This came in last week: If you’ve got a smart phone, we’ve just made riding our buses or trains a lot easier. Today, we officially launched the METRO T.R.I.P. app – a tool that retrieves our schedule information, predicts real-time arrival of buses and helps you plan your trip on our system. T.R.I.P. stands for”transit [...]
Posts Tagged ‘buses’
Mattress Mack’s Uptown rant
There’s a lot missing from Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale’s screed in the Sunday op-ed pages. When you get right down to it, the recent announcement that the Uptown Houston Management District wants to spend $177.5 million to “redesign and widen” Post Oak Boulevard and build a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system through the heart of [...]
Don’t expect B-Cycle in the Heights anytime soon
I know there are a lot of people in the Heights that would like to see some bike share kiosks here, but as The Leader News reports, it will be awhile before that happens. Although running through arguably the most bike-conscious set of communities in Houston, the bike paths along White Oak Bayou and through [...]
Biking to transit
KUHF has an update. Metro’s Strategic Planning Committee got an update on the “Bike and Ride” Access Study. Metro says it wants to make it easier for Houstonians to combine bike and bus travel. Metro officials say between 10,000 and 15,000 people every month bring their bikes aboard when they use the bus. Every bus [...]
The day pass is back
From Metro: The METRO Board of Directors [Thursday] took the first step to bring back the “day pass.” The Board voted to commit $175,000 to adapt METRO’s Q Card system so a $3.00 extended “day pass” feature can be accommodated later this year. The action allows METRO to modify an existing contract with ACS/Xerox so [...]
Metro’s bus strategy
We know that the 2012 Metro referendum was intended to help Metro boost ridership by improving and expanding its bus service. Metro Board member Christof Spieler explains what that means. First, in many cases, transit doesn’t go to the right places. Over time, Houston’s population has shifted as the urban core has redeveloped, older suburbs [...]
The return of the day pass
Remember the day pass? One fare, and you could ride the bus and/or light rail all day? Metro is thinking about bringing it back. After a five-year hiatus, the daypass may soon return as an option for Metro bus and train riders. The Metropolitan Transit Authority is studying what it would take to reinstitute single-day [...]
Take the 2013 METRO Bike and Ride Survey
A public service announcement from H-GAC: 2013 METRO Bike and Ride Survey The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) and METRO invite you to participate in the METRO Bike & Ride Plan, a planning effort to improve connections between bicyclists and the transit network in the METRO service area. Take the survey! Vision, Mission and Goals Based [...]
Time for another report on how much traffic sucks
We love this sort of thing, don’t we? Houston commuters continue to endure some of the worst traffic delays in the country, according to the 2012 Urban Mobility Report released Tuesday by the Texas A&M Transportation Commission. Area drivers wasted more than two days a year, on average, in traffic congestion, costing them each $1,090 [...]
The case against Metro advertising
Ed Wulfe isn’t happy with talk about Metro putting ads on buses and trains. In the late 1970s, Houston voters overwhelmingly defeated a local referendum to allow ads on bus shelters. Soon after, Houston City Council banned all new billboards within the city limits, then extended the prohibition to the limits of the city’s extraterritorial [...]
Metro moving forward with advertising
This has been in the works for a long time. Depending on what Metropolitan Transit Authority officials decide regarding a new revenue plan, your light rail trip could end at the Taco Bell Station, or some similarly named stop. Officials in early 2013 are expected to receive more information on a revenue plan exploring potential [...]
Greanias officially resigns, interim Metro CEO named
George Greanias may have stepped down as CEO of Metro, but he’ll still be around for awhile, as Metro searches for his successor. Metropolitan Transit Authority board members on Thursday accepted Greanias’ resignation, named an interim replacement and approved a six-month, $117,500 contract with Greanias – equivalent to half his annual salary – to consult [...]
Help Metro figure out the bike and transit thing
Your public service opportunity of the day: METRO and the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) are seeking input from bicyclists on the use of public transit. Want to join? You must meet the following criteria: Already integrate biking and public transit Bike but not currently using public transportation Use public transit but not with a bike [...]
Buses and trains, not buses or trains
I have a lot of emotion about this, but I’m still working through how to express it. Metropolitan Transit Authority officials say the agency is on firmer financial footing than it has been in years. They plan to add shelters at 100 bus stops in the next year, replace aging buses with larger and smaller [...]
More back and forth on the Metro referendum
Metro Board Chair Gilbert Garcia explains the referendum for those who say they don’t understand it. The referendum is as easy as 1-2-3. If approved, it will: 1. Continue the road-building program. 2. Expand Metro’s bus system. 3. Pay down Metro’s short-term debt. Sure, the mathematics of how the money flows to accomplish these items [...]
Endorsement watch: For Metro
The Chron comes out in favor of another referendum. If you look closely at the weekday mix of traffic, you’ll finds lots of 18-wheelers inching along during rush hour. That makes congestion more than an annoyance for individual commuters. Along with the clean air impact it brings, it creates a serious competitiveness issue for this [...]
