Houston

Applying the Urbanophile's Beliefs About Cities to Houston

Tory Gattis — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:15:28 -0500

Last month The Urbanophile posted his statement of beliefs about cities, and a lot of them resonated with me about Houston. Here are some favorite excerpts along with my own thoughts.

* Great cities, like great wines, have to express their terroir. There is no one-size-fits-all model of urban success. Our cities are as diverse as their citizenry. To succeed, they need to express their own essential and unique character.

This is why you always have to be skeptical when somebody says something like "For Houston to be world class we have to do X like city Y." I believe that especially applies to heavy rail commuter transit in our decentralized, car-based city, but it also applies to recent questions like "Why can't Houston have downtown retail like Chicago's Magnificent Mile or New York's Fifth Avenue?" Because we're not like them, and we already have our pedestrian-oriented upscale shopping district: it's called The Galleria, one of the largest malls in the country, and with plenty of parking and climate control to boot!

* Don’t try to beat other cities at their game. Instead, make them beat you at yours. Cities are unique – yours included. Instead of fretting about measuring up to the planet’s elite metropoli or trying to emulate them, cities should figure out their unique strengths that other places can’t match.

Hear, hear! To quote an old post of mine: "Houston starts the 21st-century with a set of amenities 99% of the planet’s cities would kill for: a vibrant core with several hundred thousand jobs; a profitable and growing set of major industry clusters (Energy, the Texas Medical Center, the Port); the second-most Fortune 500 headquarters in the country (26); top-notch museums, festivals, theater, arts and cultural organizations; major league sports and stadiums; a revitalized downtown; astonishing affordability (especially housing); a culture of openness, friendliness, opportunity, and charity (reinforced by Katrina); global diversity; a young and growing population; progressiveness; entrepreneurial energy and optimism; efficient and business-friendly local government; regional unity; a smorgasbord of tasty and inexpensive international restaurants; and tremendous mobility infrastructure (including the freeway and transit networks, railroads, the port, and a set of truly world-class hub airports)."

* It says something powerful about a city when people vote with their feet to move there, to plant their flag, to seek their fortune. There is no more telling statistic about a place than in-migration. It’s important to know if people are moving into or out of a city–and why.

The most ignored statistic of the creative class city boosters, because their idols - NYC, Boston, Chicago, SF, LA - fail horribly on it.

* Moreover, new blood isn’t just nice to have, it’s essential. In an ever-more globalized, rapidly changing, competitive world, a city’s best interests are not served by being populated with people who’ve never lived anywhere else.

Points for our global diversity.

* But it isn’t just about the best and brightest, either. Attracting the educated is important, but cities are also where the poor come to become middle class, where immigrants come to build a better future for themselves and their families. Their needs must be taken up, too–and equally.

Hallelujah for Opportunity Urbanism (and more here).

* A great city needs great suburbs. To pull our cities up, there’s no need to tear our suburbs down. To be successful in the modern era, its important for every part of a metropolitan region to thrive and bring its “A game”.

* “Building on assets” is a trap. The only reason we have any man-made assets in the first place is that previous generations of leaders didn’t follow that strategy. Only building on assets is a strategy about defending the past, not embracing the future. It is the spending down of our urban inheritance. Yes, leverage assets, but also add totally new things to the pot for future generations.

Absolutely.

* We need to look forward, not backward. There is no more corrosive force than nostalgia. We should know where we’ve come from and what we stand for. But we can’t become imprisoned by a yearning for an imagined past that never really was.

* We need to embrace a 21st century vision of urbanism. Urbanism – Yes, but trying to copy Greenwich Village 1950 is not the answer. To find it, we must boldly re-imagine the possibilities of what a city can be and bravely identify what works today-and what doesn’t.

Yep - time to rethink Jane Jacobs.

* We don’t know where this ride is taking us. We’re at a pivotal time in America’s urban history. So much is changing, and more change is yet to come. For our own sake, we should not assume that we’ve arrived where we’re headed, or that we have the answers. If there’s one thing we should take away from the urban planning failures of the past, it is a strong dose of humility.

"Planning for utopia" doesn't work. Cities need the freedom to evolve organically.

This piece first appeared at Houston Strategies.

