Is Jeff better than Karnak, the Magnificent? Part 2 - Podcast on hiatus for a time.

First off, an apology for having been incommunicado for about a month.  I've been busy iwth 'real life', and I have not been able to until this week make any of METRO's System Re-imagining public meetings.

As for the podcast, I'm having audio issues with my computer that have necessitated my putting the podcast to bed for a time.  The podcast is on hiatus, but this blog and HoustonOnTheGo in general are still very much a going concern.  I know a number of you enjoy the podcast very much, but I'm not able to produce audio work at this time that is up to my standards.  Podcast will come back, though, as quick as can be!

Thanks, as always, for listening, and thanks for reading this blog!

Now, for what you have been waiting way too long...

My predictions for System Re-imaging from Episode 26 of the podcast went pretty well, but a few things METRO put on the map caught me by surprise.

1. Montrose will be far-more-frequent and will be better integrated into the network than before.

CORRECT: The 54 Airline Montrose combines routings of the old 56 Airline, long a north-side warhorse, and the old 34 Montrose, the frequency of which is currently no better than a half-hour.

The new 54 is a frequent route with an evening headway of 30 minutes and a mid-day headway of 15 minutes with a 19-hour span of service. It also hooks up to the north side.

2. The Westheimer route will turn back at McGowen Station instead of at the Convention Center. A new route of some sort will serve the Convention Center, though the 412 Greenlink will continue unchanged as it is not funded by METRO.

PARTIAL - The 412 Greenlink remains as-is.

The current 81/82 Westheimer services Louisiana and Smith with a turnback at the Geo. R. Brown Convention Center. The new 8 Westheimer will serve Travis and Milam, offering better connectivity to the Red Line, and will turn back at Franklin, serving the coming Central Station in the meantime. A part of me wonders if it makes METRO rail a bit redundant, but were the 8 to stop at McGowen, riders in order to get to the East and Southeast Lines would have to transfer to the Red Line. By taking the 8 all the way to the Central Station, the transfer to and from the Red Line to get to the Green and Purple Lines is negated.

The 'red' segment of the 10 Kirby Dallas Polk and the 11 Heights/Dallas/Telephone will offer the same service to the Geo. R. Brown as does today's 412 Greenlink Circulator.

3. Increased frequency on Scott.

INCONCLUSIVE - The current 52 Scott has maximum frequency 20 minutes with a 20-ish-hour span of service seven days a week. The new 62 Kelley Scott has a minimum frequency of 30 minutes with a max frequency of every 10 minutes at peak hours with a 20-hour span with 15-minute frequency at weekday-midday and during the weekend.

4. Bellfort and W. Bellfort will become more important to the system and will get more frequency. No longer will a Bellfort bus go to Greenway, Rice Village, or the Galleria, though by way of a new route, direct connectivity between those three places will be preserved and enhanced with more-dedicated service.

PARTIAL - The ride from the west side of town to Hobby Airport will hopefully not take as long, thanks to the straightness of the new 70 Bellfort, but it will not be as easy in that, depending on your point of origin, you may need to transfer to the Red Line to catch the 70 at its start at Fannin South P&R.

The East Line will get one to the 69 Harrisburg, which also services Hobby Airport, but one still has to make at least one transfer related to METRO rail to Hobby. Getting to Hobby will still not be a convenient proposition.

The routing of the 70 Bellfort commences at Fannin South P&R and concludes at Hobby Airport. Of course, as in the current network, this is on the frequent network. But at Fannin South, one can connect with a blue route, the new 1 West Bellfort, which takes one along W. Bellfort west all the way to West Bellfort P&R. West Bellfort gets full-blown routing for the first time with better frequency along the whole of that street west of West Bellfort P&R, while Bellfort proper gets more frequency as well.

As for the direct connectivity between Greenway, Rice Village, and Galleria currently provided by the 73 Bellfort - Galleria branch, that in the new network as currently proposed will no longer exist. Rice Village is served by the blue 10 Kirby Dallas Polk (with greater frequency than the current 73 provides), the Galleria is served by numerous bus routes with the 8 Westheimer being the east-west transport. Greenway will be served by the 7 Richmond, but again, there is no direct connectivity between these three major centers of activity.

5. The West Loop P&R will be used by more routes than currently.

CORRECT: Currently, West Loop P&R services the 261 West Loop P&R, 68 Brase Bayou, and 33 Post Oak. In the draft map, West Loop services the 261 plus routes 2 Brays Bayou, 45 Chimney Rock, 48 Weslayan, and 82 W. Airport Briargate.

6. The Gessner & Tidwell buses will somehow intersect for the first time.

CORRECT - Yes, indeed, the new 40 Gessner and the new 25 Tidwell West will meet at the W. Little York P&R. Looking at the current system map, the current 46 Gessner and 45 Tidwell were screaming at me to be joined in some way, but I did not think METRO would allocate the resources to have their spiritual descendants go to W. Little York, but as W. Little York services about eight routes, it makes sense.

