More than once, I have taken to Google Maps or some photo-editing program and done up my 'dream' METRO route map - visions of Quicklines and light rail as far as the eye can see and dancing in my head.
As I was not brought on to the community System Re-imagining Stakeholder Task Force until this past 27 February's METRO Board Meeting at which I made what is still my only set of public comments in front of the METRO Board, I came to this dinner party late and far past the previous summer's intense Stakeholder Workshops. I regret not being a part of those, but watching the video archives of these meetings was still a lot of fun.
It is through this Stakeholder process and to a much-larger-and-much-longer extent intensely watching every video and reading every article on this project I can I have come to learn I am no transit planner and that most or all of my dream-maps for METRO would never had worked. Not having the copious amounts of data METRO has at its disposal, in no way could I ever have come up with the level of detail the System Re-imagining planners have put into the Draft Proposed System Map, which will be finalized and sent to the METRO Board for approval later this summer and autumn.
What do I want, then, in a 'dream' transit network? Again, the time was - and not that long ago, I might add - where I would answered that question with an image of a map. Having been enlightened on many things, I've learned to think of these things more conceptually. After much thought, I've realized in the light of history what I want from my transit network is one that does not stay static for years on end.
We need a transit network that grows, expands, contracts and changes with our region. We need transit planners who are allowed to make these changes happen and who are competent enough to make these changes come about with the level of care and detail we see today in System Re-imagining.
And what a foundation for decades upon decades of competent iteration System Re-imagining gives!
The proposed draft Frequent Network from www.transitsystemreimagining.com
Look at that above grid upon which our new network will be based! It's so easy to add and take away and change to the mathematical soundness and geometric efficiency a grid offers, even I could create such a mass-transit network halfway-decently. New streets can easily be added, upgraded to Frequent Service (or downgraded, if need be) with little muss or fuss.
I want a system that puts high-capacity transport modes such as light rail in smart places where there will always be high ridership. Nothing is worse than a billion-dollar project no-one uses. Tumbleweeds and dust bunnies at the new and expensive train station? Horrors!
I want a system that gives people real cause to have pride in their mass-transit in a way Houston has not had since before the first world war. The years 1905-1914 were the great hey-day of mass-transit culture in our town, and I want that culture to make a big comeback and stick around.
I want a system that is allowed to do its thing by future METRO Boards who actually care (like our current Board seems to) about the agency, its mission, and most of all, the people of our region. 2004-2010 Do-Nothing METRO Board? Never again!!
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