A New Brand for Houston

Tory Gattis — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 17:36:41 -0400

"We've probably spent in excess of $75 million in the past 30 years on image campaigns, and we keep coming back and saying, 'Well, that didn't work.'"

- Former GHCVB CEO Jordy Tollett in the Houston Business Journal

A list of many of those can be found here, including the old standbys "Bayou City", "Space City", and "Energy Capital of the World" (Wikipedia has more here). And despite many of my own previous attempts on this blog, inspiration has struck me again, especially after reading this recent article at Salon.com on why every city needs a brand (and more on that here).

A good city brand works on four different levels:

It attracts tourists.
It attracts new residents, especially highly talented and educated ones.
It attracts expanding businesses.
It inspires the citizens and creates a local identity.

But it's very hard to come up with a single brand that does all four. Even some of the most successful brands don't necessarily hit them all. Two of the most famous city brands are New York's "I {heart} NY" and Las Vegas' "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." And in Texas we're all familiar with "Keep Austin Weird." In this case, I think I've stumbled upon something that can work across all four.

Before I reveal it, I need everybody to drop their cynicism shields. I don't think the most successful city brand in history, "I {heart} NY" could get off the ground today with our snarky cynical culture. Just like new songs, sometimes ideas need time to grow on you. So open up your mind, hold back judgment, and let me reveal some context-setting definitions and the brand first followed by the supporting reasons.

Hospitality

Noun: The friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.

Hospitable

Adjective: 1) Friendly and welcoming to strangers or guests. 2) (of an environment) Pleasant and favorable for living in.

It started with me thinking of "Houston Hospitality", but then the symmetry jumped out at me it became

Houspitality

What the "Aloha Spirit" is to Hawaii, the "Houspitality Spirit" can be to Houston.

Here are some of the key words and phrases people often use when describing Houston and how they fit:

Houspitality for visitors and newcomers: welcoming culture to outsiders, friendliness, hospitality (duh), openness to people from all over the world (diversity), amazing restaurants, museums, arts, and other amenities
Houspitality for businesses: business-friendly taxes and regulation (including no zoning), culture supportive of entrepreneurship, open business culture
Houspitality for residents: friendliness, openness, affordability, ease of living, high standard of living, social mobility, opportunity, open-minded, charitable (especially after Hurricane Katrina), "big small town"

Some additional supporting reasons:

Short and sweet, and people "get it" pretty easily.
Fits well with the Texas Medical Center helping people from all over the world (and the word "hospital" is right there). It also fits well with the airports, port, GHCVB, GHP, and others.
It differentiates us from other big cities (ever heard anybody talk about the friendly reputations of NYC, DC, Chicago, SF, or LA? I didn't think so) as well as tourist destination cities (which tend to become jaded towards visitors).
UH's Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management uses the motto "We are hospitality", and is one of the top ranked schools in the country for that specialty.
Sounds like "vitality", which is another good brand association.
I found a cool, somewhat similar concept here, transforming Humanitarian to Houmanitarian.
I think more and more people today are hungry for real community, which is harder and harder to find. Houspitality is a great brand to convey our real sense of community in Houston.

Finally, I'd like to end with some supportive excerpts from Ken Hoffman's recent excellent column on what Forbes got right and wrong about Houston being America's Coolest City. I think you'll easily see the Houspitality Spirit running through them...

I remember thinking, am I going to have to change? Am I going to have to learn how to write Texan?
I didn't change anything. That's part of what makes Houston cool. You can come here and stay yourself and fit right in.
...
Houston is cool because whoever or whatever you are, you're welcome here. The first two years I lived here, I was burning out the copy machine at Kinko's applying for jobs anywhere else. Now I wouldn't leave here for anything. ...

Where better to get better?
When a congresswoman got her head half blown off, she came to Houston to get better. When Middle East oil sheiks need surgery, they come to Houston. We have the best medical facilities in the world. I didn't think that was cool until I was run over by a lunatic in a van and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
I still have no idea what hospital I was taken to. But they fixed me up. That was cool.
...
We're in this together
And please stop talking about Houston's "diversity." The only thing the word "diversity" does is separate people. Sure, we have ethnic neighborhoods; those are good for a city. It helps in picking a restaurant.
I've never seen a city where people blend more gracefully than Houston.
...
Houston is cool
I thought it was pretty cool when Houston welcomed Hurricane Katrina victims to ride out the storm's aftermath here. I spent a couple of days in the Astrodome, handing out supplies and clothes to Katrina refugees. I learned a lot about Houston after Katrina. The experience changed me, too.
...
Being cool is a city that makes you feel like you belong.

