Houblog

FTA tells Metro to rework its rail plans

An unexpected demand for additional justification for two planned Houston light rail lines raises doubts about Metro’s relationship with a federal agency it is counting on for funding, Metro President Frank Wilson said Tuesday.

A letter from Sherry Little, deputy administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, withdraws that agency’s approval of preliminary engineering studies and other elements of rail lines planned for the North and Southeast corridors.

Well, well, well. Looks like the Feds aren’t buying Metro’s BS.

Little’s letter to Wilson said Metro may not acquire any additional property for the North or Southeast lines until a new environmental assessment has been completed and approved. Any acquisition begun prior to the letter, it says, may continue if the FTA’s regional office agrees in writing that halting it would cause a hardship to the owner or tenant.

Further down, I ran into this little “WTF” moment:

Christof Spieler, an engineer who writes a transportation blog for the Citizens’ Transportation Coalition, an advocacy group that supports rail, said the letter might cause a delay but does not appear devastating to Metro’s plans.

How did that ever get past the editors? Don’t they know that the CTC is just a neutral party that wants whats best for Houston?

/sarcasm off

Yet more photos from last Saturday’s outing.

This is one of the automated ticket dispensers.

The screen was very dim and difficult to read unless I stood close by to shadow it with my body. I also was rather annoyed at the error-trapping; a day-pass was two dollars, but when I put $1 in and then discovered I didn’t have a second dollar bill, it refused to take a $5. Fortunately, Neal was quite the gentleman and covered it for me.

UPDATE: Go here for maps of Metro’s alternate plans, just released.

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Continuing the series based on photos taken during yesterday’s Danger Train outing, here’s several pictures of where the rail repeatedly crosses other roads in order to get from Main to Fannin. Several of these crossovers are at shallow angles, resulting in difficult and confusing crossings. Neal got one picture of a truck trapped on the wrong side of a crossing gate that I hope to link to eventually.

This photo shows exactly what i’m talking about when it comes to “shallow-angle crossings.”

EDIT: Other blogs and stuff:
WriteTeacher’s account and pics (including a vacant building).
Isiah Carey of Fox 26 covers the gang! Twice!
Kevin’s photos from that day! (Check out the schedule I asked him to get a picture of).

Head below the fold for more.
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I actually have enough material to comment and put pictures up for several days, so keep checking back. One point we all agreed on was that while we got some good pictures and found out many interesting things, there was much more we could have done, or gotten pictures of. This is something we need to do again. It would be helpful if we had an actual videocamera and could set up to film an intersection as trains passed through. While both mine and Neal’s cameras had video modes, we didn’t have good enough angles to get the pictures we needed from inside the train, plus the lack of memory space hampered both of us.

We started out at the Preston street platform and rode north to the UH station. We spent about twenty minutes there admiring the senic view of Buffalo Bayou. As an extra bonus, you can enjoy a picture of my finger, too!:

I’m going to post this picture out of sequence. It’s one of the (now blocked-off) crosswalks on Main. Note the colors of the bricks. Apparently, the idea was to mark the traffic lanes in black-on-red, while the train lanes were marked in red-on-black. Only after a year of rubber and oil drippings, the red has dulled to look barely different from the black.

So what?

So this, headed south from UH-downtown:

Both traffic lanes are on one side of the tracks. Note the confusing situation that a driver faces here. If you’re lucky, you can look at this photo at leisure and figure everything out. If you’re unlucky, you’re approaching a green light, looking for the UHD Visitor’s Parking, wondering why an oncoming car is facing you, and have only split seconds to understand everything you’re seeing here!

“If you or any of your passengers should be injured, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your driving ability. Good luck, Jim.”
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I had a great time at the Danger Train outing yesterday! Quite tiring to this sedentary bureaucrat and my camera was full, so I bailed after the meal and went home to relax. Meeting with everyone was fun, and the food was good. What more could you ask for? (Aside from a safer train, that is.)

I’m working up a full post to follow this one (will be late today or this evening before it’s ready) but I thought I’d leave readers with these two pictures:

As Ann says, when you turn on Main, the tracks are right there! (I love the sign in the upper right. “Well, duh!”)

But here’s the part that made me cheer when I looked at the photo this morning. Look at the traffic light! Remember, I’m taking this photo from near the front of the train, which is in the intersection at this point….

This was not the only time it happened. I saw another green, and a yellow, but my memory chip was full by the time I saw them. I was disappointed that I’d missed getting such a picture–only thanks to Mr. Moron Driver, I hadn’t after all.