As I wrote in an earlier epistle, I recently was sent on a 2 week work trip by VLICA (the Very Large Industrial Corporation of America). I went for 5 days to London, followed by a trip to the deserts of the Sahara before coming home to Houston. In addition to coming home to a story about zoning ordainances in Houston, I also found myself staring at yet another Metro rail story. This time we find the local public transportation behemoth agency fully determined to get that rail line westward at all costs. And so it was that, predictably, I found myself arguing with the local blogging punditry once again about transportation. With that in mind, I thought that I would share some new insights that I discovered while on my recent far away travels.
First, I left Houston on a flight to London which took off at 7:00pm from Houston Intercontinental Airport on a weekday evening. I left VLICA (which is located in downtown Houston) circa 4:30pm in the afternoon. I took I-45 out to the airport, a trip which was 24+ miles in length and which took 1 hour in very heavy rush hour traffic.
Now then, I have heard from time to time the suggestion that Houston build some kind of high speed rail link from the airport to downtown. Now that I know the distance from downtown to IAH, I can start to put some perspective on what such an idea would demand. First, a light rail line which would directly connect downtown and the airport would probably cost in the neighborhood of $1.2-2 billion, since light rail lines often are often estimated to cost $40-50 million per mile and costs on nearly all transportation infrastructure projects (including roads) are lowballed to the tune of 10-100% before they are actually built. Those figures also do not consider the issue that property, home, and business owners will not receive compensation to move, shutdown, or to pay their legal costs, which means that a pretty large amount of the true social costs are fobbed off on private parties along rail or road routes. Since LR lines are built at grade and have frequent stops, their average speeds (which is what really matters, not their top speeds) come out to about 12-15 mph. That would mean that a full length trip on an LR line running from downtown to the airport would take about 90 minutes to 2 hours. Since Houston is not a big convention center, having a mere 150,000 - 300,000 visitors per year from conventioneers, local political pressures would certainly rise to have frequent stops occur on such a line, since that would be the only way to justify building such a project and for having any hope of obtaining federal funding for such a venture.
In an editorial published in today's Houston Chronicle, Mr. Planner himself, Peter Brown, envisions "convenient high speed rapid transit to...our three major airports". Well CM Brown, if we are going to start talking about high speed rapid transit, then we are talking another ball game altogether. That would mean one of two things. Either that would involve building an LR line with few or no stops (effectively trading ridership levels for speed, and probably giving up federal monies in the process - which is a great way to start rationalizing transportation policy to begin with), or we start talking about building a monorail or heavy commuter rail line with few or no stops. The price tags on either of those options usually start at $100 million per mile and only go up. Ergo, the price tag on a monorail or heavy commuter rail line would start in the $2.5 billion range and go up. Neither project would probably do much for the 90-98% of Houstonians who commute to work, school, or get to social activities via their automobiles.
As things are, most higher end hotels in Houston offer shuttle services via bus from the airports which are flexible, are entirely adequate to deal with the matter, and are far cheaper to boot. I did hear a complaint from a customer engineer at work one day where he said his flight didn't make it into Houston until nearly 1:00am. He was upset that he had to take a taxi from the airport to downtown Houston and that it set him back $65. However, spending well over a billion dollars to accomodate people like this would not necessarily have solved this guy's problem since rail routes in many cities stop operating by 1:00am anyway.
Interestingly, one thing I noticed both on the ride back and forth on this trip and on a previous vacation trip I took to SE Asia in October, is that the stretch of Beltway 8 which leads from I-45 to JFK Boulevard, which is three lanes wide in each direction (I think either 10 or 12 lanes wide when you add in the frontage lanes), is getting rather congested during the daytime hours. This is a far cry from as little as 15 years ago. I can remember zooming along the Beltway with little traffic congestion when I first went to China in 1991.