This piece originally appeared at Houston Strategies.

Houston's Walled Garden

Tory Gattis — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:50:42 -0400

My friend Neal and I were in a tall building recently looking out over the city, and noted that there is an interesting phenomenon in Houston. There are now enough tall buildings to almost outline a new zone. If you go from the Medical Center up to Downtown, west along Allen Parkway/Memorial, south along 610/Post Oak, back east to Greenway Plaza, and then southeast to return to the Medical Center (here's a satellite map of the area - sorry I'm not skilled enough to overlay an outline) there is an almost continuous - well not continuous - but a substantial line of skyscrapers. And it's pretty green within that zone, as least from an elevated viewpoint. And we named it "The Walled Garden". Somewhat similar aesthetically to New York's Central Park or Chicago's Millennium Park, but much larger and, of course, not a public park. It does, in my stretched definition, contain the key parks of central Houston: Hermann, Discovery Green, Eleanor Tinsley/Buffalo Bayou, and Memorial (my concept, my boundaries ;). It also contains such key areas as the Galleria, Highland Village, River Oaks, Upper Kirby, Montrose/Neartown, Midtown, the Museum District, Rice University and the Rice Village.

"Inside the Loop" is a very common phrase you'll hear in Houston. I'd like to think "The Walled Garden" could be a similar such phrase describing a narrower zone where young singles want to live (as evidenced by the explosion in apartment construction within it) vs. more family-oriented areas like West U, Bellaire, The Heights, or the various neighborhoods of the east side. It could also be used for branding and attracting young talent to Houston, like the way people talk about the Near North Side/Lincoln Park in Chicago or Santa Monica in LA or Manhattan in NYC. By having a unifying label over the area, it's easier to promote it. And I think "Houston's Walled Garden" has a pretty appealing ring to it.

Now if only they could only fill in the gaps a bit, maybe with a tower somewhere near Ashby and Bissonnet?... ;-)

I'll end with a few small misc items to close out the post:

The Economist on the greening of Houston. Hat tip to Kelly.
Aaron Renn/The Urbanophile on the high-speed rail boondoggle in this country, especially California, which looks to do for rail infrastructure investments what Vietnam did for military adventures.
Texas again ranked as the #1 best state for business
Mayor Parker on the Colbert Report. I think she held her own and promoted the city well.
Take note, Mayor Parker: big city democrats are embracing privatization to cut costs and do more for less (WSJ)

Finally, I completely agree with the recent op-ed in the Chronicle advocating to keep the Battleship Texas at the San Jacinto battlefield (WSJ story). They attract far more visitors as a combination than separate. Trying to get kids to go see an empty battlefield? Boring. Oh, there's a real battleship there too. Cool!

This piece first appeared at Houston Strategies blog.

A Better Plan to Save the Astrodome

Tory Gattis — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:44:04 -0400

Setting aside my own wishes for the Astrodome, and just looking at the plan recently presented by the HCSCC to Commissioners Court, there is a very simple fix that will make saving the Astrodome *much* more likely.

Current Plan

$270m to convert Astrodome into multi-purpose venue
$385m to demolish and rebuild a new Astrohall/Reliant Arena

Net cost estimated to be $523m after tax credits.

MAJOR PROBLEM = getting voters to approve a half-billion dollar bond issue (!)

Better Plan

Tear down an obsolete Reliant Arena and fold whatever functions a new one would have into a renovated Astrodome. It's not like the Astrodome doesn't have enough space. Heck, it could probably do just about everything they wanted to do in it originally and still have room for everything they want to do in a new Arena. We lose a building nobody cares about and preserve a building everybody wants to save at probably less than half the price of the current proposal (something voters might actually approve).

A big win-win, yes? If you agree, please contact your County Commissioner asap and let them know. They're meeting to make some decisions on this plan very soon - possibly this week.

This post originally appeared at Houston Strategies.

