Thanks for the insight. Having never been to Houston, I learned a lot from this post. I was under the impression that most of Houston was sprawling, much like Phoenix, but I am perhaps ignorant! I have another blog post coming up in the next few months about the “upzoning” of the area around the lightrail. The idea is to increase ridership, but also remove the Euclidean zoning in that area and replace it with a form based code, or something in that vein. I am certainly excited to see how it will turn out. Meanwhile, keep the insights about Houston coming, I hope to visit someday soon. Thanks.

James Gardner

Much of Los Angeles was built out during the streetcar/interurban era, and has continued to see growth since those tracks were ripped up. So even without massive upzoning there is nonetheless a built-in ridership once those lines are in the ground.

Houston is almost entirely post-WWII, but Houston also has NO ZONING which means most of the urban fabric is about 20-30% more dense than sprawl of similar vintage elsewhere. It also makes it a lot easier to redevelop once the LRT lines go in.

Phoenix… well, you’re postwar like us, but you’ve got Euclidean zoning like Los Angeles. So the big determinant on transit is going to be if you can upzone those single-family neighborhoods and low-rise retail/commercial areas to allow mixed-use blocks, garden apartments, and the like.