The Next Stop: METRO's Podcast Episode 56: How METRORail Gets Ready to Rodeo Eddie Espinosa: Believe it or not, as soon as rodeo is over, we are already talking about next year. Doug Delony: I’m Doug Delony. On this edition of the Next Stop: Handling Big Crowds for the rodeo, spring break, and beyond. How METRORail prepares when big events roll into town. [Introduction music plays] Doug Delony: Today on the Next Stop, we welcome METRORail’s Eddie Espinosa, who helps head up Special Events Planning for the rail system. That is a very simple summary of your title. Welcome, Eddie. Eddie Espinosa: Well, I thank you for having me, Doug. Doug Delony: Absolutely. Thanks for taking the time. I know you’re very busy this time of year. What’s your position and your title at METRO? Eddie Espinosa: I am the Assistant Superintendent of Special Events & Construction Coordination. Doug Delony: Okay, that’s a very, very long title. Eddie Espinosa: [laughs] Doug Delony: [laughs] Eddie Espinosa: I’ve worn many hats in rail operations. Current position is handling special events and activities or projects along the rail system: Football games or the Astro events at Minute Maid Park or Dynamo games at their stadium, events in the theater district, parades downtown. Internally, I work with our various internal maintenance groups to get their maintenance activities done on the tracks, on the signals and communication, traction power when it comes to construction coordination around the rail system. So, I go from the games and the parades to… Doug Delony: Right. Eddie Espinosa: …construction activity and projects. Doug Delony: And so, you stay very busy because, you know, we think about Texan games, okay, Sundays, you know, usually. We think about the world’s largest rodeo, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, but then on the weekends and overnights, even when rail service usually is not—there’s a small a gap, you know, a few hours overnight where rail service is not running, but that’s not long enough to get everything done. Either if it’s a METRORail construction project, it takes a lot of coordination, right? You stay very busy, probably seven days a week. Eddie Espinosa: I enjoy what I do. I have, you know, very good connections internally and externally because I work with so many different groups, so I have to be able to, you know, work with these entities internally and externally. And it’s great because I develop some really good working relationships with all our community partners. Doug Delony: Let’s go to the rodeo. Rodeo season kicking into high gear. How soon, how early in the year, or did the meetings start last year with the rodeo people when we’re talking about getting the rail ready for rodeo patrons? Eddie Espinosa: Believe it or not, as soon as rodeo is over, we are already talking about next year. So… Doug Delony: Wow. Eddie Espinosa: …it doesn’t stop. The last day of rodeo on the 19th of March, within a week or two, we’re already talking about how this rodeo went, and then we start talking about making mental notes or sending e-mails back and forth about, “Hey, we need to put this on next year’s ‘To-Do List.’” Right? So… Doug Delony: Because there’s always room for… Eddie Espinosa: Always. Doug Delony: …improvement. And there’s… Eddie Espinosa: Always. Doug Delony: …always some kind of change. Eddie Espinosa: I will say that the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and METRO, us, we, I think we always re-evaluate how we did in the event, and we always try to see, you know, what could we do, you know, what can we do better, you know? What went well, what didn’t go so well, and we try to plan to improve on that. So, yes, no, it never stops. We have our hot wash right afterwards. Within a week or two, we’re already talking about next year’s and what we plan to do. Of course, we move on to other, you know, events, but it starts right after rodeo. Doug Delony: Right. It’s probably, too, especially with the pandemic, and, you know, we had a year where the rodeo was cut short, and then we had a year that they skipped, and then they came back. It’s sometimes hard to predict the demand that there will be for the service, especially because we have spring break right in the middle of the rodeo as well. I mean, how does METRO prepare for either a huge amount of crowds that we didn’t expect or how do we prepare for, you know, the fact that, okay, maybe not as many people will show up as they did maybe ten years ago. Eddie Espinosa: Well, Doug, I’m glad you brought up spring break because that’s like having an event on top of the event. Doug Delony: Yeah. Eddie Espinosa: The way one of the rodeo executives put it in my meeting we went to was that “Every school district between Houston and San Antonio is taking spring break the same week….” Doug Delony: [laughs] Eddie Espinosa: “…And they will travel.” Doug Delony: And they want to go the zoo. They want to go to the museums. Eddie Espinosa: Right. Doug Delony: They might want to go and just… Eddie Espinosa: Oh yeah. Doug Delony: …even if they don’t go to the rodeo show itself… Eddie Espinosa: Correct. Correct. Doug Delony: …They might go to the carnival, so… Eddie Espinosa: Correct. Doug Delony: …the Red Line especially stays busy. Eddie Espinosa: Correct. You know, we had a meeting just a few days ago with the Houston Zoo, the HPD, MPD, the TMC Police, TMC’s operation folks because it affects the Texas Medical Center as well, and the museum district because it’s not just zoo. It’s all the museums and… Doug Delony: Right. Eddie Espinosa: …all in the area gets saturated. And Monday through Friday of spring break