Tuesday, February 06, 2018
After the Super Bowl
A lot happened here in Minneapolis last week. In the run-up to the Super Bowl, they pretty much transformed the downtown into an NFL-focused city-state. My walk to the gym through the skyways took me past most of the action, so I got to see it over several days. In all, it was just kind of weird.
You know how there are really great amusement parks, the ones that get everything right pretty much? And then, at the other end of the spectrum, there are those old goofy local places that get a lot of things wrong (like safety, perhaps) but are endearing and fun. But in the middle are these places that are neither glamorous or authentic, but just kind of.... manufactured. That's what Super Bowl World felt like. The city looked great, but this city looked great already.
In the end, the city sunk a lot of money into it, and the NFL made a lot of money off the game. It's like the stadium itself; the taxpayers pony up and the owners of the team get the resulting cash flow. It's little-- a lot-- like getting used.
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Houston has gotten the super bowl twice recently, last year and in 2004.
Last year's super bowl seems largely to have been forgotten. (Admittedly, it's not clear if it has been forgotten because of Hurricane Harvey, the Astros winning the World Series, or the Texans' forgettable season.)
But one of the impacts of the 2004 super bowl is still around. In the lead-up to 2004, Houston built a (meager) light rail system connecting downtown to the stadium. In the years since, the city leaders have not forgotten about or given up on the system. In fact, in the last few years, the city has been expanding the light rail network: an extension was added in 2013, two lines were opened in 2015, and two more lines are in the works.
The bullet train folks recently announced where they want to put their Houston station. Presumably, if the bullet train starts to gain traction, the city will try to connect the light rail network to the bullet train.
If that happens, traveling from Houston to Dallas could get to be like traveling from Tokyo to Osaka, with cat trains and everything.
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Last year's super bowl seems largely to have been forgotten. (Admittedly, it's not clear if it has been forgotten because of Hurricane Harvey, the Astros winning the World Series, or the Texans' forgettable season.)
But one of the impacts of the 2004 super bowl is still around. In the lead-up to 2004, Houston built a (meager) light rail system connecting downtown to the stadium. In the years since, the city leaders have not forgotten about or given up on the system. In fact, in the last few years, the city has been expanding the light rail network: an extension was added in 2013, two lines were opened in 2015, and two more lines are in the works.
The bullet train folks recently announced where they want to put their Houston station. Presumably, if the bullet train starts to gain traction, the city will try to connect the light rail network to the bullet train.
If that happens, traveling from Houston to Dallas could get to be like traveling from Tokyo to Osaka, with cat trains and everything.
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