Making Waves on the Third Coast

Joel Kotkin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:44:23 -0400

If you’re looking for some good news in the U.S. economy, you might want to head to the warm, energy rich Gulf Coast. You wouldn’t be alone in making that move; over the past decade the “Third Coast”—extending from south Texas to the Gulf of Mexico—enjoyed 12% job growth, or about twice the national average.

This is remarkable given that the region was socked with several devastating hurricanes, including Katrina in 2005. New Orleans’ population, for instance, is still well below its pre-Katrina level, although now gaining steadily.

New Orleans also demonstrates the possibilities. Film production is way up, and the city appears to be emerging as a magnet for video game, commercials, and special effects firms.

Some of the biggest advances are further along the periphery from New Orleans, often somewhat closer to Baton Rouge. Nucor is constructing a massive new steel mill in Convent, located in St. James Parish about an hour away from New Orleans. Local chemical and oil refinery firms are also expanding and investing in new equipment.

Yet it’s Houston’s star that is shining brightest. Over the past decade, when the country actually slightly lost jobs, the Houston-Sugarland-Baytown region expanded its employment by over 15%. Since 1990, the number of jobs has risen by 46%, more than twice the national average. Over a period of ten years, the region’s population has soared 26%, the most of any of the country’s largest metro areas, and again better than twice the national norm. Migrants are coming not only from other countries, but from much of the rest of the U.S., particularly the industrial Midwest, Northeast, and California.

Optimism among businesspeople on the Third Coast is infectious, as can be seen in the expanding footprint of the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest such facility. Much of the money for this amazing complex comes from a similar boom in oil and gas.

If there’s a negative tone anywhere, it’s about politics. Concerns over continued federal obstacles to responsible expansions in oil and gas production are widespread. There’s a real concern that this year’s elections will lead to a slowdown in orders and future expansion. Let’s hope not.

This piece first appeared at the National Chamber Foundation Blog.

Major Texas Metro Areas Are Confirming Failures in Rail Transit

Tory Gattis — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:13:37 -0400

Despite the success of the Main St. line, I've been concerned for a long time now that the next set of rail lines will essentially bankrupt Metro while providing minimal benefit (except for possibly the Universities line, which has moderate benefits, but may not get built anytime soon because of the money drain of the other lines being built first). Now the Coalition On Sustainable Transportation (COST) has come out with the numbers from other cities (especially Dallas) that don't bode well for Houston at all. Some key excerpts (I know it's a lot, but there are some really good points in here):

---------------

For example: Dallas will pay increasing debt service for many years and has 30 plus year bonds and commercial paper for its almost $4 billion of debt. Their debt service is considered annual operating costs in the chart below, because: By the time current bonds are paid, the rail system will be at the end of its service life and will need replacement through the creation of a new round of bonds, continuing this high bond expense for as long as the system operates. While other Texas cities have not yet reached this Dallas level of bond debt and expense, Houston is rapidly moving in the same direction and Austin’s planning is pointing in this direction. Currently Dallas’s debt service is about 3 times Houston’s and almost 40 times Austin’s.
...
One may look at the data in the table above in many ways, but, none of the conclusions seem to be positive for rail transit. Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin are all among the top 20 fastest growing major cities in the nation. However, the three cities with various levels of rail transit, Dallas, Houston and Austin, all have declining transit ridership trends and have fewer absolute transit riders today than they had a dozen years ago. They have spent billions to implement and promote transit with a heavy focus on rail transit.
...

These data highlight a number of broader Texas Metro Area negative transit trends:

1. Metro areas with more rail transit have significantly higher costs and higher taxpayer subsidies per ride.
2. Metro areas with more rail transit have fewer total transit boardings per capita.
3. Metro areas with higher densities have fewer transit riders (boardings) per capita.
4. Dallas has the largest population and greatest population density but the least cost effective transit system: Higher cost per ride (boarding) and fewer boardings per capita.
5. Increasing the proportion of a region’s transit funds being spent on rail transit leads to less cost effective overall transit and degraded transit for the majority of transit riders who still ride busses.

