A humorous twist to my anti - rail campaigning efforts occurred on August 5, 2006. I had attended a Metro public meeting on the Northside where Metro and its supporters want to railroad that neighborhood as well. When I got home, I found that I had a mailer sent to me from Richmond Rail.org, one of the primary groups agitating for rail along Richmond. In the mailer, they want you to sign their petition, fill out survey information and the like.
However, it is their claims which I intend to deal with here. I also explore who their board members are. I got the idea for doing this from this Blog Houston entry, where Anne writes about Doug Childers, President of Richmond Rail, who happens to be an architect whose firm intends to capitalize on LR development. Well Anne and fellow Blog Houstonian gentle readers, it turns out the Herr Childers has some company...
But first, dealing with Richmond Rail's railings:
1) We want stations we can walk or bike to from our homes.
A subheader says, "A Dallas study found that the value of homes near light rail stations increased 50% more than the value of homes elsewhere."
Answer: Well Richmond Railers, as someone who lived in the Richmond Kirby area for 8 years, I can tell you that there are tons bus stops that are already within walking distance of most homes which happen to line Richmond Avenue. Metro's system map shows the number 9 and 25 buses running along Richmond itself. The number 18 goes north / south along Kirby, the 27 goes along Shepherd, the 26 travels north / south along Greenbriar, the 42, 53, and 82 routes travel along Westheimer, the 78 goes along West Alabama, and the 34 bus travels along Montrose. There were about 20 bus stops within a one mile area of where I used to live. In short, you can already walk or bike to bus stops that are on Richmond. No tram is needed to do this and this is a not a reason to build a tram.
As for the increase of home values, that may or may not happen. Even if it does, that is not a reason to build any transportation infrastructure project. The only reason to build any transportation infrastructure project is to relieve traffic congestion.
2. We want connections from our neighborhoods to Downtown, Greenway Plaza, Uptown, the University of Houston, Midtown, and the Medical Center.
The subheader says, "These activity centers account for more than 390,000 jobs and 97,000 students".
Answer: See answer to #1 above. In short, buses already take you to every one of these locations. Once again, there is no need to build a tram. I would also be willing to bet that the vast majority of those job holders and students do not take any of Metro's buses to their job or school. They drive their cars. Unless the tram can get them there (and make pit stops off elsewhere) much faster than the bus can (doubtful since they go about the same speed), then there is no reason for those job holders and students to take a tram if they aren't taking the bus already.
3) We want accessible transit for seniors, students, the disabled, and the transit dependent.
The subheader reads, "1 in 5 adult Texans cannot drive. Frequent, convenient, and accessible transit service opens opportunities".
Answer: Seniors make up about 3 percent of the population of Harris County. People who get up there in age rarely stay in Houston. They take off when they retire. I would be willing to bet anyone $500 that there are fewer than 5,000 elderly people who live within 1 mile of the stretch of Richmond where the tram is / was set to be built. In addition, most old people try to keep driving as long as they can. They simply don't want to loose their independence and chances are that their children or other loved ones will take care of them in the event that they lose their ability to drive. I have a strong suspicion that if an elderly person has lost their ability to drive, for whatever reason, then that is probably not the greatest problem that they face.
As for students, all I can say is to read answer #1 above. Why aren't they taking the bus already to get to school? Why do we need to build a tram for them to take mass transit?
The disabled and transit dependent: You are not helping the cause of the transit dependent by building trams and then taking away hordes of bus routes to keep the tram running. That cuts down on their potential spots where they can go via Metro. As for the disabled, this Richmond Rail supporter declares that he already uses Metro buses. So why do we have to build a tram?
Again, building and operating the current Main Street tram has forced Metro to cut down on the frequency of many bus stops. The number 18 which runs north / south along Kirby used to pass by every 15 minutes. While the Main Street tram was being built, the former Metro board approved a change in scheduling to the #18 route which cut service back to its current schedule where it comes by once every 32minutes! Building trams does not help overall mobility.
In addition, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act already compels local government transit agencies to make special provisions to aid the handicapped. I cannot count how many times I have seen MetroLift buses travel along Kirby and Allen Parkway when I lived in the area and when I drive to work today.
4) We want an attractive pedestrian-friendly avenue
The subheader to this says, "There are more trees, safer wider sidewalks, and better lighting on Main Street now than there were before light rail was built".
If your goal was to equip and presumably beautify Main Street with more trees, allegedly safer and wider sidewalks, and better lighting, then why didn't we just get the interested parties to plant the trees, build the sidewalks, and put in more lighting along Main Street? Why did we need to build a tram to do this?
5) We want people, not parking lots.
Subheader says, "There are thousands of new homes coming to Richmond. Do we want new residents clogging traffic or riding trains?"
Answer: I don't know if it is true of there are thousands of new homes coming to Richmond. If there are, then bear in mind that the per capita of car / truck ownership in America is about 500 - 600 vehicles per 1,000 people. So, say that the Richmond Rail folks are correct and 10,000 new residents move within 1 mile of Richmond. Then chances are that those 10,000 new Houstonians will own - and use - about 5,000 personal vehicles. That is regardless of whether a tram is built or not. Bear in mind that you are also swiping one vehicle lane in each direction along the street.
It is presumptuous thinking that all those people will use the tram just because it is built. If you need to do something like go to the Randalls on Westheimer and Shepherd, the Randalls on Wesleyan and Bissonet, or perhaps the H.E.B Central Market on Westheimer and Wesleyan, then chances are that you are going to take your car to run your errands since it is there for you 24 hours a day / 7 days per week, and cars are faster. When the Main Street tram was first put into operation, it only attracted about 10,000 riders per day.