Ashby everywhere
Nancy Sarnoff notes a trend. Homeowners in the Memorial area held a meeting last month in the lobby of a nearby medical office building to discuss what to do about a large apartment complex being planned in their neighborhood. They said the project – and other new developments in the area – would lead to [...]
Houston Tomorrow versus Metro
David Crossley: On November 6, you will be asked to vote on whether to stop expansion of light rail transit service in Houston. If you think that’s a terrible idea, you must vote No. If you do, you will be going up against some very powerful people and institutions. But that’s what voters do, isn’t [...]
More on carless commuting in Houston
Greg adds on to my recent post about getting to work in Houston if you didn’t have a car. In the comments of this Kuff post, Robert Nagle actually beats me to the punch in answering the central question. Yes, you can live quite comfortably in Houston without a car. As long as you base [...]
Metro board passes amended GMP referendum
More consensus this time. The board voted 8-1 for a measure that, if approved by voters, would continue the so-called General Mobility Program in its current form, allocating a quarter of Metro’s 1-cent sales tax to Harris County, Houston and 14 small cities in Metro’s service area. The local governments use these funds for road [...]
Deal struck on the GMP
Well, this is interesting. The Metro board on Aug. 3 approved a ballot proposal that would have shifted tens of millions of dollars more in mobility payments to Houston at the expense of the county and small cities by basing the payments on where sales taxes are collected. Monday’s tentative deal – reached in a [...]
Could you get to work if you didn’t have a car?
Lots of people in the Houston area could not easily get to work if their car were not available to them. According to a new report from the Brookings Institution, only 57.8 percent of the jobs in the entire Houston metro area are in neighborhoods with access to public transit service. When ranked against the [...]
Christof Spieler: Deciding the future of Houston’s transit
The following is from a series of guest posts that I will be presenting over the next few weeks. We as a region are facing a huge decision about our future. If we don’t increase transit use by offering more people the option of high-quality transit, we will be stuck in gridlock. But among all [...]
Hobby jobs claims
There’s been a lot of discussion about how many jobs the proposal to expand Hobby Airport and allow Southwest Airlines to begin flying internationally from there may or may not create. This story gets to the heart of what really matters. Expanding Hobby Airport so Southwest Airlines can begin flying to Latin America will create [...]
Houston area transit preferences in 2012
The 2012 Houston Area Survey is in the can, and though the data has not been published to their website yet, there have been a few preview tidbits tossed out to whet everyone’s appetite. One of them has to do with attitudes about transit and neighborhoods. But perhaps the most dramatic change, [Rice professor Stephen] [...]
There is nothing but highways
More bad policy coming from the Republicans in Congress. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday the House GOP’s highway spending plan is “the worst transportation bill” he’s seen in decades. “This is the most partisan transportation bill that I have ever seen,” LaHood said in an exclusive interview with POLITICO. “And it also is the [...]
Cover that cough
Fascinating. A decade-long study found passengers on certain Metro bus routes were more likely to have tuberculosis, raising the question of whether they contracted the disease on the bus. “We see a higher prevalence of clustering with bus riders,” said Edward Graviss, an epidemiologist who collected the data. “It’s not direct evidence that transmission occurred [...]
There’s an app for finding a bus
Good news. Imagine this: You are walking around the Galleria and want to go to Discovery Green for a concert. But you’re not sure what bus to take. In a few months, you’ll be able use your smart phone to find METRO bus stops, schedules, and eventually real-time, next-bus arrivals. The free app is expected [...]
The Austin rail debate
The city of Austin is gearing up for another debate about how and where – and if – to build more rail there. This is the third time since 2000 that they’ve gone through such a debate. This AusChron story gives a good summary of where they are now and what may come next. Those [...]
San Antonio streetcar study
Fort Worth may have punted on streetcars, but San Antonio is still moving ahead. It’s not a green light, but it is a boost nonetheless for VIA Metropolitan Transit’s plans to build two streetcar lines downtown. The transit agency recently was awarded a $900,000 federal grant for it to determine where the streetcar’s rail lines [...]
The Bill King alternative to light rail
In case you missed it, Bill King wrote a column lat week that was based on an email exchange he had with me awhile back in which he laid out his alternate vision for what Metro ought to be doing. Some of the items on his list are things I’d support, like adding amenities to [...]
Metro takes a step forward on advertising
For its 2011 fiscal year budget, Metro is taking a tentative step forward on allowing ads to be placed on its buses. Metro is considering placing ads on buses to generate revenue (page 37). George Greanias, president and chief executive officer, told me that this idea is merely being explored and no revenue from this [...]
Metro finance update
What’s going on with Metro these days? Although leaders of the region’s transit agency are confident that they will secure $900 million in federal funding to build more light rail lines in Houston, they have begun discussing fare increases and advertising on buses as ways to pay for rail if they do not get the [...]
More of the case against eliminating fares
Keep Houston Houston gives a wide-ranging argument against Metro eliminating fares as some folks have advocated. His last reason resonates with me: People don’t value what they don’t pay for It’s a pretty simple concept, really. Removing fares shifts the public perception of transit away from “something people pay for, which we also subsidize” to [...]