The Danger Train Is A Big Success!
Breaking news from ABC-13:
A huge success, that's what METRO officials call light rail's first 90 days of operation.METRO says everything is swell. That's a shocker.
Huh?Although some drivers have had trouble adjusting to light rail, METRO officials expect the rate of accidents to go down. They've made safety improvements along the rail line and asked the police department to step up enforcement.
METRO's David Wolff said, "It's great to clear accidents as they happen. It's even better to avoid accidents . We think there's a key role to be played in avoiding accidents is enforcement of our traffic laws and probably better education of drivers."
Here's the kicker:
Based on the suscess, the Transit Authority is ready to phase in a new program. Soon bus trips in the Main Street corridor will be replaced with light rail.That's right, kids! Things are going so swell that Main Street corridor buses will be phased out and passengers will be forced onto the train, whether it's convenient for them or not. "New program" is some euphemism.
(04-06-2004 Update) Alex and Owen comment.
(04-06-2004 Update 2) The Comical reports on METRO's announcement here. Rob Booth is all over the story, and asks how the Comical gets its numbers. That's a very good question. Since tickets aren't required to board the Danger Train, there's no definite way of knowing the numbers. They're just made up! Surely METRO uses some formula. As a public entity, they should be willing to share that formula. Tom Bazan seems to be pressing them on this, according to Rob (who is on Tom's mail list -- Yours truly is not, sadly, but if you're reading this Tom, I'd sure like to be!). Well, METRO, care to answer those questions?
The Comical article also notes METRO's plan to boost its ridership numbers artificially:
He said he expects that number to almost triple by year's end, helped in large part by modifications to Metro's bus system, scheduled to take effect May 30, that will force thousands of passengers to switch to trains.I bet all of the people served by buses right now are just going to LOVE walking the extra distance to the Danger Train as summer begins in Houston."We feel these changes will increase our boardings, based on our current ridership, to 35,000 passengers per day," Wolff said.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/05/04 21:34 | Danger Train | Technorati
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Comments
When Rod Paige retires (gets forced out), maybe we can make him our driver education czar?
He has a doctorate in gym teacher-ology, you know.
Posted by Laurence Simon @ 09:59 on 04/06/04
*guffaw* That's perfect!
Posted by Kevin @ 10:02 on 04/06/04
Last week I came into Houston. After taking the shuttle bus into downtown, I hopped on the train to take down to the Fannin stop. I did this without a ticket and no one bothered to check.
Is this temporary? Or is this like Macaroni Grill's honor system?
The good thing was that there were no accidents on the trip down Main and I had an extra buck.
Posted by Louis Puente @ 21:07 on 04/06/04
METRO claims to do spot checks on the train for tickets, and the fine for not presenting a valid ticket is pretty steep ($200, I think).
I've not heard of anyone actually being fined for this offense, however, and I don't think the checks are frequent. I wonder if METRO or HPD keeps track of such things in a fashion we can access via the web?
Posted by Kevin @ 21:12 on 04/06/04
cut bus service, force people on the train..........number of train riders go up? Huh? Oh, wait, thats right, I get it now.
Posted by tm @ 00:42 on 03/21/05
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