Trolley System Thrives in Houston Suburb

At a moment in which transit ridership in major U.S. cities is falling, one system is thriving.

The Woodlands trolley, which circulates around the center of its idyllic planned community outside of Houston, saw ridership increase 37 percent between September 2016 and September 2017.

Now four decades old, the Woodlands Township began as a personal project of the oil baron George P. Mitchell, who bought thousands of acres north of a city he believed was suffering from unplanned urban sprawl. 

Mitchell hired, among others, Ian McHarg, author of the seminal Design With Nature and a landscape architect who used the Woodlands as an "opportunity to apply his theory of ecological determinism." 

And although the Woodlands trolley is not actually "intended to provide service to people to who need public transportation to get around," it’s worth noting that, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, the Woodlands has been cited as one place in Houston where the “original designs are working,” and where, “in sustainably designing Houston’s native ecosystems [there] is evidence that the city can do better.”