Archive for the 'costs of congestion' Category
Digging into the newest congestion numbers
Closed Published by Tory Gattis September 24th, 2007 on Houston StrategiesSo the Texas Transportation Institute at TAMU came out with their 2007 Urban Mobility Report last week. In case you missed the story in the Chronicle, it’s steadily getting worse in Houston, now up to 56 hours of average delay per traveler per year, w…
Reason on Why Mobility Matters to Personal Life (Part 2 of 2)
Closed Published by Tory Gattis July 26th, 2007 on Houston StrategiesContinuing from Tuesday’s part 1.Moving on, the report punctures the “live close to work” myth.Why don’t more gridlock-weary commuters simply move closer to work? The approach certainly works for some people, but it’s often more feasible in theory …
Reason on Why Mobility Matters to Personal Life (Part 1 of 2)
Closed Published by Tory Gattis July 24th, 2007 on Houston StrategiesI really like the new Reason Foundation report by Ted Balaker on “Why Mobility Matters to Personal Life” - a product of The Galvin Project to End Congestion. It makes a great case for investing aggressively in congestion reduction and added capacity, …
Commute costs, census, rankings, cool maps, and more
Closed Published by Tory Gattis January 1st, 1970 on Houston StrategiesSome smaller items this week for your holiday reading (how many of you are really working at the office this week?), but first a paragraph on one of my pet peeves.Another report came out recently claiming Texas has some of the worst and most expensive …
The real answer to Houston’s traffic congestion
Closed Published by Tory Gattis January 1st, 1970 on Houston StrategiesThe Chronicle editorial board recently argued that light rail is key to combating Houston’s traffic congestion problems. But if you look at the three cities with worse traffic congestion than Houston - DC, Chicago, and LA - they ha…
Selling trees, LA traffic tech, best performing city, diversity shifts, and the best USA map ever
Closed Published by Tory Gattis January 1st, 1970 on Houston StrategiesIt’s another week of smaller items:Could somebody explain to me why the Forest Service can sell their dead trees and get them removed for free (or actually a profit), but Harris County has to pay taxpayer funds to do the same thing? Is it a volume issue? The type of trees involved? Has Harris County even explored a similar option? Maybe a private company would remove them for free and resell
Adapting Metro Solutions to the new realities
Closed Published by Tory Gattis January 1st, 1970 on Houston Strategies“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”- John Maynard KeynesWe need a new conversation in this town, and we need it very soon before it’s too late. When we passed the 2003 Metro Solutions referendum, gas was a $1.50 a gallon a…
The Grand Parkway, stimulus-for-tolls, and the secret benefit of HOV->HOT conversions
Closed Published by Tory Gattis January 1st, 1970 on Houston StrategiesI’d like to address three distinct but related issues in this post. The first is defending the Grand Parkway, which recently had segment E approved from 290 to 10W. As the Energy Corridor grows its job base, instead of people moving farther and farth…
Houston’s vulnerability, top rankings, and more
Closed Published by Tory Gattis January 1st, 1970 on Houston StrategiesTime to clear out some smaller misc items:A newsletter I read, “Musings from the Oil Patch”, takes issue with the Dallas Fed’s characterization of Houston’s energy vulnerability:”Houston’s energy industry does have a vulnerability, but it’s not $40…
How the crash will - and won’t - reshape America
Closed Published by Tory Gattis January 1st, 1970 on Houston StrategiesA couple months ago, Richard Florida (of Creative Class fame) published a major article in The Atlantic on ‘How the Crash Will Reshape America’ (hat tip to Deborah). A short summary of his thesis is here, and here are some cool interactive maps of pat…