Metro officials talk about principles for good transit

Creating great infrastructure

Jon Boyd, Sep 22, 10.

Update, September 26, 10: An earlier edition reported the title of Christof Spieler’s talk as “Why Rail Works.” The correct title is “Mobility Choices for Houston.”

Metro CEO and President George Greanias talked about his strategic and operating principles for Metro; and Christof Spieler*, a City of Houston representative to the Metro Board, talked about his principles for good transit in his presentation, “Mobility Choices for Houston,” while addressing the audience at a Galleria Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Wednesday, September 22.

Greanias related some good news about the 103 light rail cars, saying they are “very close” to submitting a plan for re-procurement to FTA. In recent news, FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff insisted that Metro terminate its contract with CAF USA if it hopes to secure the $900 million New Starts grant and its full-funding grant agreement for the North and Southeast light rail lines. Greanias stressed the need to build a good relationship with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA).

Greanias stated improving customer service as one of his strategic principles. He stressed the importance of building great transit infrastructure to improve customer service. Infrastructure is not just trains and buses: it includes bus shelters, park and rides, and maintenance facilities, he added.

One member of the audience asked the panel if Metro needed to end payments to the General Mobility Plan, which allocates 25% of its one penny transit sales tax to municipalities. Metro Board Chair Gilbert Garcia stated that Metro is committed to the General Mobility Plan. Greanias followed up by saying that Metro has paid $1.74 billion in General Mobility payments since 2003, yet imagined that new spending of this money on roads might include improvements to pedestrian crossings.

Greanias also listed his seven operating principles for Metro: daily customer service, partnering, cost control, asset utilization, sustainability, safety, and people:
* Drivers should know they are responsible for carrying out five aspects of customer service daily, he said.
* Coordinating on projects requires working with local partners.
* Cost control, he said, should not be confused with cutting costs; rather, it’s ensuring that Metro performs its core functions efficiently.
* “We want to sweat our assets,” he said referring to asset utilization. Should there be a bus route without riders, he would redeploy it to serve another route.
* Sustainability is both a financial and environmental principle, he said: Metro needs to create service that customers can expect to use for years.
* Metro would never compromise safety, he vowed.
* He also talked about the opportunity to put into use the talents of every Metro employee. Knowing employees’ talents raises morale and pushes them toward their potential.

Metro Board Chair Gilbert Garcia questioned the resistance to light rail initiatives, “Why are we still talking about why rail works?...We have been talking about it for thirty years.” Garcia offered an anecdote about the difference between taking a $70 cab ride from the airport to his hotel in Atlanta, and the $2 return trip to the airport on a MARTA train.

In Spieler’s presentation, “Mobility Choices for Houston,” he summarized general principles for good transit. He is a Rice-educated structural engineer in charge of innovation at Morris Architects. If Metro provides good transit service, people will ride, evidenced by Metro’s popular park and ride bus system, which handles more weekday trips than most commuter rail systems in the US, he argued.

Spieler compared Houston’s 7.5 miles of light rail investment to Dallas’ investment of 48 miles, yet also pointed out that the larger rail network only carries one and a half times the boardings of Houston’s Main Street line. Houston Tomorrow reported in August on Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s (DART) new financial plan based on reports from the Dallas Morning News, and the Transport Politic. DART will forge ahead with light rail extensions to the suburbs, and the new orange line to DFW airport, but will scrap a second light rail trunk line through downtown Dallas relieve a bottleneck. DART has admitted that this decision will cause them to increase headways - time between trains - to fifteen minutes. The Houston Main Street line maintains six-minute headways though most of its operations.

Responding to a question from Houston Tomorrow, Burt Ballanfant, Metro Board Member and former Mayor of West University Place, defended the focus of the Houston light rail system on the central city. He said this addresses the need to provide mobility to commuters throughout the city, instead of leaving them stranded in downtown. Spieler’s response was more pointed, “Houston is smarter than Dallas.”

Spieler offered a slide showing fully half of light rail riders in Houston had never used transit prior to the Main Street line.

Affordability, reliability, and convenience are all important principles for good transit, according to Spieler’s presentation. Transit would create great savings for Houston area commuters if gas prices were to spike again. Yet commuters need reliable transportation. The light rail, he said, is on-time more than 95% of the time. Park and rides are on schedule less than 80% of the time; local buses, less than 70% of the time. Dedicated right-of way (ROW) accounts for these differences. The Main Street line has it own ROW; park and rides have dedicated ROW for part of the trip; and local buses lack dedicated ROW, so they get tangled in traffic.

“Good transit goes where the people are,” said one slide. The Houston region is polycentric, with multiple large activity centers, a favorable condition planners are beginning to call “dispersed density.” In addition to the central business district (Downtown), we have major employment and activity centers such as the Texas Medical Center, Greeway Plaza, Uptown, Westchase, Greenspoint, and the Energy Corridor, Spieler said. Downtown has had high transit ridership for years, but the Texas Medical Center has increased ridership since being connected to light rail. He said these other activity centers still experience low transit ridership: Greenway Plaza (5%), Uptown (7%), Westchase (7%), and the Energy Corridor (2%).

Spieler also thinks there is a connection of good transit access to the vibrancy of downtown development. Downtown boasts six new office towers since 2000, compared to just one for the Uptown area.

Spieler says good transit is regionally connected. Commuter transit needs to connect to the urban transit system. While commuting is important, other kinds of trips matter, too. He states this as a strong point of the Main Street line, which has high ridership throughout the day - an indication that it serves many non-work-related trips.

“Good transit needs to be pedestrian-friendly” and “it should improve the places it serves” are the last two of Spieler’s principles.

He concluded by warning that good transit is not about building what’s easy - it’s going to take a lot of hard work. While he acknowledged the technical skills of professionals in planning and implementing a good transit system, he invited the public to help make this happen, “We need all of your intelligence.”

* Christof Spieler is a volunteer Technical Advisor to Citizens’ Transportation Coalition (CTC). The author of this article, Jon Boyd, currently serves as a volunteer Vice Chair and Board Member for CTC.