I find this rather amusing. While I argue with fellow bloggers and while the Chronicle and other pro-rail talking heads go on and on about mandating the spending of billions on a few dozen miles of rail, the roads which are 20+ miles from downtown Houston have already gotten quite busy! The world went right by the pro-rail advocates and they don't even seem to realize how far away the horse has already run from the stable doors.
But I digress. Many bloggers might want to know what London was like? Surely they will have their revenge upon yours truly. Well gentle readers, I went to London on holiday for 2 weeks in 2002, just before the 2002 World Cup and Queen Elizabeth's 50th anniversary ascention celebrations, so I already have experience with using the Tube. My flight landed at Gatwick Airport late in the morning. I had a Lonely Planet Britain guidebook with me from a travels 4 years ago. In order to get to my rather ritzy hotel in central London (paid for on the company dime), I could use the Gatwick Express. The tram would take me from Gatwick airport to the Victoria tube station. From there, I would need to get on the Circle Line to get to the Temple station. From there I could walk perhaps 600 yards to get to my hotel.
It turned out that the Gatwick Express ticket ran me 14 pounds, about $27 at December 2006 exchange rates. That ride, which is a distance of 28 miles, was basically non-stop and took about 30-35 minutes. There is a slower version of the tram which sets you back 9 pounds, but stops several times along the route. In all, I would have to guess that the Gatwick Express has at least $3 billion of captial sunk into it. I had a conversation with a very attractive 30 something British woman and her father while on the tram. Amongst other things, there is plenty of housing stock that is located fairly close to the tram and is probably within hearing range of when trains roll by. In fact we spotted a handful of houses which literally had switching stations or small electrical plants literally at the edge of their front lawns! The layout of many suburbs of London is low density and doesn't look too terribly different from those in Houston. I should make an exception to that statement in that the housing stock, especially the Edwardian and Victorian era homes and apartment blocks, are mostly made of brick and are usually 2-4 stories tall.
So I made it to Victoria station. No this is where things get interesting. When I first went to London in 2002, I had no personal references or experience from which to draw upon when going there. One of my co-workers told me that "You have to rent a car, mate!" So I did. I made arrangements to rent a car, which would have set me back 300 pounds for the two week period. Great! But, still having my doubts, I decided to hold off for one day before doing the car rental. So I landed in Heathrow Airport, then took a shuttle bus to my hotel in Paddington. It was there that I discovered that parking is next to impossible in central London. THERE WAS NO FREE PARKING ANYWHERE IN THE IMMEDIATE AREA! I discovered that parking a car was going to cost 1 pound every 30 minutes. Ouch! Not only that, but there were requirements that one had to move your car every 4 hours or your vehicle would be subject to - as the Brits call it - a clamp down (in other words, it would be towed). The signal was clear. I was in a city which was first started 2,000 years ago in Roman times. The streets and roads of London which are within 4-5 miles of the Thames were all built many hundreds of years ago (though they might have been bombed by the Luftwaffe and repaired). Those streets were (and are) frequently only one lane in each direction, essentially being designed for horse and carriage traffic. Even many major thoroughfares, such as Oxford Street, are often only 2 lanes in each direction, ergo parking space was at a major premium. I could potentially rent a car and spend up to 48 pounds per day in parking fees, or I could take the Tube. The decision was a no brainer.
Bear in mind that not all of London was like this. The main point was that parking in the Paddington area was for the locals - the people who lived there, the local business owners, the Royal Mail and other business deliveries, etc. If you were a mere tourist, then feel free to take the Tube or a Red Double Decker bus to get around. And so I did. Tube tickets in the number 1 and 2 zones ran 1 pound 60, not bad considering the exchange rate was about $1.55 to the pound at the time.
Now then, fast forward 4 1/2 years. What do I see when I get to the Victoria station, carrying 2 fully loaded bags with about 60+ pounds of clothes, laptop, work books, and work gear with me (hint hint about travelling around on foot)? Well, I discover that Tube tickets have gone up, way up! They now cost 3 pounds (about $5.75 - December 2006) for a zone 1 ticket, a whopping 90 percent mark up over the past 4 years! Startled, I went ahead and ponied up the 3 quid and took off for the Temple station, wondering all along what the hell Ken Livingstone, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have been doing to transportation in London. Did they buckle to the labor unions? Hell, I don't know.