7. Not nearly enough emphasis will be put on stop-spacing. METRO is focusing on routes right now. Too bad.

DEFECTIVE PREDICTION - What a thorny issue! METRO has through the years done a number of studies on this matter, and it really comes down, I believe, to people not being rational about walking distances, particularly in Downtown.

There are a number of cases in which there are truly-redundant stops, but my glorious desire to have literally half the stops in our system removed immediately will not be realized any time soon.

My prediction itself was, yes, defective. By 'emphasis', I meant wholesale hardcore stop-removal. And contrary to my prediction text, it is not 'too bad'. METRO is trying desperately to walk that fine line between the mathematical and physical certainty that fewer stops means faster buses and ridership tolerance for long or short walks to bus stops.

I am also more and more convinced that METRO, while it has an internal protocol for bus-stop spacing, has to deal with more exceptions and anomalies than the rule. What is clear to me, though, is that not enough has been done over the years to make sure that, when a new stop is put in, redundancy in nearby stops is not created.

Bus stops are like an episode of hoarders. With every bus stop request comes a new stop, but nearby and older stops are not being taken out and/or accounted for. This must be changed.

8. Buses will go up past Westheimer and onto Voss up to San Felipe for the first time.

CORRECT!! The new 42 Hillcroft will service the NWTC, Woodway, and the entirety of Voss for the first time. The bus will then go down Hillcroft almost all the way to S. Main. However, the route will not deviate to the Hillcroft TC, with METRO's thinking being that deviation takes far too long.

And looking at the Hillcroft TC, labeled in the draft map the 'Hillcroft P&R', I have to wonder if METRO is thinking of putting up another TC somewhere in the vicinity, perhaps closer to Sharpstown?

The only routes coming into the re-imagined Hillcroft P&R as currently proposed are the 150 (Peak-only express), the 151 and the 152 - and that's it! Compare this to today's servicing at the Hillcroft TC of the 47 Hillcroft Crosstown, the 81 Westheimer - Sharpstown, the 132 Harwin, and the 163 Fondren with its agonizingly-slow trek through the Sharpstown area.

Which brings us to... the new 41 Fondren! For the first time ever, we will have bus service all the way up Fondren to Westheimer. I've been hoping for these sorts of things for years.

There is more first-time service in-store. The 48 Weslayan will serve that street from the Northwest TC, through Willowick, and the whole of Weslayan and down to Stella Link until the loop where it ends at the West Loop P&R.

Kirkwood, interestingly-enough, gets service for the first time via the new 34, but I look for this route to be sacrificed to give more service to the Northeast quadrant of Houston due to pushback from that part of the city over no frequent service as well as the Flex zones.

In the re-imagined network, the Mission Bend P&R becomes an effective transit center for the Mission Bend area. The 150 ends here, and here one can catch the 32 Eldridge with direct service to West Oaks Mall, the 4 Beechnut that makes a major deviation to make this connection, the 5 Bellaire, and the 7 Richmond, the ascendant of both of which already service this P&R, which really should be called a Transit Center.

Indeed, METRO's thinking more and more is to have less and less distinction between a 'transit center' and a 'park & ride'.

9. The 32 Renwick will be reincarnated in the Re-imagining unchanged.

PARTIAL - The 32 Renwick's numbering will be gone, but the routing itself will continue to exist and will be combined with new service to San Felipe as well as routing from W. Gray to form the new 9 Renwick San Felipe W. Gray. The current 32 Renwick, the brainchild of long-time mass-transit activist Mark Hogue, will live on, though the current 32's turnback servicing a tiny bit of Woodway will be no more. The southern terminus of the current 32 will remain unchanged.

10. Telephone Road will still be a branched route, but will no longer sport the double-helix.

PARTIAL - We have the new 11 Heights Dallas Telephone with no branching, and yes, the double-helix is gone! The old Howard Street branch area is now a part of the 74 Evergreen and the 73 Southmore Park Place.

11. Startling changes will be seen in the area between the W. Bellfort P&R and Hobby Airport. There will fewer routes, but those routes will carry a lot more people and will get a lot of bang for the buck.

PARTIAL - Very vague predictions as to ridership, but the Hiram Clark TC is far more of a hub than ever before. And yes, the changes are quite startling in this area. The Post Oak bus will no longer run this far south: the new 47 Post Oak is a true Post Oak bus, the southern terminus of which is the southern end of Post Oak with no service to S. Rice.

S. Rice will be served in part by the new 45 Chimney Rock, but the route serving this far-Southwest area will be the new 82 W. Airport Briargate that starts at the W. Loop P&R, winds its way around to the old Court Road branch of the current 33 Post Oak, and ends up at Hiram Clark TC, taking in a lot of far-flung places along the way.

