I thought I'd float this out here just for a fun discussion. Political opinions aside, I'd be curious how someone would even begin to make public transit (be it rail, bus, or anything else) actually useful and feasible in our sprawling metropolis. I think that most people who call for these don't have any sort of idea of how it would be designed to actually work given the sprawl, weather, and layout of the city. Subways are not really an option, as I understand it.
A rough, simple idea I could think of would be a sort of rail system that could perhaps have one or two major hubs around the different areas on the outskirts of Houston (think one or two for Kingwood, one or two for Katy, one or two for Tomball, etc.) like the Park & Ride bus stations have. People could drive to those, park their car, and then take the train the rest of the way. Trains would follow roughly the same paths as the highways, leading in and out of town (along 59, 45, 290, 249, I10, etc.). Perhaps there could also be a plan for them to go roughly around the 610 loop and Beltway 8. As one gets closer into town into the major commute areas, the density of the stations increases to minimize walking and make the system more usable in the heat. These inner-city areas would have less parking to encourage people on the outskirts to use them more while giving people inside the city less reason their car in a more densely populated urban area with more risk.
Obviously, a system like this would require disastrous levels of construction and would never happen, but let's say that it could. How would you do it?
A rough, simple idea I could think of would be a sort of rail system that could perhaps have one or two major hubs around the different areas on the outskirts of Houston (think one or two for Kingwood, one or two for Katy, one or two for Tomball, etc.) like the Park & Ride bus stations have. People could drive to those, park their car, and then take the train the rest of the way. Trains would follow roughly the same paths as the highways, leading in and out of town (along 59, 45, 290, 249, I10, etc.). Perhaps there could also be a plan for them to go roughly around the 610 loop and Beltway 8. As one gets closer into town into the major commute areas, the density of the stations increases to minimize walking and make the system more usable in the heat. These inner-city areas would have less parking to encourage people on the outskirts to use them more while giving people inside the city less reason their car in a more densely populated urban area with more risk.
Obviously, a system like this would require disastrous levels of construction and would never happen, but let's say that it could. How would you do it?
