This past week, the FTA issued letters to one, Mr. Frank Wilson, CEO of Harris County Metro, informing him that the FTA has moved the North Corridor and Southeast light rail alignments back into preliminary engineering status for fiscal year 2009. Of note, Metro stated in its FEIS for the Southeast alignment (see page 50 of this document) that a light rail component would cost $329 million (2006 dollars). The FTA PE approval letter now states, two years later, that the updated cost estimate is up to $663 million for the alignment. As for the North Corridor alignment, the FEIS for it stated that the North Corridor would cost $354 million (see page 50) in 2006 dollars. The FTA letter now states that the alignment will cost $677 million in year of expenditure dollars. The FTA administrator and outside auditor wrote in the accompanying report that Metro's estimated annual increases of 3.25 percent were optimistic because of volatility in commodities markets, uncertain scope of the project, and items like utility relocations. In other words, the cost of these two alignments has gone from $682 million to $1.34 billion in inflationary dollars, a rise of 96 percent. If you factor in inflation, the project's cost rise is about 63 percent and the outside auditor says these numbers are optimistic.
Folks, the word is now official. This 30 mile of the Metro Solutions Phase 2 expansion will cost over $4 billion - which I had predicted 4 months ago - and Metro will go bankrupt ponying up a mere one third of that money. Houston Chronicle transportation beat writer Rad Sallee wrote on March 28, 2008 that there is a problem with the Harrisburg rail alignment crisscrossing Union Pacific rail tracks. No problem if the money can be found to build an overpass. With the cost escalations however, this means that the 4 mile, 4 stop Harrisburg rail alignment will cost $500 - $600 million and will presumably be replacing a local bus route with many more stops. It will only cover a short stretch of the #50 Harrisburg bus route, which in 2007 carried a mere 4,192 riders per day. This is down some 20 percent from the pre-Main Street rail line peak patronage Metro achieved with the Harrisburg bus route in 1999 of 5,499 riders and in 2000 of 5,277 riders.
As for travel forecasts for both proposed rail alignments, Metro stated in its FEIS for the North Corridor in 2006 that a rail alignment would draw 14,000 riders per day. That's right folks. $677 million for 14,000 riders per day. For the Southeast alignment, Metro forecast in its FEIS that a BRT alignment (not a light rail alignment) would draw 13,900 riders per day. It's quite possible that light rail would draw more riders. Either way, we are looking at two rail alignments whose capital costs approach 50 percent of the entire cost of the Katy Freeway refurbishment and expansion, but will probably only carry about the equivalent of two lanes of passengers and do nothing to expedite the movement of freight or goods. Transit ridership is up about 10 percent over 2007, but transit still carries only 4-5 percent of work trips and only 1-2 percent of overall trips. Moreover, transit patronage is up for both bus and rail.
Mobility is what matters, not mode. There is a very strong argument to be made that patronage would also improve if Metro simply installed dedicated bus lanes, decreased the frequency of stops to improve bus travel speeds, and increased headway frequencies to cut down on catastrophic wait times. This could all be done at a fraction of the cost of $130 million per mile light rail lines.
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But enough of today's troubles. The purpose of this post is to talk about a wonderful book that every transportation fan should have in his or her library and that book is Steven M. Baron's Houston Electric - The Street Railways of Houston, Texas.
Baron, a rail fan, writes that the book - which he published in 1996 - was a time consuming process and gives much credit to a number of streetcar enthusiasts who are no longer with us. The amount of material Mr. Baron managed to uncover was tremendous, considering that hard evidence on Houston's streetcar system is very scarce. He still managed to publish a book that is 223 pages long, including footnotes and sources. I should thank Mr. Baron for his efforts.
Baron starts off, appropriately, at the beginning. In 1868 Houston was, in his words, a 1 square mile hustling place with nothing but dirt roads which of course turned to mud when it rained. Nearly everyone walked. That is when Houstonians were greeted to the news that a horse car would be utilizing some old tracks from the Houston Tap & Brazoria Railroad which had been built years earlier, but had fallen into disrepair. Mule pulled cars started operating along Houston roads. Mules were preferred because they were steadier than horses and did not frighten or bolt. Baron goes on to describe the schemes which various early pioneers tried to get regular rail service into operation during the 1870's and 1880's.
