Houston, we have a problem.

I've spent the last three days in Houston, Texas, attending a professional conference. The city reminds me of Atlanta with a central business district, outlying areas of highrise development (think downtown/midtown/Buckhead), and it has a lot of crazy car traffic. It also has the flavor of Savannah with oak trees framing major roadways, lots of parks, churches, and several universities, and generally flat terrain. The humidity is also as high as the temperature...and it's been hot! What's struck me most is the direction Houston is taking their transportation system, and how the cycling community is behaving around town.

Last week Houston was named America's most livable city for 2008. There's a lot of reasons they got this designation, but I think it's interesting to note that they're concentrating on light rail to increase their transportation capacity.

Now Houston, like Atlanta, has several interstates and major highways that collide around town. Also, like Atlanta, weekday traffic usually sits bumper to bumper. Their solution to add light rail has transformed the central business district into a near pedestrian-only mall. I was told that the mayor's announced an additional four lines within the next five years. The plan should give the entire area a connected "european" feel. (Imagine if Midtown was connected to Emory by rail, or Lenox connected to Buckhead and Vinings.)

The light rail line allowed a colleague and me to stay downtown in a hotel and commute to the Museum District for our seminar. Each leg cost $1 and ran on the honor system (with a $300 ticket if caught without a valid pass.) Bikes are allowed on the cars and I've found several cyclists using the system during recent visits. Total ride time averaged fifteen minutes.

Having seen the light rail option in action, I highly recommend it as a solution to Marta's limited heavy rail service. Light rail, or the flex-buses we've heard so much about, would be excellent options for the Galleria-Perimeter-Doraville arc. Unfortunately, all we've heard is talk and not much action.

Before you get the picture that Houston is an urban paradise, let me share my impressions of it's cyclists.

Alarmingly, I've yet to observe any cyclist practicing the Confident City Cycling techniques ABC is teaching. I've seen dozens of cyclists, ranging from university types to business office commuters to utilitarian cyclists. While Atlanta's commuting cyclists practice vehicular cycling, the safest, most predictable way to ride, Houstonians all seem to be wrong-way riders or cyclists mixing with sidewalk pedestrians and construction. As someone who uses vehicular cycling on my office commute, and as an instructor for ABC's road courses, I find it striking that so many people choose to ride in such dangerous ways.

So there you have it. My congratulations to all of Atlanta's cyclists choosing to drive their bikes responsibly. Congratulations to Houston's decisions makers for choosing an integrated transportation system which is efficient, inexpensive, and truly transformational.

My $0.02.