6. We know Houstonians ride rail when it goes where people want to go.
Subheader: "The Main Street light rail line has more than 40,000 boardings on an average weekday -- that's more riders per mile than any other modern light trail system in the United States".
As mentioned in #5 above, only 10,000 riders rode the tram when it was first put into service. Ridership increased to 33,000 - 35,000 per day when bus routes in the area were cancelled and others rerouted towards the tram. Effectively building that tram resulted in a substitution effect where Metro spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars to achieve the same result as it had before when it had only buses running along the Main Street area. Building that tram made little or no difference in Metro's overall ridership numbers. A few more people might be riding Metro these days because of higher gasoline prices, but I would imagine most people who are making adjustments are simply cutting back on driving or carpooling. Mass transit simply cannot get them to where they need to go at the speed they want to get there.
Phew! Now for the interesting part - what about those directors at Richmond Rail?
Well, as Anne noted, Doug Childers is an architect who happens to be a member of the Greater Houston Partnership, easily the most powerful lobbying and rent seeking group in Houston politics.
But wait folks! What about the other directors at RR? Well, it seems Mr. Childers has some fellow architects on board, such as...
Joe Webb. Mr. Webb is a partner of Webb Architects. Mr. Webb spoke to the A.I.A in June 2002 about the "City of Houston’s Master Plan on the Near North Side." I don't know about you, but whenever I hear anyone start talking about master plans, it gives me the creeps.
Indeed if one visits the web site of the A.I.A. Houston branch, one notices some rather interesting names on the roster. Amongst them are Houston City Council Member Peter Brown, Gonzalo Camacho, an engineer by training who has spent time promoting a tunnel under I-45 with a big rail component, and our friend David Crossley of the Gulf Coast Institute. What a surprise! Indeed it seems the A.I.A Houston branch is a hive of so - called "Smart Growth" types who clearly have enough money to send out mass mailers to push an agenda of putting rail on Richmond. Mr. Brown spent several hundred thousand dollars of his own money to campaign for his City Council seat. These guys not only have an agenda, they also have some money to try to impose it on a city wide basis.
As for the other Richmond Rail directors, we have Dan Barnum, another member of the Houston A.I.A. This web page says that Mr. Barnum was an "author of a widely publicized article on ‘Ugliness’ in Houston". Mr. Barnum is also on record for "wanting stronger land use controls" in Houston. No surprise that these guys want stronger land use controls. In that article, Mr. Barnum seemed rather upset that a CVS Pharmacy store sprung up in Midtown Houston after redevelopment.
It also seems Mr. Barnum is a member of something called the Midtown Management Board. In this article, Mr. Barnum talks about how a gateway could be built between Downtown Houston and Midtown. That is, after the homeless people were relocated.
Richmond Rail director Gary Baumgartner is known publicly as the President of the St. George Place Civic Club, which is outside of the 610 Loop along Richmond. What many people might not know is that Mr. Baumgartner is also a member of the board of directors of a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) that encompasses the St. George Place area. Hmmm...
Doing a search on Richmond Rail board member Jim Patterson was difficult. There are plenty of Jim Patterson and Houston matches when you Google for those terms. Nonetheless, I did discover that a Jim Patterson is also associated with the Houston A.I.A. If this is the correct Jim Patterson, then his landscaping / architect company can be found here. A Jim Patterson is also a board member of the Museum Business District Alliance.
But wait! Not all board members of Richmond Rail are Smart Growth architects. There is one lawyer, Jonathan Paull. Unlike our agenda pushing architects, Mr. Paull seems to think that building rail in the area will help curb pollution, curb sprawl, and aid his daughter's asthma problem.
Mr. Paull, those are nice thoughts, but the Houston Chronicle writes a story every year denoting the largest brand new real estate developments in the area. Over the past two years, either 18 or 19 of the 20 largest new developments were going on outside Highway 6, not inside 610 loop! They weren't even between the 610 loop and Beltway 8! Building a rail network won't stop suburbanization (sprawl to you) from happening.
If you really want to help curb pollution, then I would suggest to you Mr. Paull, that you lobby to get the State of Texas to enact tighter controls on emissions on the petrochemical plants east of the City and along 225. You might also try to campaign to make the vehicle emissions tests which Harris County drivers have to pass a bit tighter. Those two ideas will do far more to curb pollution in Houston than any rail line ever will.
One must remember, Mr. Paull, that Metro only carries 4-5 percent of work trips and only 2-3 percent of trips of all kinds taken by residents in its service area (maybe 300,000 boardings on Metro vehicles verses the 8 - 10 million trips taken daily in the Houston area).
You also seem to have a hope that swiping a lane of Richmond from autos and putting a tram on it will cut out pollution. But if there really are more people coming into the area as your group asserts, then they will only have two lanes on which to drive all those extra autos. I've put up with endless situations where the City of Houston has cut off traffic on 2-3 lane roads and narrowed it down 1-2 lanes. This went on during the Kirby sewer reconstruction for 3 years, on the Spur 527 reconstruction, and it is going on right now on San Felipe. Narrowing down the number of lanes available to cars is not a way to alleviate traffic congestion.
So there you are. The Richmond Rail group is headed by a bunch of Smart Growth architects, who happen in some instances to be board members of various local politically connected groups, and might possibly personally profit somehow from rail being put down through the Richmond area.
Enough! It has taken me 2+ hours to write and research this. Have a good evening.
Wizard.
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at August 9, 2006 12:46 AM