Despite cars dominating how Houstonians travel, rail seems to dominate the discussion. In the past week Mayor Sylvester Turner has lauded its potential, U.S. Rep. John Culberson has cheered its absence and residents reeling from a tragic stabbing have blamed the people it’s brought to their Northside neighborhood.

Paulo Rabinez, meanwhile, just wants to get to his job at a restaurant in Houston’s downtown tunnel system.

“It’s good,” Rabinez, 20, said as he waited for a Green Line train Monday morning at the Altic station. “Faster than the bus.”

Monday marks one-year of Metropolitan Transit Authority’s two newest rail lines. Well, most of Metro’s two newest rail lines. The last mile or so to the Magnolia Park Transit Center will not open until after a long-delayed overpass is completed early next year.

The lines, which were years behind schedule, also have struggled to exceed expectations each month in terms of average daily ridership, but remain above Metro’s earliest estimates.

The Green Line along Harrisburg failed to average the 2,014 daily riders in its earliest months, but use has since picked up. For the past six months, it has averaged more than 2,600 riders on weekdays.

Meanwhile, the Purple Line, which connects the central business district to neighborhoods southeast of downtown -- passing by Texas Southern University and the University of Houston – has not reached the 3,913 riders Metro predicted each work day consistently, but is close to that over a six-month average.

Still, as some critics note, buses often outperform the new lines, though sometimes the comparisons are not ideal. In Metro’s previous bus system, prior to August, the Route 52 Scott bus that served the universities and southeast Houston residents around MacGregor Park averaged 5,511 daily trips, nearly 1,600 more than the Purple Line.

The bus, however, covered a larger route and hit other major spots the rail line does not.

Though the Red Line – Houston’s original light rail – far exceeds the ridership of bus lines, the Green and Purple lines are still outperformed by some buses. In March, the most recent month for which route-specific ridership is available, 14 frequent bus routes had more than 4,000 riders daily, something neither rail line achieved.

Meanwhile, officials at Metro are more focused on other non-rail things, such as a revised regional transportation plan. The last time the plan was revised was when voters approved funding for the new lines in 2003.

With sales taxes in the region dipping because of the energy slowdown, officials concede more rail investment it not on the horizon.

"This is a very challenging role in a very challenging economic time," Metro chairwoman Carrin Patman said Friday.