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Once every two weeks or so, in the six months after Houston's first light rail line opened in 2004, a car crashed into the dazzling fountain that flanks the tracks downtown. In the first year of operation, the light rail was involved in 67 collisions. Folks took to calling it the Wham-Bam-Tram. Some drivers never learned to coexist with the newcomer at all, opting instead for parallel side streets. With its lush lawns, large floor plans and sprawling footprint, Houston is a famously spacious city. But the roads never seem wide enough.
Ten years later, the city is in the midst of a second burst of light rail expansion. Five additional miles of track opened in December; two new lines are set to follow later this year. At the center of Greater Houston, a metro area the size of Massachusetts, two-dozen miles of track may not seem like much. (Even some supporters of the project refer to it as the "toy train.") Yet in America's fourth largest city, light rail remains a political and cultural flashpoint far out of proportion to its modest size.
To opponents, it is a prime example of government waste — a vanity project flawed not only in its execution but in its aim of enabling Houstonians to travel without cars. Houston's sprawling size is coupled with a year-round average high temperature of 80 degrees, which critics say make walkable design a pipe dream. Congressman John Culberson, who represents West Houston in Washington and is light rail's chief political adversary, recalls a 19th-century saying that still explains the local love for cars: A Texan will not walk if he can ride a horse. "People's attitudes haven't changed," he says. "You are dead in the water in Houston if you don't have a car."
But the people themselves have changed — no American metro has grown faster than Greater Houston over the last quarter-century, making it one of the most diverse areas in the United States — and they might be taking the city with them. Stephen Klineberg, co-director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, divides Houston's history into three periods: the sleepy streetcar town, the city structured by the freedom of the automobile, and the metropolis yearning for freedom from the automobile. "There's a vision: retail downstairs, residents upstairs, shade trees, sidewalk cafes," says Klineberg. "This is, in general, a city self-consciously reinventing itself for the 21st century."