And so it was. I reached the Temple station and proceeded to hike my ass up a hill with all that baggage, dodging the incredibly heavy street traffic, and made the 5-6 minute walk to the hotel.
Now then, the wikipedia entry for the London Underground mentions that the Tube system carries about 2.7 million passengers per day. Since the population of Greater London is estimated to be about 7.5 million (2005 figures), then a reasonable estimate as to how many total transit trips are taken in the Greater London area on an average day is probably around 20 million. That would mean that the Tube is transporting probably around 13-14 percent of all passenger trips taken in Greater London. I did recently read that 7 million people take either the Tube or use the bus system, which would mean that about 4.5 million people per day are taking the bus. That in turn would mean that about 35 percent of all transit trips are taken either by bus or by the Underground. Note that I have not looked up a website which shows all the goods. These numbers are nothing but educated guesses.
Additionally, the Wiki entry for the London Underground mentions that the system is composed of 253 miles (408km) of line, with 55% of that line being above ground. What is notable is that much of the Underground was already in place by 1920, which was around the time that Henry Ford had made automobiles affordable to millions via mass production. If I were to make a SWAG as to how much capital has been sunk into the London Underground since 1863, I would imagine it to be over $100 billion in today's money. The wiki site mentions that 16 billion pounds of taxpayer monies have been promised through the year 2030, which would equate to about $1.3 billion per year. Running the Tube ain't cheap folks!
I made it into VLICA's London office and found that one of my London colleagues, an transplanted Aussie from Perth, lives in Brighton. Now for you Americans out there, Brighton is on the coast. This guy's daily commute is about 47 miles and on a good day takes 1 hour and 10 minutes! So much for the idea that we have to stop building roads and start building tons of mass transit because that will stop people from living dozens of miles away from their places of work.
Now here's the kicker though about this guy's commute. You see, he showed up at 10:30am that morning. Why? because the tram had an electrical problem which caused another rail carriage to stop. That in turn caused all other rolling stock to have to stop, including the one on which my co-worker was on. His commute that day took 3 hours and 45 minutes.
Two of my London colleagues take motorbikes in from their flats. They live 20 and 30 kilometers from the office respectively, and it takes them 40 and 50 minutes respectively to get to the office. When I told my co-workers about the issue that Tube tickets now cost 3 pounds each, one of them said, "Oh, yeah! What a fu***ng rip off! And they don't tell the tourists either!" And what was it that they (the Transport for London agency which runs the public transit system) don't tell the tourists? They don't tell them about the Oyster cards, that's what. A monthly Oyster card will set you back about 90 pounds, about 3 pounds per day for access to the entire system. It has been mentioned that the price discriminatory behavior practiced towards buying old fashioned tickets verses buying passage via Oyster cards is an effort to encourage people to buy into the Oyster card system, but again tourists or business travellers will often have little or no knowledge or incentive to purchase into the regime, especially if they are only going to be in town for a few days. Ergo, the Oyster card system works to effectively fob off costs onto non voters, and that includes non-London Brits. I met up with a girl from Sheffield whom I had not seen in 15 years while I was in town and she didn't know about Oyster cards either.
As it was, there also was a considerable amount of maintenance and engineering work going on during the weekend I was there. As such, several Tube lines were shutdown and would be passengers had to find other ways of getting around.
Enough for now. More is to come on the subject of mass transit in Houston in my next few posts. If you are looking for some entertainment on the London Underground, I would suggest visiting this site. In particular, read this entry which says that the average British commute clocks in at 46 minutes. That is 20 minutes longer than the average commute in Houston. Enjoy!
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
TMW
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at December 24, 2006 07:40 PM
