If you were aware of the memo (and most Houstonians weren't) then the Chron's curiously unquestioning (boosterish) coverage of the tragic comedy that has become Metro Rail makes sense. It was not the Chron's intention to evenhandedly report on the rail projects but to advocate for them.
What this led to was editorializing that followed the marching orders below:
There isn’t a more critical issue on the horizon. I propose a series of editorials, editorial cartoons and Sounding Board columns leading up to the rail referendum, with this specific objective: Continuing our long standing efforts to make rail a permanent part of the transit mix here.
This guiding principle (established by then Editor-in-Chief Cohen) was the driving force behind all Chron reporting on the matter for over a decade. Rail is good, rail is great....lather, rinse, repeat.
Two interesting pieces on the Chron's free site appear, at face value, to look at rail through something other than the narrow lens prescribed in the memo.....
Chart Shows how much money US Metro systems lose per passenger ride. John Henry Perera. Chron.com
Houston Metro-$1.23 per passenger ride
Early Use of New Rail Lines Below Expectations. Dug Begley, Chron.com
Two new light rail lines have gotten off to slow start, according to early ridership figures from the Metropolitan Transit Authority, but officials and riders still hope the Green and Purple Line will meet expectations.
So, on face, are we getting some honest levelheaded reporting on the rail system from the Chron? Have they finally decided to discard the advocacy lens and do some serious, public interest reporting? (Something that has been largely missing from this publication for years now.)
Uh...no.
Looking further down the 2nd linked article the following can be found...
Officials said a number of factors contributed to the less-than-expected use.
“Heavy rain throughout the week combined with the absence of classes at Texas Southern University and the University of Houston, along with the absence of the highest ridership station on the Green Line, Magnolia Park Transit Center, had a dampening effect on overall ridership, pun intended,” Metro spokesman Jerome Gray said.
It's one thing to allow Metro to "explain away" the low ridership numbers unchallenged, it's quite another to continue (as Begley does) offering nothing more than publicly available apologia. You see, according to Begley, and the riders he quoted, the (few) passengers that ARE on the train find them swell, no complaints, nothing to see here. Moving right along.
This brings us to the 1st piece, and the unsurprising revelation that Metro loses money every time a passenger steps on the train. Damning stuff right? Wrong.
Because turning a profit, or running efficiently, is not something that people who care about rail care about much at all. To them, the benefits of transit aren't measured by dollars and cents, it's measured by how many other people you can get off the road so they can continue to commute in their vehicles, get to the shops they want to get to, and move around Houston in the manner they want to move around in as conveniently as possible.
Already the comments section of the first story are filled with unproductive class members trying to compare the money "lost" per passenger ride to the money "lost" on I-10. They even (laughably) grouse about the $2B price tag for the Katy Freeway expansion, ignoring the fact that 1.) on a per-passenger basis, the Katy Freeway is MUCH more economical and that 2.) industry happens on Freeways, which brings economic activity to the area. Rail is used, in Houston, primarily for......weddings?
None of this matters to the true believers however because the true, lasting benefit of rail is not that it turns a profit, or that it is even ran efficiently and well. The real benefit is that it makes them feel warm and fuzzy and gives and air of World Classiness to the place. Light Rail is the ultimate trinket for those who believe trinket governance is the bestest and most perfect way to govern.
"Let them eat cake, or take rail. Whatever it is they want to do to get them off of the roads so I can fire up the Range Rover and get my kids to their schools.
Or, better yet, let me drive down to a rail terminus, park my luxury SUV, take a ride around town, stop at a café for a quick spot of something that is nothing like European espresso and food that listed as gourmet in the Sysco catalogue. When I'm finished with that I'll hop back in my car and head home."
It's the new-new urbanist pledge. Just keep the poor away and the trains blasting AC.
