paved with good intentions

Houston is, according to new reports, not only the most polluted city (a distinction it acquired during President George W Bush's tenure as governor), but also the home to the most dangerous example of light rail in the nation. Certainly Texas's answer to Italy's Venice (they're both built in swamps and prone to flooding or sinkage) has enough problems on its plate without having homicidal streetcars hurtling through its downtown.

Alas, like it or not, it looks as though they have one. Regional papers and safety experts have been lambasting the 7.5-mile track that threads through the city's center level with pedestrian walkways for some time, noting the potential for disaster even with the most assiduous precautions—which have seemingly been lacking in Houston. Action American is to be the first to name the ill-fated line the “Slam-Bam Tram” (thank you, ma'am), but there is no shortage of other similarly witty suggestions: “The Little Engine That Couldn't” and “A Streetcar Named Disaster” have also proven popular.

The Slam-Bam Tram certainly lives up to its name, registering sixty-two accidents in 2004 on its short track, implying almost one accident per mile every month. For purposes of comparison, this rate is over 1000% of the next-highest accident rate, which is almost absurd. The basic problem seems to be that almost the entire route proceeds at ground level past bars and social centers downtown, often without insurmountable physical barriers between streets and rail lines. There are ample colorful signs and automated bars which descend when the Slam-Bam approaches, but these appear insufficient to deter the often-drunk clientelle which the train is intended, in part, to serve.

Constructing a light rail line at grade is indubitably less expensive that an elevated track or a subway, but the Slam-Bam illustrates vividly the reasons why most city eschew such penny-pinching. A rail line proceeding down the center of a freeway is all well and good, but one proceeding down the center of busy city street is an invitation to disaster. Nearly all cities with a comprehensive light rail mass transit system (and at this late stage of urban development, that comprehends most of the largest) have settled on elevated or subterranean lines, or a combination thereof. At-grade lines are employed only far outside of densely settled areas or sequestered by walls past which the drunk and youthful will not infiltrate and get themselves killed.

For Houston to have installed an at-grade trolley in a densely trafficked area abutting saloons aplenty seems foolish at best, and callous at worst. It's a damn fine thing the PWGI Bunker isn't located there. Someone from the Road Team would probably have been run down by now (we're not exactly teetotallers). And being annihalated by a trolley is one of the more ignominious ways to shuffle off this mortal coil.

“I'm so sorry, Mrs. Dunkirk... how did it happen?”

“It was... (sniffle)... a freak trolley accident.”

(long pause, followed by poorly suppressed giggling) “You have my deepest condolences.”

So don't drink near the trolley of downtown Houston. Or anywhere else in Houston. Although if you find yourself there, you may need to. Yeah, it's a Catch-22.

posted by citizen sunshine @ 7:49 AM