Baron says that many figures were involved in the initial construction of Houston's early streetcar system, but perhaps the one man who was best known and identified with it was Henry MacGregor. MacGregor, who was born in New Hampshire but moved to Houston as a young man, became a secretary of the Galveston City Railroad, then later bought out and became general manager of Houston's budding streetcar lines (along with William Sinclair) in 1883. He had a swath of real estate holdings and eventually became involved in the effort to widen the Houston Ship Channel. He left MacGregor Park along with North and South MacGregor Way (which lie on either side of Braes Bayou, south of the University of Houston) to the City in his will. MacGregor and Sinclair took over a company called Houston City Street Railway, which had received a state charter in 1870, but regular service did not really start until years later. HCSR faced competition from another rail line, but Sinclair and MacGregor stepped in and acquired the assets of both companies.
Things went well until April of 1888 when another trio of ambitious men received a franchise from the Houston City Council to start a competing streetcar system. For a while in 1889, Houstonians experienced the drama of two companies laying track, a battle where City Council members led both sides and which led to legal fights, injunctions, and a handful of arrests. Despite this, Houston lamentably still had chronically muddy roads.
This state of affairs improved dramatically in 1891 when enough capital and technological expertise was available to electrify the streetcar lines. In scenes that were reminiscent of the Main Street rail line, Baron describes how service was often dangerous. Still, the electrification of the streetcar lines were a tremendous boon to the city, even in the midst of the nationwide depression of the 1890's.
Streetcars in Houston, as they did in every city of the world, also aided and abetted suburbanization and sprawl, just as the automobiles which succeeded them did. In a letter written in 1893 to the newspapers, a person who signed the letter "A Poor Man" wrote:
The adoption of electricity as a motor by the streetcar company in Houston is a blessing to the poor people of this city, because it allows a man of limited means to rent a house or to build a home in the outskirts of the city where rent is cheap or lots can be bought for a very small price, and live there and at the same time get into town early enough to attend to business. Rapid transit is the only thing that can enable a poor man to own his own home.
Real estate was big business after the 1890's and no savvy developer would really want to develop without streetcar access. Most famously, the Heights was developed with the streetcar in mind, but most other neighborhoods were also.
Baron also describes the strikes from labor unrest, management difficulties, and financial problems which plagued HCSR until out of state bondholders created a reorganization plan which brought the engineering firm Stone and Webster into the management picture. S&W brought capital, expertise, and some financial stability to the management of Houston's streetcar system and in fact provided management services all the way until the system went through its final shutdown in 1940. S&W helped oversee bus services during WWII and for some years afterwards. S&W reorganized the company and renamed it Houston Electric Company. The streetcar company was known by this name even after Houston Lighting and Power came along, and which in fact contracted to sell power to HEC in the 1920's, an idea that alleviated HEC from having to produce its own power. He also tells of the innovation and design of the Birney car and the resulting cost savings that were reaped by HEC because of the ability to do away with a conductor needing to be on board the vehicle.
In November 1914, a booming Houston, fresh with a new ship channel and flowing oil fields, witnessed a new competitor into the transit picture - the jitney automobile car. Baron goes on to write how competitive pressures from jitney cars drove HEC management absolutely crazy for the next decade, as jitneys eventually captured some 22 percent of the market. It didn't help that inflationary pressures from the First World War crippled finances, as did rising capital expenditures. Efforts to raise fares were usually met with petition drives from Houstonians opposing the measures, which often passed in elections.
Intriguingly, in 1920, the City of Houston hired a traction consultant named John Beeler to do a thorough study of Houston's transportation system. Beeler wrote, amongst many other things, that two-thirds of the streetcar routes were losing money. But he also wrote:
One of the reasons why the jitney bus has made such inroads into the railway business is because it saves time... The public demands rapid transportation.
Beeler went on to note that the average speed of travel achieved by streetcars was about 9 miles per hour, whereas the jitneys were averaging 14 miles per hour. Successive ordinances were implemented to subject jitney cars to ever increasing regulatory measures over the following decade. They were opposed by jitney drivers, but in 1924 City Council unexpectedly shutdown and banned jitneys altogether.
