Michael’s photo of the day
Michael's photo of the day is a shot of the seemingly abandon Main St. in downtown Houston. Houston is building a light rail system to span the 7.5 miles between downtown and the Houston Astrodome (and now, Reliant Stadium). The almost $300 million dollar project is costing the city $37 million per mile to build. There are 16 intended stations (including a storage and repair yard). The LRV's and TES will be supplied by Siemens Transportation for a mere $118 million. The tracks and passenger stations are split amongst three contractors for $115 million (Texas Sterling Construction Co. of Houston, $65 million; Beers Construction Co. of Atlanta, $36 million; and Bencon Management of Houston, $13 million). Since the March 13, 2001 ground breaking ceremony, the city has already spent over $10 million for an expansion study of the corridor. The rail is "supposed" to open in 2004. Now that you've got some background of what this rail shit is, the real reason for this post is because I dug up some old construction photos of the rail passage to comment on Michael's site and the HTML in the comments didn't work. So you get to see them here instead.
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all i can say is, it better...err...BETTER, be ready soon. but, when it is finally complete - i should be able to really benefit from the ability to walk right outside my office building in the medical center, and pop on to downtown. should be, right?
ask my ten year old child about her thoughts on this “light rail” project, and she’ll be the first to tell you, it “sucks”.
but, what does SHE know?
;-)
i just think everyone should lay off the first commuter rail transportation in houston ... i know houston needs more, better routes, planning could have been better, etc ... but it has to start somewhere.
I don’t agree with Irfan. We need a park & ride that runs later than 7pm (the last bus from downtown to my stop) more than we need this stupid ass light rail. $37 million a freakin’ MILE??? WTF??? That is just INSANE. Yes, the bus system needs to be improved, but a light rail from downtown to the football stadium doesn’t serve many people, and especially not at that cost.
J-Mo and I are going to be riding that rail for all it’s worth. Margaritas every time we hit downtown. Up & down on the rail. Want to join us?
there is no bad time for a margarita!
hell yeah!
anyhoo, i agree… put some ducats into the park and rides and metro maintenance before you put up a half ass rail.
and Irfan, the day you actually use public transportation is the day you can have a say… until then, happy polluting.
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