Eliminate Houston Metro. But keep the HOV.

There.

Solutions!!!

Alternative.... We should all use my transit system. I call it Private/Public Mass Transit.

Er, believe it or not, I do the stay home option sometimes  Some places are not worth going to, due to the weather turning the city into a mudhole, or it cost to much to enter the place I want to go.

Then there is:

1.  Telecomute.

2.  Compressed work week.

And there is the Mary Poppins rain protecting transportation device.  Wonder if the FAA would ban it.

The real solution is less people. If you had less people you would have less traffic. Unfortunately, our politicians don't want this because they would have less money to steal.

@DominicMazoch

Austin, TX?

@don y

WTH? We should have a pop. above 3 million. Hopefully Houston can climb over Chicago and tail Los Angeles. That'll give me a real reason to stay.

Simple but unpopular solution would be to institute a program such as is used in London...charging traffic in a defined congestion area. In London, people don't like it, paying what is effectively a tax to go into the downtown area in a private vehicle, but it works.

"Alternative.... We should all use my transit system. I call it Private/Public Mass Transit."

ROFTLMFAO!!!!  Let's be serious here, OK?!  It'll be gone within a month.  Keep dreaming there, kiddo!

@Cedric Collins

We'll just have to see. It's truly an untapped market.

Actually, some of the P&R' routes (like 214) have reduced loads on Fridays because some businesses have compressed work weeks!

Dominic,

That statemant is so true---it's like you're a ghost on the 214 and you see how the passenger load looks like.  I should know folks because I RIDE THAT ROUTE!

In other words, there's less people you see on Fridays than on other days of the week.  In the afternoon, it's even better (seeing less people getting on the bus---especially when there's another bus running the same route in front of you.

That happened to me just this past Friday.  There was two---I repeat---two 214A buses coming to my stop (Louisana @ St. Joseph Pkwy).  I choose to ride the 2nd one---knowing that the first one may pick up more people than the one I chose to board.

Smart choice on my part as the bus ahead of us took the vast majority of the riders and there was less than ten (10) people on our bus.  That's because the operator made a smart move and NOT go around the first bus to help out in picking up some people.

Another smart move by the operator=>there's two stops at the NW Station P&R, right?  The first one and then the main one that we have to board at in the morning.  Remember---there's two lots where people park at.  Well anyhoo---she didn't stop at the first one because nobody didn't need to get off there.

By the time the bus that WAS ahead us pulled in to drop off its passengers, I was heading towards my ride.

“Lose Metro, Gain Life” - HoustonHater

Yes, there are an A and B lots on the 214.  METRO nneds to convert one or both into multi-story jobs like on the 217!

Why is it a smart move by the driver not to help out?  So one MCI is going to have standees and the other is going to be wasting fuel carrying eight people.  Sounds like a nice use of tax payer money.

"Why is it a smart move by the driver not to help out?  So one MCI is going to have standees and the other is going to be wasting fuel carrying eight people.  Sounds like a nice use of tax payer money."

Smart comment---from somebody who doesn't want artics here in Houston anymore.

In addition to my last comment, I wouldn't worry about your precious taxpayer money.  Worry about whether or not people will get home on a working bus.  Luckily, I was on a working bus.  That's all that matters.

Dominic said:  "2.  Compressed work week."

Agreed.

HoustonHater said:  "We'll just have to see. It's truly an untapped market."

Good luck with that.  If you want to have a transit agency that's better than the rest, you have to really go above and beyond---well---everything to make the riders happy.

@Cedric Collins

"Good luck with that.  If you want to have a transit agency that's better than the rest, you have to really go above and beyond---well---everything to make the riders happy."

<Cheap and Reliable. Happy?>

Concerning the two "bunched" 214's above:

I have heard that the NT/NW BOF ops work a LOT differently than the METRO ones.  If the 214 was run by a METRO BOF, the second bus would help the first one out.

Then again, there is too much bunching systemwide. On the Chicago CTA, bunching is a monthly reporting stat.  If two or more buses are bunched, and all of this is being dispatched from TranStar with the IVMOBS (sp?) system, then dispatch could tell bus 4701 Rt 214 Block 3 run 5 to run ahead of bus 4710 Rt 214 Block 2 Run 1 Walker to Entrance to IH-10 West.  4701 and 4710 would get back in the correct order once they got back to downtown.  For the cost of the computers and comm equipment, this should happen.  Otherwise the system will say:  ... --- ...  ... --- ...!