Baron goes on to state what is well known in historical and transportation circles in Houston, namely that the streetcar network reached its apex in 1927 with 90 miles of routes. What few know however is that as early as 1924, Houston Electric started trying out substituting or supplementing shuttle and commuter bus services to neighborhoods instead of going through the massive capital expense of extending streetcar tracks. The now affluent Southampton area of Houston got bus service, as did Harrisburg alignment in February 1928 - ironic considering that Metro now is going to spend huge sums of money to bring rail back to the street. The famous Bellaire streetcar route was abruptly replaced with bus service in September 1927 because the track was falling into poor condition. By 1929, Houston Electric was operating some 70 buses on 16 routes. Meanwhile, the City of Houston was implementing a paving program on its streets and was requiring that Houston Electric pay for paving of lanes where its streetcar tracks were, which proved to be another massive drain on HEC's coffers. The Depression proved to be a hard blow to HEC, with patronage and farebox recovery plummeting and transit losing patrons to an ever growing fleets of private automobiles. Baron includes a telling photo, dated approximately 1938, where a streetcar is pictured going south on Fannin, but which is seemingly lost in a crowd of ever increasing automobile traffic.
The story Baron tells is one that Houston's streetcar system did not abruptly collapse. Instead, the story that emerges from his book is that Houston's streetcar network experienced a steady switch from streetcars on rail to buses from the period of roughly 1924 - 1940. The company executives at HEC knew something that so many people who argue and fight over transit today do not, namely that the capital costs of running buses was - and always will be - a tiny fraction of the expense of trying to maintain and extend streetcar rail networks. They knew as early as the late 1920's that the future belonged to the bus. Moreover, the per capita number of rides that people took on transit had been in steady decline for decades. The peak ridership per person was in 1913 where people took over 220 rides per year on streetcars. This number had declined to 159 per year by the late 1920's and decline accelerated over the decades of the 20th century and into the 21st. Baron writes nothing about alleged conspiracies to put streetcars out of business and replacing them with buses.
Baron tells the story of how Houston's new bus network served Houston during WWII. It was ironic that Houston dismantled its streetcar network just before the war, as patronage went from 56 million in 1940 to a record 130 million in 1945, a figure that has never been equaled. Conceivably, this surge in ridership, caused by wartime banning of automobile production and gas rationing, might have helped HEC keep its streetcar network alive until perhaps the early 1950's, but nearly all cities except for a few older cities in America dismantled their rail lines as the 20th century moved onwards.
Baron has a chapter on the aftermath of the dismantling of Houston's streetcar network, telling readers that patronage continued to decline during the 1950's and bus headways were steadily lengthened. Municipal ownership was discussed as early as the late 1950's. He tells of Bernard Calkins's valiant efforts during the 1960's to keep bus service running, but Calkins was unable to reverse declining ridership and had to sell out to National City Lines. He tells of the City of Houston's purchase of the bus system from NCL in April 1974 for $5.3 million, with the new company being named HouTran. Metro was voted into existence in August 1978 and, armed with a 1 percent tax on commerce, the rail plans started coming immediately, heedless of the fact that transit only was carrying 1-2 percent of all travel trips in Houston. In 1988, Baron notes that Metro carried 76.9 million passengers on 980 buses on 106 routes. In 2008, Metro is on track to carry about 112 million boardings using about 1,000 buses on a similar number of routes. On a per capita basis, there has been practically no change in the past 20 years in per capita ridership despite the fact that gasoline is now nearly $3.50 per gallon.
Baron's general history of transit comprises about half the book. The later half of the book describes individual neighborhoods and the lines which served them. In what can only be described as a godsend, Baron also includes yearly patronage and farebox numbers that HCSR and HEC achieved in their years of operation. This alone makes his book a wonder to read.
In summary, the Wizard think this book should be required reading by every political figure, both elected and appointed, in America. I think that every political interest group should also read this book. I think that every person who voices or writes an opinion on public transportation in this country should also be required to read this book and should keep their mouths shut until they do. There just might be a small chance that the world might become a far more rational and saner place if they did.
Wizard
The year 2007 saw a number of weather incidents which startled the world, including snow in Baghdad, winter storms which stranded millions of Chinese during the Chinese New Year, record snow falls in the North America, China, and Siberia, and a recent thickening of the ice packs.
