METRORail

METRORail is the light rail service in Houston, Texas that started on January 1, 2004. It is the second major light rail service in Texas after the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system. It began operating about 60 years after a previous streetcar system was closed down. That shutdown had made Houston the largest city without a rail system.

METRORail is operated by the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas, or METRO for short. The current track of rail runs through the Texas Medical Center and Downtown Houston.

Additional rail will be laid, as it had been approved by a slight margin (52% yes to 48% no) in the November, 2003 election. Rail will likely go to outlying suburbs within Harris County, as well as other parts of Houston, and the two major airports: George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport.

Also, METRO is planning a heavy rail system in conjunction with the light rail system, pending feasibility of the plan.

The METRORail has had an astonishingly high crash rate when compared to other light rail systems in the United States, averaging more than one incident per week. The first occurred on November 19, 2003 as the system was still under testing prior to opening. As of April 22, 2004, the collision rate was calculated as being 25 times the U.S. average, with 36 accidents up to that date. In mid-July, the line broke 50 crashes, although until that point, all but one incident was considered to be the fault of drivers and pedestrians rather than METRORail train operators. The trend since at least April has been a slow decrease in the frequency of crashes, but it remains high.

There are several possible reasons for this, though one of the most prominent is the fact that the entire 7 ½ miles of track runs along city streets—the longest such stretch in the country. In many cities, a significant amount of track is on dedicated right-of-way. The city has been known as an accident hotspot, with the highest number of traffic fatalities per capita of large cities in the United States. Some of the people involved in the crashes have stated that poor signage and signal layouts have contributed to the problem. METRO has rearranged some signals and altered some sign arrangements to try to make things clearer.

Several nicknames have been given for the train because of the high number of accidents, including "Danger Train," "Wham-Bam-Tram," and "A Streetcar Named Disaster."

Lines

Red Line

Fannin South Station
Reliant Park Station
Smith Lands Station
TMC Transit Center
Dryden/TMC Station
Memorial Hermann Hospital/Houston Zoo Station
Hermann Park/Rice U Station
Museum District Station (2 stations, one northbound and one southbound)
Wheeler Station
Ensemble/HCC Station
McGowen Station
Downtown Transit Center
Bell Station
Main Street Square Station
Preston Station
UH Downtown

External links

References

Lucas Wall (April 23, 2004). MetroRail's crash rate 25 times U.S. average. Houston Chronicle.