week is particularly busy in the Hermann Park Medical Center area. And HPD, the City of Houston, MPD, they collaborate, they coordinate their efforts, and they have a pretty good traffic plan, and that traffic plan covers the footprint of that entire area. And not just the zoo or the Medical Center, but they cover, the footprint goes from 288 to 610 to 59. That’s part of their traffic plan. Doug Delony: Right. Eddie Espinosa: So, it’s not just the local streets. It also, they’re planning includes the freeway surrounding the whole area. So, it’s very, I don’t want to say complicated, but it’s controlled chaos that happens. Doug Delony: A lot of moving pieces. [laughs] Eddie Espinosa: Yes. I have to admit that the City of Houston, our special event folks with HPD and MPD, along with the zoo and all of the community partners, there’s so many entities we deal with. I forgot to mention the Mayor’s Office of Special Events. They communicate with me on everything. They call me and, “Eddie, we got this going on.” And, you know, we collaborate… Doug Delony: Wow. Eddie Espinosa: …even though it may not be the rail system. They still communicate with me and say, “Hey, Eddie….” And I tell them, “Send me everything, whether it’s near the rail system or not. And I’ll decipher it.” Because sometimes, they can have an event that’s a mile away from us. However, the traffic flow may cross us. Doug Delony: Right. Eddie Espinosa: So, you know, they may have something out on Allen Parkway, Eleanor Tinsley Park, which is almost a mile away from our rail system. However, people have to park near the rail system to get to the venue. Doug Delony: So, there’s a lot of coordination then for things that aren’t even directly, you know, involving the rail system. Eddie Espinosa: Right. It’s not even close to our footprint, but because of the size of the event or the location, we get the traffic part of it. We’ll get the vehicle or the pedestrian traffic. Most people, I would say ninety-five (95%) percent of people don’t, they don’t see that part of it. I think we, as personnel who work in the special event arena, you know, that’s what we do. We plan, and because we don’t want people to notice…. Doug Delony: Yeah. Eddie Espinosa: …We want them to come and enjoy, you know… Doug Delony: The service is there. It’s running. Eddie Espinosa: Yeah, yeah. Doug Delony: Mm-hmm. Eddie Espinosa: And we want them to enjoy it and not, you know, is there traffic? Yes, there is. Are there delays? Absolutely. But anybody who goes to any event, if you go to a baseball game, it’s gonna take time. You go to any game, any event. It’s gonna take time getting in. It’s gonna take time getting out. And I think most people understand that. They just need information. Doug Delony: Right. Eddie Espinosa: And that’s what we try to provide them information on where to park, what time this is open, what time that closes, and stuff like that. That’s what people need. They get that information. I don’t think people mind being delayed or… Doug Delony: As long as they anticipate it. And it doesn’t look like it was an unplanned event. Eddie Espinosa: Correct. Doug Delony: And I know people can go to ridemetro.org/rodeo… Eddie Espinosa: Right. Doug Delony: …and we have most of our big events right there on the home page. And, of course, if you haven’t signed up for service alerts, we encourage everyone to sign up for service alerts so that way, if there are any unplanned issues, you get a ding on your phone for whichever route you plan on taking. I was going to ask you what something surprising that, you know, most people might not realize happens behind the scenes, but you just talked about that call from a week or two ago. I was on that call with all of the entities involved. I would say there were probably 40 or 50 different people on that call, and like you said, Houston Police, Metro Police, Special Events from both sides of that. We had museum personnel on there. We had the Medical Center on there. The Medical Center always has some kind of construction going on. It’s ever-growing. The driveways are under works. So, we have to make sure that METRO Police and Houston Police are not directing people down a road that’s going to end up being a dead end. So many moving parts. You talked about that controlled chaos element. I think it’s amazing what, you know, takes place. Is there anything, I think, people would be surprised to know about METRORail, specifically during a big event? I mean, do we put extra trains on the track? Do we have extra operators on standby? Eddie Espinosa: Well, when we have these, when it comes to rail operations, you know, during the week, we run a 6-minute headway Monday through Friday, usually from 3:30 in the morning to about 7 p.m. And then, we transition in the evening to a 12-minute headway. Doug Delony: And what does headway mean? Eddie Espinosa: Headway, that’s the interval between trains. Doug Delony: Okay. Eddie Espinosa: I’m sorry. Doug Delony: Okay. Eddie Espinosa: And then between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., it’s 12 minutes between every train, and then from 9 p.m. until the end of service, it’s 18 minutes. However, what we try to do in the evening times after 7 p.m. is try to insert extra trains to try to maintain the 6-minute headway interval between trains to the end of the event. And so, although we transition to a 12-minute interval or 18-minute interval when the event is over, we try to insert those additional trains to increase capacity to handle the crowds that are exiting… Doug Delony: Right. Eddie Espinosa: …these events. So, that’s something that we do. It’s planned