Top: The Draft Re-imagined Network Map on display at METRO's System Re-imagining public meeting #5 held on 16 June 2014 at HCC Northwest - Spring Branch Campus - Photo by METRO
Bottom: Here I am (in the green polo shirt) talking with fellow citizens at this same meeting
Photo by METRO
To the end of reaching out to the community and addressing any concerns it might have over the Draft Proposed Re-imagined Transit Network, METRO has scheduled throughout June and July a series of public meetings. Location and schedule (including ten days out-of-town) prevent me from attending most of these sixteen events, but I been able to go to this week's events at HCC Northwest - Spring Branch Campus and HCC Northwest - Alief Campus
The presentation at one of these meetings is the same for all of these meetings: a fifteen-minute overview of the project: rationale, goals, and execution. This presentation is book-ended by an open-house/meet-and-greet format where you will be able to at your leisure look at the draft network map and compare it to our existing network.
The meetings listed on METRO's System Re-imagining website start at 6pm with the meet-and-greet with the main presentation at about 6:30pm or so followed by more meet-and-greet, which is scheduled always to end at 8pm, but at last night's meeting at the HCC Alief campus, there were no more people around, and the METRO staffers were packing up by 7:30pm. Don't come to these meetings past 7:30pm as you may find tumbleweeds instead of maps and people!
I plan to attend next week's meeting at the Ripley-Baker Neighborhood Center east of Sharpstown near Bellaire @ Hillcroft, and I encourage all of you to attend these meetings not only for the maps and presentations, but also for the cool citizens who make it. Last evening, I met a board member for the Alief Independent School District. She and I attended the same high school, and I'm sure we both knew the same teachers and other staffers.
I go to multiple meetings for one reason only: gauging public feedback. In my two meeting attendances, I've found people are happy for the overall project, but as is the case in all of creation, everyone has their pet routes and routings they will defend. In Spring Branch, it is that of the current 131 Memorial, which is in the draft map being split into multiple routes.
New service extermination, rather than old service preservation, is the aim of a number of West University residents regarding the proposed 48 Weslayan.
Another concern that could raise its ugly head is that of the route re-numbering scheme METRO wishes to use: numbering routes roughly in a clockwise direction giving the route-numbering a far-more logical approach, particularly for the many new people coming into Houston all the time, especially those from other countries for whom I'm sure our current spaghetti-bowl network must be as confusing as all-get-out.
The people of Acres Homes have to a point adapted the current numbering of the current 44 Acres Homes into part of their cultural fabric, go so far with some to nickname Acres Homes, the '44'. How long has the 44 been numbered as such, I do not know, but I imagine it to be the original numbering of METRO routing in that particular part of town, but I do expect there to be some political pushback concerning the numbering of the proposed 94 Acres Homes / Montgomery.
METRO staffers have said to me things to the effect that increased ridership is the over-arching goal of all of this, and that if reconsidering numbering on some routes will get people riding the bus, METRO will certainly consider accommodating.
Nothing in this Draft map is set in stone. It is a draft map, the public comment on which will be taken from now until 31 July 2014, at which point METRO will no longer accept public comment (as far as I know) and will set to work on gathering together all the public input it gets and incorporating into the map as much as is practically possible, I think, without cratering the reasons behind this entire project into the creation of a Final Proposed Map that will be presented to the METRO Board in about August.
The Board will during late August through early-to-mid September consider this map, and there may be more changes arising from this, but I cannot be sure. What I am sure of is that METRO's staff hope to have the Board give the nod at its September Board Meeting and approve the System Re-imagining five-year transit plan, thereby adopting the map and new network, thereby giving the green light to Kurt Lurhsen, Jim Archer, Tom Lambert, Andy Skabowski, Russ Frank, et al to commence with actually implementing this thing.
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And implementing this map will be an enormous challenge, but one for which our METRO has been preparing for the last two years.
Consider a METRO bus stop.
In System Reimagining, 93% of METRO's current bus stops will still be serviced - a herculean achievement and triumph of logistics and planning. This means most of our box-shaped bus shelters will not need to be moved to other locations or removed entirely. However, the bus stop signs like this one will need to be replaced.
Let's consider this particular sign, in that it tells us just how much work will be involved. Consider first the parts of this sign:
1. The information strips: The two routes (75 Eldridge Crosstown and 131 Memorial Express) plus that for METRO Police and METRO information/website, plus that for METRO's logo...
Think on this... At minimum, a bus stop sign services one route. This means the logo strip, the route strip, the police info strip, and the METRO info strip. 4 information strips on every single stop - all nine-thousand of them: at minimum...thirty-six thousand strips that will need to be replaced all over METRO's service area.
