgoetz> wrote:

>Subscribers to Lyndon Henry's PTP bulletin will notice that Henry,
>perhaps the single most influential advocate for traditional 19th
>century rail in Austin, referred to this conference as the "'gadget
>transit' forum" and refers to Houston mayor Bill White as a "top rail
>foe" for making the following statement:
>
>  > Metro should consider abandoning light rail for another transit mode
>if it
>  > could provide better service or cost less, Houston's mayor said Thursday
>  > at the second day of a forum examining 11 alternative systems.
>  >
>
>And this despite the fact that Bill White was a strong supporter the
>referendum authorizing Houston's light rail system!

Missed this during my last rather fatigued response to Patrick's 
oration.  Patrick, as usual, is misrepresenting ... well, virtually 
everything.

The PTP Emailing (NOT a "bulletin" but just a posting of a news item) 
included a subject line ("Another top rail foe slams LRT at 'gadget 
transit' forum") which did not refer to White's comments (which - not an 
attack - were simply equivocal, and actually rather judicious) but rather 
to the attack by longtime, dedicated pro-highway rail foe Robert Eckels, 
who used the occasion to launch another broadside at Metro's voter-endorsed 
LRT expansion program, as the Houston Chronicle related:

 >>Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, speaking to traffic reporters at an
unrelated luncheon later Thursday, said it's clear Metro must come up
with another transit mode for its future corridors.

"I am opposed to taking the same system, the same technology that runs
down the middle of streets, throughout the region," Eckels said. "We've
learned it's a mistake to have the trains in the middle of the streets. They
need to get out of the lanes of the roadway and into grade-separated
corridors."<<

Far-right, anti-transit charlatans are clearly making a top priority of 
taking advantage of occasional glitches (and the ongoing outrages of 
Houston's traffic-law-flouting motor vehicle Demolition Derby) to attack 
Metro's amazingly attractive and cost-effective new rail service, and to 
expunge rail transit from the surface of Houston and cede the urban surface 
exclusively to motor vehicles.  Obviously, to tweak LRT performance, design 
modifications or major crowd-control measures are needed for some special 
events in downtown Houston, but by and large the system is achieving urban 
development and mobility goals beyond the wildest dreams of planners.  I 
append below another recent posting from the PTP list.

=PTP================================================

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2840606

Houston Chronicle
Oct. 10, 2004

RIDING THE RAIL

Records set in September for boardings, ridership


MetroRail ridership set new records in September, the transit authority
reported last week.

Average weekday boardings on the Main Street line, which opened Jan. 1,
were 32,292 last month, according to Metropolitan Transit Authority data.
That's the first time the average count has topped 30,000. Daily ridership
has steadily climbed since the 12,102 recorded in January, thanks mostly
to changes made to connect bus routes with the trains.

Total ridership for September was 817,020, also a record high, Metro
reported.

The light rail carried its second-highest passenger load Sept. 2, when the
Houston Texans played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a preseason game
at Reliant Stadium.

That day's count of 42,488 boardings was excluded from the average
daily tabulations because the special event could skew the numbers,
according to Metro.