Some Major Texas City Metro Areas comparisons/observations regarding transit data:

1. Dallas-Ft. Worth Metro’s population is more than 3 times San Antonio’s and Dallas’ annual transit operating expense is 4.4 times San Antonio’s but Dallas has only 1.6 times the transit ridership of San Antonio.
2. Dallas-Ft. Worth Metro’s population is 3.8 times that of Austin and Dallas’ annual transit operating expense is 3.7 times the transit expense of Austin but Dallas-Ft. Worth has only 1.9 times Austin’s ridership.
3. Dallas has the most invested, more than $4 billion, in light rail and it has the highest cost per transit ride at 2.8 times San Antonio’s costs and almost 2 times Austin’s. Dallas has the least boardings per capita, about one-half of San Antonio and Austin.
4. San Antonio’s bus only transit system has 1.2 times Austin’s ridership but only 82% of Austin’s annual operating expense.
5. San Antonio’s ‘cost per transit rider’ is about one-third of Dallas-Ft. Worth’s and San Antonio has 2 times as many transit riders per capita as Dallas-Ft Worth.
6. Dallas’ 2011 net debt service (principal and interest) budget of $153 million is greater than San Antonio’s total 2011 budgeted operating costs of $141.3 million and almost as much as Austin’s $168.2 million.

...
It is no surprise that Dallas has hit a transit financial wall causing it to pause and curtail, at least temporarily, further light rail expansion. It seems, the more light rail Dallas implements, the more inefficient and expensive its transit becomes. This is an often occurring trend when regions implement rail transit and is a serious problem trend now developing in Houston and Austin. The result is overall degradation of transit service as exorbitantly expensive rail transit and resulting debt absorb increasingly higher percentages of transit funds. This, in turn, results in increasing transit fares and reductions in bus service which have disproportionately negative quality-of-life impacts on lower income citizens. Almost everyone forgets that the majority of transit riders still ride busses even after such massive investments in rail transit such as in Dallas or in Portland, the Mecca of train transit, where well over one-half of the transit rides are on busses. More importantly, this wasteful spending on ineffective trains ‘bleeds dry’ taxpayer funds which could be used to make positive contributions in serving communities’ many, higher priority needs for all citizens. (like express commuter bus services from all neighborhoods to all job centers, as I've been advocating)
...
Much experience has shown that once a cycle of high cost rail transit is implemented, the agency becomes heavily burdened with debt for a very long time. It is highly probable that the very high debt service (principle and interest) will become a permanent and major part of the transit agency’s annual operating costs. When one issue of bonds is paid down, it becomes time for another round of debt to replace aging equipment. This, in turn results in very poor cost effectiveness and degradation of the overall transit system as it serves fewer riders at higher costs. This high debt can never be paid-off without major increases in local taxes. Transit agencies cannot responsibly project and achieve enough ridership to make rail transit cost-effective. This has even less credibility in light of the national declining trend in the use of transit and the fact that the use of transit in Texas’ major metro areas has a declining trend over the past dozen years. As Dallas and other major cities have experienced, this results in a spiraling decline in transit performance and effectiveness, degradation of mobility for low income citizens and, often, cutbacks in other higher priority city services. This results in reducing overall quality-of-life.

----------------

Is this the future we really want for Houston? Because it's not too late to stop it now, but it will be too late very, very soon, and then we will be stuck with the same harsh reality as Dallas for decades to come...

This post first appeared at Houston Strategies

Houston's Not Resilient? Really?

Tory Gattis — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:04:48 -0400

Alert reader Jessie sent me this article about Houston ranking "very low" on a "resilience capacity index". For real. I was dumbfounded too. And now I'm going to post out-of-character and get a little snippy...

Let's skip right past the parade of articles and data showing Houston and Texas weathering the great recession better than just about everywhere else in the country. It's so strong Rick Perry might win the Republican presidential nomination based on it. That alone should make them question their entire methodology. Go back to the dot-com and Enron crashes, and you'll find the same minimal impact. Sounds like we're pretty resilient to me.

Then there's their explicit declaration that it represents the ability of a city to weather the shock of a major storm or flood. I'll point to both Tropical Storm Allison and Hurricane Ike. Both were devastating - yet we bounced back relatively quickly from each one. You might note on their map that New Orleans ranks higher than Houston, yet Hurricane Katrina knocked New Orleans on its back for years. Maybe they need to add a "levees upkeep" variable to the index?