2. The vertical metal strips holding the info strips to the sign pole... At minimum, a bus stop sign will have twelve nuts and bolts holding all together and to the pole: one on either end of every route strip, two on each end of the METRO logo and METRO Police strips. Twelve minimum nuts and twelve minimum bolts = 432,000 nuts and bolts undone and re-done and perhaps replaced.
3. The pole. These along with shelters will be mostly-retained, I think. Unless damaged or unless they need to be moved somewhere else or removed entirely, poles and shelters will remain as-is.
4. Maps and schedules on shelters. Some shelters will have these posted, and how much METRO wants to plaster its network with these things on its shelters considering they would theoretically need to be replaced with every service change (three times a year), I don't know. But every train station will be fitted with new schedules and bus maps for sure as well as shelters at high-ridership stops.
5. Trash cans. Yeah, some may need to be replaced entirely or moved. I expect METRO will do what it can to beautify as many bus stops as possible. After all, a truck with crew will be visiting every single one of these, anyway!
Let's now consider that truck...having to be loaded with the exact-correct signage for each and every stop on its proffered schedule for the day...and with a crew of at least two people and with orange cones and all to divert traffic, plus METRO cops for really bad parts of town, if needed.
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Let's then consider that truck stop:
1. Braking - 1 minute min.
2. Disembarking of crew and setting of cones
Of course, the truck will make one stop for multiple bus stops. Walking to each bus stop will take an average of one minute. Three bus stop serviced at every truck stoppage.
3. Replacement of signs: three minutes for each sign: let's say ten minutes for the complete truck stop.
Poles and trash cans will have to be replaced by separate crews - and yes, we need to determine which poles need servicing, of course! Yikes, this will be a mess to do!
The logistical complexity makes my head hurt.
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And let's talk about the design of exact timetables for scheduling! Until the Board approves the map in September, METRO really cannot being in earnest to start doing this. Can't do anything until the routes are set in stone for the coming June 2015 service change.
There will be about 270 bus schedules. About 90 routes with time schedules for weekdays, Saturdays, and Sundays... It's all about coordinating reliability and speed of connections for transfers, on which this new network relies heavily.
Now my head really hurts...
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There is one thing going for METRO: the operations for signage-changes will occur during the cool months of the year. Late September and early October for Houston are still hot, but by mid-October, things start to cool off, and will not be back to hot temperatures until mid-April or early May.
I expect most of these operations will take place from January through April 2015. But wait -- isn't implementation scheduled for June 2015? Yes, but METRO can tape over the new signage with old route numbers that will serve for the duration of the old network and remove them when it is time to turn over to the new network.
As to the turnover to the new network, METRO wishes to do the switch-over in one fell swoop: Saturday 6 June 2015 will see the buses after their day's trips pull into the garages. When the last bus pulls in for the night, the route network that has served this city in one form or another since the 1870s will cease to exist.
On the morning of Sunday 7 June 2015, pending Board approval of the re-imagined network in September of this year, the 82 Westheimer will be no more. In its place, there will be the 8 Westheimer (assuming proposed route numberings hold). The 52 Scott / Hirsch will be replaced with the 62 Kelley Scott, 62 Cullen Hirsch, Flex zones, and other things I'm sure I've missed. The mighty 45 Tidwell will be replaced with the 25 West Tidwell and the 26 Tidwell East. The 2 Bellaire will be replaced with the 5 Bellaire. The 46 Gessner will be replaced with the 40 Gessner.
And so on, and so forth...
On the morning of Sunday 7 June 2015, the new network will be implemented in the same brute-force and necessary way right-side driving was done in Sweden in 1968.
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Let's then consider that truck stop:
1. Braking - 1 minute min.
2. Disembarking of crew and setting of cones
Of course, the truck will make one stop for multiple bus stops. Walking to each bus stop will take an average of one minute. Three bus stop serviced at every truck stoppage.
3. Replacement of signs: three minutes for each sign: let's say ten minutes for the complete truck stop.
Poles and trash cans will have to be replaced by separate crews - and yes, we need to determine which poles need servicing, of course! Yikes, this will be a mess to do!
The logistical complexity makes my head hurt.
+ + +
And let's talk about the design of exact timetables for scheduling! Until the Board approves the map in September, METRO really cannot being in earnest to start doing this. Can't do anything until the routes are set in stone for the coming June 2015 service change.
There will be about 270 bus schedules. About 90 routes with time schedules for weekdays, Saturdays, and Sundays... It's all about coordinating reliability and speed of connections for transfers, on which this new network relies heavily.
Now my head really hurts...