but not planned. Doug Delony: So, specifically, it’s kind of like you might have some trains lined up near Fannin South…. Eddie Espinosa: Correct. Doug Delony: Ready to roll, one after another, when the concert lets out. Eddie Espinosa: Correct. Doug Delony: You know, people get out of Chris Stapleton or whatever at the rodeo, there’s gonna be a big crowd coming out. I think I’ve been in that line a few times. And the train does, I mean, one leaves, the other one, you know…. Eddie Espinosa: Yes. Doug Delony: And it’s nice to have that flow because, yeah, every 6 minutes or every 12 minutes probably wouldn’t work out too well when you have a special scenario like that. Eddie Espinosa: That’s correct. And then, of course, normally, our evening service is over by 11:30, the last trains, but during special events like the rodeo or concerts or football games, we will run what we call “Late Night Service.” Meaning the last train will depart from Fannin South going northbound at 1:30 a.m. And that’s to be able to clear out the event and make sure we don’t leave anybody behind, and particularly the workers. We’ve got to think about the workers too. A lot of people don’t think about the workers at these venues. Doug Delony: That at or running the rodeo or cleaning or whatever, yeah. Eddie Espinosa: Yes, and they have to go home too, and they don’t go home until after the attendees go home, right? They have to close up. So, we run to the Late Night Service to make sure that we don’t leave no one behind. And we do the same thing for the weekends as we do during the week, so, you know, and we try to put as many extra trains out there as needed post-event for sure because we want to get, we want people to have a good experience not just coming to the event but leaving as well. Doug Delony: But we should say, though, that if people are going to, and I know we kind of touched on this earlier in the conversation if people are going to the rodeo, and you get out of that concert, especially a big star, expect you’re going to have to wait in a line. I mean, there’s going to be a line at the platform. Give yourself some extra time. Just be patient. Expect it. For me, I always expected it when I was simply a customer and not an employee, but I still appreciated the fact that I did not have to park, and it only cost me a $1.25, you know, as opposed to the $50 parking lot right there next to the stadium, where, guess what? Those people are waiting in line, too, just to pull out onto Kirby. So, you know, to each his own, I guess, right? Eddie Espinosa: Yes. Correct. That’s correct. Doug Delony: I don’t want to take up too much of your time because I know you’re super busy right now. You got to take a lunch break at some point, right? Is there anything I missed? Anything you want to add? Maybe something you want to tell METRO customers about, you know, how much METRO does for them on a day-to-day basis… Eddie Espinosa: Well… Doug Delony: …not just during special events. Eddie Espinosa: You know, we try to run the operation day-to-day just like we run a special event. We want the best interval we can maintain, 6 minute, 12 minute, whether it be 6, 12 minute, or 18 minute. We want to make sure that we are consistent with that service, whether it’s normal revenue service or special event service. We want to have that consistency, so that’s the main thing that we try to do is have that consistency there. Doug Delony: Awesome. And I just want to say from the Communications Office here working for the Press Office, thank you to you, Eddie, and everything you do for METRO, and of course, all of our operators, our cleaners, and the list could go and on and on of all the people that it takes to keep this operation rolling, special event or not. So, thank you so much for that. Eddie Espinosa: Okay. Let me leave it with this here. Doug Delony: Uh-huh. Go ahead. Eddie Espinosa: You’re right about the people in the background. You know, rail operations, it takes a lot to run the train. You have your LRV maintenance crews. You got your facility maintenance that take care of our platforms. You got your Track Department that takes care of the tracks. You got signals and communication that take care of… Doug Delony: Wow. Eddie Espinosa: …our signal. You’ve got our traction power that takes care of the Traction Power Department. Those are five different maintenance departments, and they all have a specialty, and those, to me, are the unsung heroes. We got our cleaners that every night… Doug Delony: Wow. Eddie Espinosa: …at 8 p.m., they start cleaning these trains, and they’ll spend six or seven hours cleaning these trains, preparing them for the next day’s service. So, there’s so much that goes on in the background, and most people just see the train and the operator. Doug Delony: Right. Eddie Espinosa: They don’t see everything that goes on in the back. Doug Delony: Right. Eddie Espinosa: So, I want to give hats off to those guys because they’re the true unsung heroes for sure. Doug Delony: Thank you so much for that. And thanks for joining us here on the Next Stop. Eddie Espinosa: All right, man. We’ll talk to you later. Thanks for having me. Doug Delony: Thanks again, Eddie. That wraps it up for this edition of the Next Stop. Thank you to you as well, the listener, and all of our METRO riders out there. As a reminder, you can reach METRO’s awesome customer service team, call or text 713-635-4000. I’m Doug Delony. If you’d like to check out more episodes of this podcast and subscribe, you can find all the things you need on ridemetro.org. As always, drive less and do more with Houston METRO! [Music plays to end]