Let's look at some of the problematic variables that make up the index:

Economic diversification: I'll admit there's some value here, but it's also worth noting that some of the wealthiest and most successful cities in the country built that success around one strong, dominant industry: NYC and finance, DC and govt, SF/SV and tech, Houston and energy, etc.
Income equality: also a proxy for "we don't have any high-paying industries" - nor the corresponding tax base. How is this helpful for resilience? (more on the value of income disparity here)
Educational attainment, being out of poverty, and home ownership: a proxy for using tight zoning and land-use regulation to keep out apartments, new and affordable housing, and immigrants.
Metropolitan Stability: aka "stagnation". Cities that aren't growing have amazingly stable populations because nobody wants to move there and none of the residents can sell their houses.

My cynical side thinks that, since the University of Buffalo put this out, they intentionally chose variables that made Buffalo look good, even though it's one of the most stagnant metro economies in the country.

All in all one of the worst designed indexes I've ever seen - and there are some doozies out there.

OK, I feel better. End venting (and snippyness).

Read more from Tory at HoustonStrategies.com.

Attracting National and Global Tourists to Houston

Tory Gattis — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:37:12 -0400

PWC ranked Houston #11 *in the world* for business, life, and innovation - a really amazingly high ranking when you think about it. Here's what they said:

Best : #2 in cost of owning business space, entrepreneurial environment and life satisfaction, #3 in commute time and cost of living

Worst : Last in foreign job-creating investment and international tourists

Details: Houstonians love Houston. So do US business owners. The rest of the world ... not so much. With lax zoning laws and plentiful space, Houston's low cost of living and doing business is a dream for American businesses and middle class workers, but the rest of the world pretends as though the city doesn't exist. The city has fewer international tourists than any other comparable global city.

That sparked an interesting debate started over at HAIF on how to improve Houston's tourism, especially for foreign visitors. This has always been a tough issue for Houston. We just don't get tourism proportionate to our global economic standing, and out-of-sight is out-of-mind. But what would a realistic strategy possibly be?

Out family-fun Orlando?

Out weather California?

Out beach Florida or Hawaii?

Out culture New York?

Out museum DC or New York?

Out gamble/adult-fun Las Vegas? (or South Beach?)

Out ski Denver or Salt Lake City?

Out history New Orleans, Boston, Savannah or Charleston? (or even San Antonio)

See what I mean? People choose vacation locations for specific reasons, and the winners are pretty damn dominant. We're stuck as a local/regional "big city" tourism destination like Chicago is for the midwest and Atlanta is for the southeast, with our share of great museums, restaurants, shopping, and a few attractions - but not enough to pull people from across the country - much less the world - to vacation here. Our one niche exception - something with some global pull - has been NASA JSC and Space Center Houston, but who knows what the future is there.

Here's a long-shot proposal I made a few years ago on my blog, one that would build on the NASA niche:

Finally, Houston needs to upgrade its tourism experience. All great, world-class cities offer a compelling tourism experience, even if only for a short trip. Even with NASA, the Galleria, and solid museum and theater districts, this has been one of Houston’s most glaring weaknesses, and one that has kept us off the radar for educated, well-traveled professionals. Again, the light rail network and some vibrant pedestrian districts will help greatly, but we really need one powerful, anchor “mega-attraction” that will actually draw people to Houston for at least a long weekend. One niche where I think Houston could be distinctive would be the world’s largest engineering and technology museum – something along the lines of DC’s National Air & Space Museum, Munich’s Deutsches Museum, and Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. It could even be one of the Smithsonian’s network of National Museums, which have started to move out beyond Washington DC (Design in NYC, Industrial History planned for Pittsburgh). Think of it as Houston’s version of Paris’ Louvre or London’s British Museum. The combination with Space Center Houston could create a national draw, not to mention a wonderful source of educational and career inspiration for our youth. As far as sites, 109 acres just became available at the end of the light rail line with the closing of Astroworld – not to mention the old Astrodome - both easily accessible to downtown and Reliant Park conventioneers. Any well-heeled philanthropists out there?

Done on a large enough scale, I could see it attracting not just the usual tourists, but multi-day student group field trips from all over like Space Camp does in Huntsville or the Smithsonian complex in DC - inspiring a new generation of scientists and engineers. It should not just focus on history, but articulate the great engineering and technology challenges we face going forward. It would be a big, bold, expensive gamble - but could be just the ticket to move us up to the next level in tourism and international recognition.