+ + +
There is one thing going for METRO: the operations for signage-changes will occur during the cool months of the year. Late September and early October for Houston are still hot, but by mid-October, things start to cool off, and will not be back to hot temperatures until mid-April or early May.
I expect most of these operations will take place from January through April 2015. But wait -- isn't implementation scheduled for June 2015? Yes, but METRO can tape over the new signage with old route numbers that will serve for the duration of the old network and remove them when it is time to turn over to the new network.
As to the turnover to the new network, METRO wishes to do the switch-over in one fell swoop: Saturday 6 June 2015 will see the buses after their day's trips pull into the garages. When the last bus pulls in for the night, the route network that has served this city in one form or another since the 1870s will cease to exist.
On the morning of Sunday 7 June 2015, pending Board approval of the re-imagined network in September of this year, the 82 Westheimer will be no more. In its place, there will be the 8 Westheimer (assuming proposed route numberings hold). The 52 Scott / Hirsch will be replaced with the 62 Kelley Scott, 62 Cullen Hirsch, Flex zones, and other things I'm sure I've missed. The mighty 45 Tidwell will be replaced with the 25 West Tidwell and the 26 Tidwell East. The 2 Bellaire will be replaced with the 5 Bellaire. The 46 Gessner will be replaced with the 40 Gessner.
And so on, and so forth...
On the morning of Sunday 7 June 2015, the new network will be implemented in the same brute-force and necessary way right-side driving was done in Sweden in 1968.
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And then, METRO sits back for a few years with maybe a few tweaks here and there, but with no major route changes, additions, or (hopefully) discontinuations, and sees how this new network fares.
Of course, this network and any new transport network, if left untended, will become in time no better for our city or any city than our current network. This is the reason for the new paradigm of thinking of our network as a grid. It's very easy to put new rungs on the grid ladder or remove them. Our city, particularly the west and southwest, is built on a rough grid, and the grid is the mathematically-best way of going about making our bus network the best it can be.
This grid-thinking will allow METRO to make easy modifications to our network as demographics and traffic patterns change. System re-imagining is the cleaning-up of our own desk in preparation for the clean-up and refurbishment of our office and home. It is a fundamental and technical re-doing of our transport infrastructure foundation that will hopefully set the tone for future boards to follow: community involvement, efficiency, competence, forward-thinking, daring to implement that which is patently-workable and terribly-needed, pragmatism, proper frugality in the proper places, continued shuttles for our bus operators back to their cars at the garages from their Downtown route termini, etc., etc.
This network is a five-year plan. How METRO will address things come June 2020 when the five years are up, I do not know. That is for a future METRO Board to decide. But what this METRO Board has concocted is a thousand times better than what we have and what we have had, and it's a step in the right direction in mitigating as much as possible the coming Houston traffic nightmare when we become like Austin, a city whose infrastructure has in no way kept up with its population growth.
This network is a winner. It deserves your constructive criticism. It deserves your support.
Take a look at the Draft Proposed Reimagined Transit Network.
Give your feedback.
Come to these METRO System Re-imagining public meetings. Get involved. Don't just watch the parade, but get involved and make our parade even bigger and better!
Of course, this network and any new transport network, if left untended, will become in time no better for our city or any city than our current network. This is the reason for the new paradigm of thinking of our network as a grid. It's very easy to put new rungs on the grid ladder or remove them. Our city, particularly the west and southwest, is built on a rough grid, and the grid is the mathematically-best way of going about making our bus network the best it can be.
This grid-thinking will allow METRO to make easy modifications to our network as demographics and traffic patterns change. System re-imagining is the cleaning-up of our own desk in preparation for the clean-up and refurbishment of our office and home. It is a fundamental and technical re-doing of our transport infrastructure foundation that will hopefully set the tone for future boards to follow: community involvement, efficiency, competence, forward-thinking, daring to implement that which is patently-workable and terribly-needed, pragmatism, proper frugality in the proper places, continued shuttles for our bus operators back to their cars at the garages from their Downtown route termini, etc., etc.
This network is a five-year plan. How METRO will address things come June 2020 when the five years are up, I do not know. That is for a future METRO Board to decide. But what this METRO Board has concocted is a thousand times better than what we have and what we have had, and it's a step in the right direction in mitigating as much as possible the coming Houston traffic nightmare when we become like Austin, a city whose infrastructure has in no way kept up with its population growth.
This network is a winner. It deserves your constructive criticism. It deserves your support.
Take a look at the Draft Proposed Reimagined Transit Network.
Give your feedback.
Come to these METRO System Re-imagining public meetings. Get involved. Don't just watch the parade, but get involved and make our parade even bigger and better!
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