Rice Grad takes the relative failure of the Washington metro as a sign that Houston shouldn't experiment with light rail. I'm no expert on the Houston situation, but I will offer a couple of observations. Houston is the 4th largest city in the US, right on the heels of Chicago. It seems strange therefore to look at a city like Washington, which is much smaller, as an example of how such a system would work in Houston. Wouldn't Chicago - which btw has a much more successful rail system - be a better point of comparison?
The other beef I have with Rice Grad's argument is that he gauges the success of a rail system solely in terms of its financial solvency. While this is obviously important, there might be bigger goals in play. Just in terms of urban planning - do you want a city that continues to sprawl out into suburbs, or do you want to direct growth inward toward the city itsef? These questions have huge implications for life in the city and outside it, and different outcomes might be worth paying for, even if it means higher taxes. Again, I don't know Houston, but it seems like there might be other issues to look in this situation...
MORE: Houston blogger Charles Kuffner has semi-recent posts here and here about the light rail debate there. Unfortunately there isn't much that deals directly with Houston's lack of zoning laws and the implications for city "design" - BigOldGeek wisens me up in comments below. Meanwhile Courr�ges has this old post on highways and suburbanization.
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