Giving the "New Houston Metro" Credit Where it's Due

Tory Gattis — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:00:44 -0500

Tuesday, the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority (Metro) held a blogger luncheon with senior Metro people (Chairman, CEO, board members, managers) at the Rail Operations Center south of Reliant. It was an informative event with a lot of good two-way Q&A. And it included an impressive tour of the facility, which, btw, is not air conditioned in the main maintenance bay. Let's just say it was the right time of year for a tour and I'm really glad I don't work there in the summer. The facility is doing its job though: Metro claims to have the highest operational uptime for rail cars in the country.

Sometimes in my push for increasing commuter bus services and cutting back rail, I fail to give credit to a lot of good work that is going on at the "New Metro":
a few issues for our collective consideration:

They really are a lot more open and transparent, and are really trying to do the right things.

There's been a lot to clean-up, and they've done a good job (although CEO Grenias says it will take another 2-3 years to completely turn around the organization).

They've also done a good job continuing to reach out and create collaborative agreements to provide commuter bus services outside of their service area (like Baytown and Pearland).

They've fixed the poorly performing Airport Direct service, price and route-wise.

They shifted to a cash basis for the General Mobility Program instead of increasing debt.

They fixed their broken relationship with the FTA.

There was a lot of good talk about improving express commuter bus services to TMC, Greenway, and, most importantly, Uptown. I pitched them on expanded HOV/HOT lanes (like the 610 Loop) and laptop trays and wifi on the commuter buses, which are under consideration. They have a very high percentage of downtown commuters - 30-40% - and claim a pretty high number for TMC - 20-30% - but that includes people who park in Smithlands and ride the rail, which I don't consider a true commuter solution (it's not doing anything to reduce freeway congestion).

Ultimately, they're trapped by the voter referendum and the federal money process to keep pursuing a rail plan (and line prioritization) that really doesn't make a lot of sense given the new fiscal reality since the referendum was passed. It will make even less sense if the Republican House guts rail funding. But at least they're taking steps to "firewall" the rail plan financially so it doesn't end up stealing from critical local and commuter bus operations. I may not agree with the overall strategic direction of the agency, but they do have good people doing good work within the constraints of the game they're forced to play.

This post originally appeared at houstonstrategies.com

The Real Answer to Houston's Traffic Congestion

Tory Gattis — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:12:42 -0500

The Houston Chronicle editorial board recently argued that light rail is key to combating Houston's traffic congestion problems. But if you look at the three cities with worse traffic congestion than Houston - DC, Chicago, and LA - they have much more transit, including tons of light rail in LA. Transit clearly hasn't solved the problem in these cities. These people aren't stuck in that traffic because they like it - it's because the transit doesn't go where they need to go or isn't timely. This is especially true with the rise of dispersed job centers in those cities where the trains don't go or don't provide good connectivity to the suburbs where people live. Let's see, in Houston we have downtown (<7% of jobs), uptown/Galleria, the med center, Greenway, Greenspoint, the Energy Corridor, Ship Channel, and NASA - among others. If that's not a dispersed set of job centers poorly suited to rail connectivity, then I don't know what is.

It's absurd to argue a light rail network focused inside the 610 Loop is going to do anything to relieve congestion or provide relief to commuters from the vast suburbs outside the loop. The solution is not doubling down on our multi-billion dollar LRT network, but instead scaling it back (University line only, IMHO) and instead spending the funds on a radical increase in express bus commuter services connecting all suburbs to all job centers with frequent nonstop 60+ mph transit using high-speed HOV/HOT lanes. Imagine driving to your local suburban transit center (which might just be a mall parking lot) and finding regular, frequent express buses (of all sizes) serving every major job center in Houston. These buses could have amenities like wifi and laptop trays. They might even be run by private operators (with subsidized fares) competing on routes, schedule, reliability, service, and amenities. And after they get to the job center, they can circulate to get you right to your building - no long walks in heat, cold, or rain. Finally, all of this is a single-seat service without annoying and time-consuming transfers from bus-to-rail or rail-to-bus (or even rail-to-rail).

It's a much more practical solution for a city like Houston, but one that requires innovating 'outside the box' as a transit agency rather than parroting the "more rail" mantra that every other transit agency in the country repeats endlessly.

For more details, see these two previous posts:

This post originally appeared at Houston Strategies.