Sep 27 2005
Houston traffic & public transport rant
Commuting in Houston is absolutely pathetic, Houston itself is relatively small yet it takes forever to get anywhere and heavens forbid if you ever decide to take public transport to get anywhere.
I was thinking overnight about how I used to commute to Sydney everyday over a distance that would take about an hour to drive when there is no traffic and it would only be about a 45 minute train ride but here in Houston I live less than a 10 minute drive away (without traffic) and it still takes me about the same time to get to work by catching the light rail, it just goes to show how bad the planning really is here in Houston. (Please don’t try to tell me that Houston is so much bigger than Sydney as it isn’t, in the closest figures I could find Houston had 2 million in 2000 and in 2003 Sydney had 4 million, I doubt Houston’s population doubled in 3 years).
I can’t believe how many times the light rail has to stop to let traffic cross the rails ahead of it, how difficult could it be to time the traffic lights so that doesn’t happen? Talking of traffic lights where are all the sensors to monitor traffic and adjust timings to accomodate the current traffic conditions? Where are all the red light cameras to make most Houston drivers poor and lose their license? Why do the traffic lights go out all the time if someone so much as sneezes within 6 feet of them?
lol yes houston traffic sucks a biggone i used to live in south tx , like on the rio grande pretty much all of tx sucks man get out now if you still can an dont look back :o)
Please fix the traffic light at Gessner & Braeswood. It took me 30 minutes today to go North on Gessner from Creek Bend to Braeswood because the North bound light was not changing I sit through six cycles of the light not changing before I was able to go through a red light, that was only after I got close enough that I could see what was going on, The only timethe light did change it only lasted about 30 seconds