[urbanactivist]

How One City Will Change Its Entire Bus System Overnight

Via NextCity...

The last time Houston redesigned its bus system, gas cost less than $1 per gallon. Many of those dollars went to the city’s signature corporations. They subsequently flowed into Houstonians’ wallets and got turned into lifestyle choices like cars and suburban homes — by the hundreds of thousands.

To call Houston’s 1970s-era bus system obsolete, in what has become a bustling 21st-century metropolis, is an understatement. That’s why the buses that pull into the barn the night of Saturday, August 15th, will find themselves traveling entirely different routes and following entirely new timetables the next morning, August 16th.

After three decades, Houston is revamping its entire bus network — more than 80 routes, 1,200 buses and a quarter-million daily passengers — literally overnight.

“This is going to be one of the most transformative single changes in a transit network in a given city in a while,” says Jarrett Walker, a transportation planner who consulted for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of Harris County (Metro).