From Christof Spieler, the present-day guru of Houston-area transit, comes the best explanation of System Re-imagining you will ever find. Spieler was on 25 June a guest of Houston Tomorrow and brought transit consultant Geoff Carlton with him for as enlightening an hour of Houston transit talk as I've yet to see.
This is interesting if only because it's the first time I've seen a video done by anyone exhibiting how our present local bus network truly is a descendant of Houston's old streetcar network, witness today's 11 Nance.
Regarding wonky routings in general, Christof also talks about the 40 Telephone, but I would also add the 5 Southmore as well as the 48 Navigation. Christof's presentation itself is about a half-hour long followed by very intelligent questions that get Mr. Spieler to dish out even more information than he otherwise would have. And yes: the Amtrak Station is on the proposed Frequent Network!
+ + +
Yesterday evening, I found myself in Rice Village hoping to catch the 27 Inner Loop (counter-clockwise?) and hook up with Westheimer. Well, it was 8:30pm, and a quick call to METRO's automated schedule system at 713-635-4000 let me know there was no more service that evening. As I had no desire to walk from Greenbriar to Kirby only to have to wait for the 18 Kirby (a far-too-infrequent bus routing that even in System Re-imagining so far stand to remain somewhat infrequent, but better than today), I elected to do as I've done so many times over the years and hoof it up to Westheimer. From thence, I was able to catch a bus home.
With System Reimagining, the 50 Shepherd would have been there for me. Another eleven months, folks... Another eleven months...
Jeff Ragsdale's musings on all-things mass-transit in the greater Houston-Galveston area
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