North end of the Red Line
Houston MetroRail's Red Line now ends beside the old dead Northline Mall. There are still some stores in the area but not a full shopping mall. Houston Community College has one of their many campuses behind me, and I am standing in the roadway leading into the campus in between packs of cars. This photo shows the passenger station and the actual end of the line. For a number of miles, the Red Line is built in the median of Fulton Street.
The Red Line 5 mile extension to Northline was presented as the Minimum Operable Segment of a Light Rail Transit line that would go all the way to Houston Intercontinental Airport by 2025. By itself, this segment essentially goes nowhere, as far most Houstonians are concerned. Sure, it serves the mostly poor people of the near Northside better than buses, and it is hoped that Light Rail will stimulate Transit Oriented Development, but it supposed to be the first phase of a line with an important endpoint destination.
The next phase will eventually extend about 8 miles further north to Greenspoint Mall and then another 8 miles east to Intercontinental Airport. The area between Northline and Greenspoint is also a rather poor area, and Greenspoint Mall is just another shopping Mall with the same old chain stores as all the other malls in the US. And like almost all malls over ten years old, it has lost shoppers to newer, bigger malls further out. Will Greenspoint last long enough to be connected by Light Rail or will it die beforehand like Northline? Sub-urban sprawl is much like slash-and-burn agriculture; a few early harvests followed by desolation.
North end of the Red Line
Houston MetroRail's Red Line now ends beside the old dead Northline Mall. There are still some stores in the area but not a full shopping mall. Houston Community College has one of their many campuses behind me, and I am standing in the roadway leading into the campus in between packs of cars. This photo shows the passenger station and the actual end of the line. For a number of miles, the Red Line is built in the median of Fulton Street.
The Red Line 5 mile extension to Northline was presented as the Minimum Operable Segment of a Light Rail Transit line that would go all the way to Houston Intercontinental Airport by 2025. By itself, this segment essentially goes nowhere, as far most Houstonians are concerned. Sure, it serves the mostly poor people of the near Northside better than buses, and it is hoped that Light Rail will stimulate Transit Oriented Development, but it supposed to be the first phase of a line with an important endpoint destination.
The next phase will eventually extend about 8 miles further north to Greenspoint Mall and then another 8 miles east to Intercontinental Airport. The area between Northline and Greenspoint is also a rather poor area, and Greenspoint Mall is just another shopping Mall with the same old chain stores as all the other malls in the US. And like almost all malls over ten years old, it has lost shoppers to newer, bigger malls further out. Will Greenspoint last long enough to be connected by Light Rail or will it die beforehand like Northline? Sub-urban sprawl is much like slash-and-burn agriculture; a few early harvests followed by desolation.