Is it wise policy to increase Houston's roadways by 60 percent, increase the roadway over public transportation balance significantly and embark on a course of car-based mobility spending that is unprecedented in American history in order to respond to our coming population growth, which is not certain in any event, and which is likely to be increasingly transit-dependent, inclined toward walkable, accessible urbanity, and is likely to be increasingly constrained from burning valuable chemical resources, thus driving up the price of travel, food, production and a thousand other things?
On June 25, the Transportation Policy Council of the Houston-Galveston Area Council, led by Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, will likely vote for the Regional Transportation Plan. Will this road-based plan — which is extremely different from the direction nearly all other metropolitan regions in the United States are taking — be a bold and innovative path to the future, or a monumental blunder?
This is from the Houston Chronicle. The author is commenting on the pending new Regional Transportation Plan.
As a native Houstonian I can confirm this story. The reason for this is the unique geography of Houston, as well as the ongoing and anticipated growth in population both from other US states, but most significantly from Mexico.
Houston is laid out like a wheel, with downtown traditionally being a business area, and residential sections like spokes from the center radiating outward. For Hostonians, a drive into downtown is equal to what many Europeans would consider driving to another country.
Because of it's large land area, only public bus systems have been deployed here. It would be extraordinarily expensive to deploy rail public transportation to any significant portion of the city. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Houston, Phoenix and Atlanta are a few notable cities that are going to get hit very hard by any increase in transportation costs. I do not know if there is any hope for these cities in an oil constrained world. Building them as spread out as they are was extremely short sighted and there is no way they can function effectively with public transport. If I were living in these cities, especially Phoenix, I would seriously be considering moving to a more appropriate location. Even Los Angeles will fare better than these cities. At least Los Angeles has enough population density to support reasonable bus service.
Joined: May 23, 2004 Posts: 201 Location: Charlottesville, Virginia
Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 6:59 pm Post subject:
Here's something else I just noticed in the Chronicle:
Quote:
• GulfWest Energy has recompleted a 13,000-foot gas well in its Lacassine field, south of Lake Charles, La., in Cameron Parish.
The B-12 well was recompleted to the MH-2 reservoir and has been producing 1.4 million cubic feet of gas, 100 barrels of oil and 2,600 barrels of water per day, flowing at 2,100 pounds per square inch
Wow, 100 b of oil and 2600 b of water. Now that's quite a water cut!
Joined: May 23, 2004 Posts: 276 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 9:38 pm Post subject:
Andy wrote:
Houston, Phoenix and Atlanta are a few notable cities that are going to get hit very hard by any increase in transportation costs. I do not know if there is any hope for these cities in an oil constrained world.
A guy I used to know in Houston bailed out about a year and a half ago. We last caught up when I was on the Sunset Limited on my way home from a week in Atlanta. And yes, if the rest of Houston matches what you see while coasting through on the Sunset Limited, there is no hope, no matter how much nuke power there may be in Texas.
Phoenix, well, I'm not 100% sure on this, it has some potential given the large amount of property speculation, which has left some pretty big chunks of land available for development. When the crash comes, this might be a genuine opportunity to build the kind of walkable, transit oriented developments that might just keep the city putting along. Assuming of course that some street transit can be implemented, preferably electric, within the development areas, and past whatever else is inbetween.
Atlanta, well, at least it has MARTA. But that's about all it has going for it. Otherwise, it's stuffed too. Waiting for an intercity train at Peachtree Station (to get me to New Orleans, where I could get the Sunset back to LA to meet the plane back to Australia), which was incidentally running about 5 hours late, was an experience in itself. You could feel the vibration from the adjacent freeway in the station building, and if you went out to the courtyard, well, you could hear it quite clearly. Fortunately there was a chemist a block up the road which didn't rip me off when I ran up there to grab some asprin.
Oh, and of course, the bus that I got from Duluth to downtown Atlanta went right past the rail station without stopping. I had to get a MARTA train a few stations downtown, then a local bus, just to get to the intercity rail station. That's something that probably ought to be fixed should the intercity rail service ever get fixed to something more useful than a piddly once a day service.
Andy wrote:
Building them as spread out as they are was extremely short sighted and there is no way they can function effectively with public transport.
Not without serious demolition work anyway.
Andy wrote:
If I were living in these cities, especially Phoenix, I would seriously be considering moving to a more appropriate location. Even Los Angeles will fare better than these cities. At least Los Angeles has enough population density to support reasonable bus service.
Actually, density isn't all it's cracked up to be, though there is a threshold. What's really needed is the ability to build a network that can get you from anywhere to anywhere reasonably effectively. That relies on:
The layout of the main road grid (or spokes, or whatever)
The proximity of trip destinations such as shops and offices to main roads (which should preferably be on the main roads themselves, at intersections, where people can change from bus to bus easily and buy a backpack full of shopping in the process without having to make a side trip).
Trip origins being not too far a walk from main roads that are trafficable to fast-ish all stops bus routes, which means pedestrian shortcuts out of the cul-de-sacs, or preferably their abolition entirely, as well as effective footpaths, logical bus stop placements, steel U frames or similar things you can secure a bicycle to etc.
As the car gradually becomes an option for fewer, the same population density will generate more passengers per serviced hectare, and more potential passengers per unserviced or underserviced hectare. _________________ The purpose of human life revolves around an endless need to extract ever increasing amounts of carbon out of the ground and then release it into the atmosphere.
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