And now the data is in for 2007 from all four of the world's major sources of climate tracking (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS). The worldwide temperature drop from 2006 to 2007 was 0.65 - 0.75 centigrade. Apparently, that is the largest single year drop since record keeping began and enough to wipe out all of the global warming that has occurred since the late 19th century.
For my .02 worth, I've long had a gut feeling that solar activity, or perhaps changes in heat coming from the core of the earth, would overwhelm any climate change effects from human activity. All one has to do is think of what the atmospheric conditions are like on other planets to see how huge of a role the Sun plays in our fragile and pathetic existence.
One person I know wrote me back:
Interesting year-to-year change, which will, depending upon the point of view of the specific advocate, will be:
1. Shouted from the highest hilltops, or
2. Ignored; critiqued as improper, unreliable, and the product of puppets of the oil cartels; belittled as meaningless and unimportant; and rebutted with countless stories of the "local" impacts of global warming.
In truth, this is interesting, but it is kinda like charting the times posted by the competitors in the Olympic Marathon between for the third 100 meters of the race and using that to attempt to predict the winner.
Let's face it, we simply do not know a whole lot about short-term, by which I mean periods of hundreds of years) climate change on Earth, despite the
large number of people who appear to be saying that they do.
Another wrote to me saying:
I've seen quite a few folks agree with you on that - ie. that the human effect on climate change is small.
Another wrote:
No. They have already changed the banner from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change."
It's the same way with pollution. No matter what we do to improve air quality, "Experts" will continue to claim pollution is worsening. It's called Political Science.
Sigh... I can only see the arguments getting fiercer if the world actually does enter an era where the earth starts cooling.
Wizard
On the eve of the very competitive Texas primaries, the Wizard has found himself watching the developing drama over the proposed downtown soccer stadium and would be land purchases from former council member and obviously still city hall insider Louis Macey. The hard words of long time City of Houston civil servant Ubu Roi in that posted thread have added to the concerns I have heard from political newcomers whom I have been active with on working on various municipal issues. Some people who suddenly find themselves in the political arena, often not because of their own doing, end up wondering whether Houston's form of government invests too much power in the hands of the mayor.
To put some perspective on this issue, the Wizard consulted his library and specifically, Richard Murray's Change and Governance in Houston for some answers as to what Houston had in terms of its governing structure before. Houston was granted its initial charter in 1905. As Murray recounts, Houston's first form of government was a commission style government composed of a mayor and four aldermen. City administration was parceled out between the aldermen, for example one alderman might be responsible for taxes and land while another was responsible for water. The mayor had veto powers, limited appointment powers, and budget preparation authority. Needless to say, this balkanized city administration, made aldermen turf lords over their part of city administration, turned the mayor's veto power into a reactive tool rather than an agenda building tool, and in general led to a fragmented and patronage laden form of government.
Various reforms were implemented formally during the 1930's, but they often weren't exercised for various reasons. Houston then went through a city manager form of government starting in 1938, which lasted until 1947 when the start of the strong mayor form of government was implemented. As Murray notes, the civic and business elite of the late 1940's wanted a form of government which reflected - but did not direct - growth and development. And they got what they wanted.
But what about today? Ubu Roi's post to the BlogHouston thread largely spells out the problems anyone council member has had to face in trying to challenge a sitting mayor over the past 60 years. I would add that if a sitting mayor did not (or does not) particularly want to deal with public complaints, then the mayor can appoint council members to a committee where CM's can put up with the complaining from citizens, but then see a mayor simply shelve anything that committee does by not acting on it or putting it on the formal agenda. I would argue that one of the groups I am working with right now faces this very problem.
Additionally, in order for council to stand up to a sitting mayor, 10 votes have to be mustered in any issue. Considering the mayor's power to set the agenda, as well as dole out goodies to council members, that is an awfully steep mountain to climb for anyone trying to fight back against the city. True, citizens can try to use the rather archaic initiative and referendum power to place charter amendments up for a vote at the hustings, but as we have seen with the Revcap and the "rain tax", the council can either confuse the issue by offering up a counter amendment out of its own granted power, can refuse to implement the charter change, revisit the issue and possibly subvert the intent of the charter change, or simply contest in court for years on end as it has with the Revcap.
