Posts Tagged ‘transportation’
Perception vs. Reality
General perceptions often don’t match the reality on the ground. Consider a recent study in San Francisco – they found that over 80% of downtown shoppers arrived without a car, but most business owners believed that all of their customers arrived by car. How do misperceptions like this impact Houston?
Metro and FTA disagree about cost of Light Rail
This, from the River Oaks Examiner, is pretty interesting… Letters to the Metropolitan Transit Authority from the Federal Transit Administration place the baseline price of building both the North and Southeast light rail lines at almost $1.58 billion. Based on the correspondence, dated Aug. 17, that would place the cost of the 11.84 miles of [...]
The Mini Triangle
Today we’re going to wrap up our look at a hypothetical Texas-High Speed Rail system. We’ve already looked at the how a privately operated high-speed system could start as a regional rail service in the major cities, now we’re going to see how these regional lines can interconnect and form a more complete system.
The North Texas Corridor
Today let’s take a look at how High-Speed Rail service could connect to North Texas. The Dallas/Fort Worth area is one of the more interesting places to consider rail deployment, because they’ve got by far the most existing rail service. How can a new regional rail line lay the foundation for future statewide high-speed service?
Houston – Part 3
To finish laying the framework for inter-city rail, we need a regional corridor that serves Northwest Houston. Today we’ll take a look at the Northwest Corridor, and see what it looks like when we tie this in to the rest of the system.
Houston – Part 2
Today let’s look at Part 2 of the Houston regional rail system – the Gulf Corridor. This corridor is the big one in the news lately, and rightly so. It’s the primary link between the region’s two major historical centers (Houston and Galveston), and features a number of major institutions and attractions along the way. So how effectively can we connect it?
The Routes
The question of where to route a high-speed train in Texas is probably the most widely discussed aspect of the subject. There have been a number of proposals, from the fairly straightforward Texas TGV to the outright asinine Trans-Texas Corridor, and the low cost “Texas T-Bone” plan. In an attempt to combine the best elements of the “Triangle” and the “T-Bone” into a single system, I’ve come up with an alternate plan.
The Trains
When considering a high-speed rail system one of the most important questions is, “What kind of train should we use?” There are a number of technologies in existence around the world that a high-speed rail system could be built with, and each of them has certain advantages and certain drawbacks. First, there are conventional steel-wheel trains. [...]
Introduction
Today I’m starting a series on high-speed rail. This first post contains my opening thoughts, and some of the background assumptions that inform the rest of what I’m going to write about.
Spaghetti World Tour
Come and take a look at some of the strange intersections I’ve encountered, and share crazy ones you’ve seen too!