12. The greatest cosmetic changes will be in the East Houston area bordered by Clinton, Downtown, Almeda, and the south and east Loop.

INCORRECT, believe it or not. If the Flex zones in the north and northeast are adopted, the northeast quadrant of METRO's service area takes this prize, though the predicted area comes in a clear second-place.

13. METRO will unfortunately still use Westheimer @ Post Oak, and there will be continued years of Xmas-time Galleria traffic.

CORRECT - Route configurations for this intersection will not, unfortunately, change.

It is my belief that nothing short of a re-do of the West Loop into an entirely-elevated highway, thereby connecting the broken bits of W. Alabama, thereby allowing buses to travel on that street, will alleviate this problem.

Hopefully, Uptown's scheme to put in Bus Rapid Transit along Post Oak will pan out, but it will not help east-west bus traffic.

14. Branded-Frequent bus service will be found on Bellaire, Westheimer, Gessner, Scott, Bissonet, Airline, and Richmond.

CORRECT on all counts: 3 Bissonnet, 5 Bellaire, 7 Richmond, 8 Westheimer, 40 Gessner, 54 Airline Montrose, and 62 Kelley Scott

15. Quickline service on Bellaire will remain unchanged, though I do wish it would go out to Mission Bend.

CORRECT - The coming June service change to the current 402 Bellaire Quickline with new all-day service was the give-away. This Quickline will be METRO's guinea pig as to bringing on new Quicklines elsewhere.

16. The 37 El Sol and 38 Manchester Docks are gone. They will not be reincarnated.

PARTIAL - Parts of the current 37 are coming back via the 16 White Oak Quitman, but the 38 Manchester Docks service will be no more, though its service on Harrisburg will be take up by the new 69 Broadway.

17. There will be continued P&R service to Baytown.

CORRECT - P&R service is hardly touched in this re-imagining, which tells us how well it has done through the years and how much more love METRO has given this part of its system relative to local bus service until now.

18. Kirby will continue its new routing on W. Dallas through Downtown and will receive far-more-frequent service.

CORRECT - This goes back to No. 7 in my wish-list regarding this street.

For many years, the current 18 Kirby took the easternmost part of Allen Parkway as a fast trip into Downtown. About a year or so ago, it was re-routed to take in job centers along W. Dallas, leaving Allen Parkway behind.

With the new 10 Kirby W. Dallas, that will continue.

19. Gessner will run later at night than ever before.

INCONCLUSIVE - At its greatest span, the current 46 Gessner gives us about a sixteen-hour span of service. The new 40 gives us 18, which will put (presumably) service starting at the 46's current 5:30-ish am at this same hour for the 40 with service ending at perhaps 11pm. How this will work on Sundays, I do not know.

20. No more service on Canal Street.

INCORRECT - Unbelievably to me, what I believe to be an uninterrupted stretch of mass-transit service on Canal street going back at least a hundred years will continue by way of the 12 Memorial Canal, which will start at San Felipe @ Post Oak, provide direct service to Memorial Park and continue on Memorial all the way to Downtown.

The route (it is a blue route) continues through Downtown, and makes its way to Canal street. At Canal @ 75th, it turns toward Navigation and takes in the southward turn of Navigation, turning west on Harrisburg and ends up at Magnolia TC.

21. The 42 Holman will no longer run west of Downtown. Instead, the Westheimer bus will go through McGowen and continue on Elgin all the way through UH and the Eastwood Transit Center. If METRO goes through with this, it had better remove about half the stops along the route lest it become unwieldy.

INCORRECT - This assumed the continuance of the 42 Holman in much its same routing. The old 42's routing is combined with Gulfton's to make the new 9 Gulfton Holman that does not take too much of a Holman deviation save to give Elgiin a bit of service.

The new 8 Westheimer, of course, does not continue on Elgin, and Elgin will continue to go without bus service, though I'm sure METRO thought about changing to Elgin from Holman, but I think they wanted to keep the half-mile walking between routes as much as possible between the 10/11 Frequent Segment and the 2 Brays Bayou.

22. I've heard there will be continued service on Navigation, though my prediction is the old 48 will be reincarnated without its circuitous north detour.

INCORRECT - The 48 Navigation is gone!!

The 12 Memorial/Canal will serve Navigation, though it will go on Canal street with the old 48's northward bent being served by other routes.

23. Quickline on Westheimer

INCORRECT - as much as I would have liked for it to have been otherwise, though in Christmastime, it would not have mattered anyway with Galleria traffic.

Of 23 predictions, I have 9 correct, 6 partial, 2 inconclusive, 5 incorrect, and 1 defective prediction. This gives me 15 of 23 that were at least partially-correct.