Please Allow Me to Share a Positive Experience with Houston Metro

Recently, a media source that arrives (unsolicited) on my driveway on a regular basis included an unsavory review of the city of Houston's public transportation system.  After reading the column, I was convinced that the author has had minimal personal experience with said transportation system.

Prior to this summer, I also had had little experience with Houston Metro.  However, since this summer's beginning, I have had experience with the system and it has been very positive.  This experience combined with good/great experiences I have had with various other public transportation systems over the past few decades(these experiences are listed below), compel me to share in this space.

MY EXPERIENCE:

Thanks to a city program for high school students, my son has a job in downtown Houston this summer.  Also, thanks to the city, he is able to ride Metro buses for free all summer.  As a result of these two facts, my son is riding the bus to and from the Northwest Transit Center to downtown four days a week.  Through two weeks of work, this bus riding experience has been a success.

In preparation for his commute, I made the bus trip with my son twice before the job started, and I was impressed.  The wait for buses was minimal, never more than 10 minutes.  Also, Metro's website proves very accurate as far as indicating when the next bus would arrive.  

I was especially surprised at the positive interaction between riders and drivers.  I did not expect to hear so many "Thank Yous" and "Have a nice days"  shared! These interactions are evidence to me that many riders are having positive experiences.

One negative factor that I did encounter involved Metro's system that allows passengers to receive text messages indicating when the next bus will arrive at a certain stop.  This feature was not working when I rode the bus.  

To have a helpful feature like this not function is, of course, disappointing.  However, the fact that the feature was not working was clearly announced on Metro's website, and the website had other resources that gave me similar information. 

While I'm discussing Metro's website, in my experience on the website, it was very easy to plan trips to various landmarks in the city.  This includes NRG Stadium.   

I cannot speak to why others who have written about their Metro experience in other spaces had trouble finding location information for NRG Stadium through the website.  I will give that author the benefit of the doubt and assume that a tight deadline and/or a bad technology day made it difficult for him to navigate the website in a way he normally would have..

On another note, Metro did a very satisfactory job of helping riders prepare for an inconvenience at the Transit Center.  Metro is renovating the parking lots at the Northwest Transit Center.  For several weeks before construction began, Metro had at least two representatives at the Transit Center informing riders about the upcoming construction and helping them prepare for the changes. Further, Metro runs a shuttle all day so riders don't have to walk 200 yards across the street to the free temporary lot that has been provided for their convenience.

Admittedly, my experience with Metro has been minimal.  However,  I have found it very user friendly.  I have found the website very helpful, and I have not seen any homeless people sleeping on any benches when I have been waiting for the bus.

Thanks for allowing me to share my experiences with Houston's public transportation system.

My previous interactions with public transporation:

Lived in Japan for 2.5 years(6 months in Tokyo) and traveled almost exclusively via public transportation.

Took family vacations to Boston, Washington, D.C. and New York, during which travel was completed almost exclusively via public transportation.

Used Milwaukee's public transport system to attend at least 25 Milwaukee Brewers games.

Traveled from Washington, D.C. to Seattle, Washington via bus.