I actually have enough material to comment and put pictures up for several days, so keep checking back. One point we all agreed on was that while we got some good pictures and found out many interesting things, there was much more we could have done, or gotten pictures of. This is something we need to do again. It would be helpful if we had an actual videocamera and could set up to film an intersection as trains passed through. While both mine and Neal’s cameras had video modes, we didn’t have good enough angles to get the pictures we needed from inside the train, plus the lack of memory space hampered both of us.

We started out at the Preston street platform and rode north to the UH station. We spent about twenty minutes there admiring the senic view of Buffalo Bayou. As an extra bonus, you can enjoy a picture of my finger, too!:

I’m going to post this picture out of sequence. It’s one of the (now blocked-off) crosswalks on Main. Note the colors of the bricks. Apparently, the idea was to mark the traffic lanes in black-on-red, while the train lanes were marked in red-on-black. Only after a year of rubber and oil drippings, the red has dulled to look barely different from the black.

So what?

So this, headed south from UH-downtown:

Both traffic lanes are on one side of the tracks. Note the confusing situation that a driver faces here. If you’re lucky, you can look at this photo at leisure and figure everything out. If you’re unlucky, you’re approaching a green light, looking for the UHD Visitor’s Parking, wondering why an oncoming car is facing you, and have only split seconds to understand everything you’re seeing here!

“If you or any of your passengers should be injured, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your driving ability. Good luck, Jim.”

Just in case you’re wondering, the critical visual clues were #1 (which is a highly unusual sign and takes time to decipher), plus #5 and #8 (because we’re used to driving with the yellow on the left). Note also, the lack of guidence lines for the northbound traffic to move over to the right instead of driving straight into the wrong lane of traffic. It’s a confusing mishmash of signs and cues, plus no vending machine should be allowed in those colors, especially at the street-corner; it’s just another piece of visual clutter to tune out. (Edit: and note how similar the rail and auto sections look at a glance.)

I have some more interesting photos to put up, but they will have to wait on tonight or tomorrow–I need to tend to some other things for a bit. So I’ll leave you with the “moron driver” who made a left turn directly in front of the train.

Like so many other spots, at this intersection, the train shares the left turn lane here. The light on Fannin northbound was red–or at least it was by the time this dumbass was in the intersection, because I glanced at it at some point as I took the pictures. It happened just as we started to pull out — this yahoo turned from the center lane, directly across in front of us, and actually stopped with his butt on the tracks, because there was oncoming traffic headed southbound on Fannin (clearly, they didn’t have a red, or were running it). The driver immediately braked the train to keep from hitting him. We had to sit there, slowing, then stopped for several seconds, while the oncoming traffic cleared, and the clearly annoyed train driver handwaved at the car’s driver to get out of the way.

Look just over the driver’s right shoulder — you can see the corner of the car’s taillight as it crosses in front of us.

We’ll still hit the car; he’s off the tracks but the train is wider than the rails.

Creeping slowly up….

If the train’s in the intersection, why is the crossing light green?

There’s no two ways about it… this near-accident was the car driver’s fault. The problem is that if you spend $300 million on a train that can be fubared by any random idiot, what with the amount of idiots out there, the train is going to be fubared rather often under the best of conditions. Now mix in left turn lanes on the tracks, poor design, badly marked intersections, and a rail ROW that looks identical to the auto ROW, and what you have is a mess and a waste of taxpayer money.

I saw some things I liked: there were actually a lot of riders after midafternoon, and the AC worked great despite the heat. I’m still not convinced that light rail is viable in Houston but I’m not convinced that it isn’t either. However, I am convinced that Metro has does not have the mindset, engineers, or expertise to do the job right.

EDIT: Other blogs and stuff:
WriteTeacher’s account and pics (including a vacant building).
Isiah Carey of Fox 26 covers the gang! Twice!
Kevin’s photos from that day! (Check out the schedule I asked him to get a picture of).