One somewhat bright aspect of Houston's government, as was noted in the BlogHouston post, is the role played by Houston's elected city controller. Steven Craig noted in an academically published paper that Houston has succeeded throughout its history in avoiding bankruptcy, something that the somewhat similarly sized Philadelphia nearly succumbed to in 1991, but which still faces what the Pew Trusts calls a quiet crisis.
Craig believes that the primary difference between Houston's avoiding financial catastrophies (even during the oil busts of the 1980's) and Philadelphia's not doing so lies in that Houston had an independently elected controller. Houston's controller has to certify that monies are in the budget this year, whereas Philadelphia's controller had (through the 1980's and early 1990's at least) to certify that there were monies available for the previous year's budget and was an appointed figure to boot. Hence Craig contended that this led to a creeping increase of debt which eventually to a near municipal collapse.
But what about Houston's mayor? Another clue as to the mayor's power is to examine how much money people are willing to raise or spend in order to acquire the job. Hotly contested mayoral elections result in candidates raising and spending several million dollars apiece, while city council district posts often are won with campaigns where winners raise between $30,000 - $200,000. At large seats often take over $100,000 to win, but Peter Brown's spending of some $500,000 of his family fortune twice to gain at at large seat is something of an anomaly. The vast differences in amounts spent to gain offices gives away a huge signal in Houston's political markets as to where the real power lies in Houston city government.
So, what to do, if anything? There is no doubt that Houston's government has some real strengths. Decisions certainly can get made and implemented, unlike the chaos and corruption which has seemingly gripped Dallas. I do think that the 5 at large members certainly help with making sure that there are members of council whose jobs are to address issues of substance to the entire city, rather than merely to a district constituency. The problem we run into over time is when there are murky or contested issues, such as the soccer stadium, annexations, flood and drainage, or any rail plans that Metro throws out there. Is there a true consensus on contested issues? For example, recently the Chronicle ran a story where Metro and the congressional delegation told the FTA that there was an overwhelming consensus for rail plans, but that ignores the fact that the 2003 Metro Solutions ballot plan passed by a 52-48 margin.
It also doesn't help that a particular district council member cannot really set any kind of agenda at all for his or her own district without acquiescing to the mayor. In effect, this reduces council members to becoming mere advocates for their areas.
Therefore, I would suggest the following:
1) As I wrote before, extend term limits to 10-12 years in order to reinvigorate political competition.
2) Give council members something to bargain with! I would suggest that each council member be granted the power to place one item on the city agenda perhaps every week, every other week, or maybe once per month. Of course, a spending limit would be placed on what each council member can put on their agenda items. Perhaps council members could, in return for abstaining from putting items continuously on the agenda, be permitted to "save up" for one or two big items over time if they were something of importance for their district or their own agenda. The mayor would continue to have the power to set the rest of the agenda. This would encourage some log rolling and horse trading.
3) Give council members some say over municipal boards and administrative oversight. Leave the mayor with administrative powers over departments so that one person oversees city administration. The mayor would continue to appoint council members to committees, but in return council would have the power to compel the surrender by administrative department heads of full and complete information on committee items. As a modest and simple check, I would suggest that council either be granted the power of having to approve the mayor's board appointees by simple majority. Removal of board members or administrative department heads could be done, but it would take a substantial supermajority (perhaps a minimum of 75 percent) to accomplish.
Alternately, council members could be granted the power to appoint a minority of board members with the mayor holding the majority. District council members who happen to have a board exclusively in their own area would naturally have more to say over that board.
4) The city council is set by charter to expand by two seats once the city's population reaches 2.1 million. These two seats are set to both be district council seats. Why not make one an at large seat and keep the other as a district seat to strengthen the overall legislative agenda so that it does not get balkanized?
5) Keep the budget approval process as it is today. Keep the city controller's role as it is today.
I would think that these reforms would allow broad agendas to continue to be advanced, while allowing council members to take a stand against a mayor if a particular agenda item is really going to hammer their constituents or if something really seems murky. It would also pave the way for a truer kind of consensus of government in our fair city.
Wizard