Maybe more. Most discussion of the Uptown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone’s plan, which goes before City Council this week, has been about a proposal to annex Memorial Park into the zone and spend $100 million restoring the drought-stricken park. The centerpiece of the zone’s plan, however, is a $187.5 million vision to widen and rebuild [...]
Posts Tagged ‘University line’
If only it were that easy to get our act together
Outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has some blunt words for Houston about light rail. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood likes Houston’s light rail that’s up and running but warns that regional transit officials have squandered opportunities the past decade by not building greater consensus. “The region needs to get its act together,” LaHood said during [...]
Metro’s bus strategy
We know that the 2012 Metro referendum was intended to help Metro boost ridership by improving and expanding its bus service. Metro Board member Christof Spieler explains what that means. First, in many cases, transit doesn’t go to the right places. Over time, Houston’s population has shifted as the urban core has redeveloped, older suburbs [...]
Tell Rep. Culberson how you feel about rail on Richmond
From RichmondRail.org: We’ve learned recently that US Congressman John Culberson is soliciting input regarding the planned METRO rail line on Richmond Avenue. While the Congressman has directed his request to property owners and occupants on Richmond Ave., rail transit on Richmond would have an impact throughout Houston. We believe it’s important for as many people [...]
Uptown BRT
Interesting news from Swamplot. The driving force of a project that Uptown Houston District has proposed to the city to transform Post Oak Blvd.? Big beautiful buses. With both residential and commercial developments like Skanska’s 20-story office building popping up along the major transit corridor and METRO’s Uptown/Gold Line nowhere in sight, the District has [...]
Time for another report on how much traffic sucks
We love this sort of thing, don’t we? Houston commuters continue to endure some of the worst traffic delays in the country, according to the 2012 Urban Mobility Report released Tuesday by the Texas A&M Transportation Commission. Area drivers wasted more than two days a year, on average, in traffic congestion, costing them each $1,090 [...]
Greanias officially resigns, interim Metro CEO named
George Greanias may have stepped down as CEO of Metro, but he’ll still be around for awhile, as Metro searches for his successor. Metropolitan Transit Authority board members on Thursday accepted Greanias’ resignation, named an interim replacement and approved a six-month, $117,500 contract with Greanias – equivalent to half his annual salary – to consult [...]
Don’t write off the University line
Metro certainly hasn’t, judging by what they’re saying. “Dallas has almost 100 miles of light rail,” Metro board chairman Gilbert Garcia told a business luncheon Tuesday. “Certainly we can get to The Galleria.” What hasn’t been figured out, yet, is how to pay for the project. Federal money was heavily leveraged to get the North [...]
Buses and trains, not buses or trains
I have a lot of emotion about this, but I’m still working through how to express it. Metropolitan Transit Authority officials say the agency is on firmer financial footing than it has been in years. They plan to add shelters at 100 bus stops in the next year, replace aging buses with larger and smaller [...]
Closing arguments for the Metro referendum
One way or another, this argument will be settled on Tuesday. What happens after that is still anyone’s guess. The referendum on Tuesday’s ballot asks whether to continue spending some public transit sales tax money on streets and bridges. Opponents have campaigned against it by recasting the question: Should transit money be spent on roads [...]
More back and forth on the Metro referendum
Metro Board Chair Gilbert Garcia explains the referendum for those who say they don’t understand it. The referendum is as easy as 1-2-3. If approved, it will: 1. Continue the road-building program. 2. Expand Metro’s bus system. 3. Pay down Metro’s short-term debt. Sure, the mathematics of how the money flows to accomplish these items [...]
What comes after the Metro referendum
I hope you found my series of interviews on the Metro referendum to be useful. I think there’s plenty in those four interviews to bolster your support of or opposition to the referendum. The referendum question is simple – do we or do we not want to continue the General Mobility Program? but the issue [...]
Interview with Sue Lovell
Former Council member Sue Lovell was not directly involved in the current Metro referendum, but as the past Chair of the Transportation Committee on Council under Mayor Bill White, she was instrumental in the creation and adoption of the city’s operating agreement with Metro, which is what authorized Metro to begin construction on the 2012 [...]
Will voters understand the Metro referendum?
That’s the question that people on both sides of the issue are asking themselves. “You have some people who will read it and maybe they don’t like Metro and so they’re going to vote against it, without realizing that by voting against it they’re really going to be damaging the county and the city and [...]
Whither the University Line?
Is the University Line in doubt? Some people think so. Over the last decade, METRO spent $71 million of your dollars to build a rail line. But the agency recently took that project off the table for at least another decade and no work has been done. So where did all that money go? Ten [...]
Here come the GMP proposals
At Metro’s board meeting yesterday, trustees presented their proposed ballot referenda for the General Mobility Program. “I’m anxious to see the outcome just like everybody else,” said Chairman Gilbert Garcia, before anyone offered their specifics. As it turned out, city-appointee Garcia was one of only two trustees calling for a vote on capping the GMP [...]
Endorsement watch: An opponent for Culberson
The Chron gets around to another race it ignored in May, the Democratic primary in CD07. The winner of the Democratic primary runoff for Texas’ U.S. House 7th District will face quite a battle against incumbent Rep. John Culberson on this comfortably Republican turf. Challengers for these sorts of safe seats have a dual duty: [...]
Culberson’s Univesity Line attack makes it through the House
Great. Advocates of federally subsidized expansion of the Houston Metro light rail system lost a crucial round to Houston Congressman John Culberson on Friday, leaving dwindling opportunities to overturn spending restrictions on the Richmond Avenue project. The House adopted a $51.6 billion spending measure on a 261-163 vote that included Culberson’s ban on federal spending [...]
Metro floats compromise on mobility funds
As we know, Metro is preparing for a referendum this fall on the status of the general mobility fund, which is one fourth of the sales tax revenue Metro collects and which goes to Metro member cities for road projects. Metro Board Chair Gilbert Garcia has suggested freezing the payments after 2014, with any future [...]
Football season is over, but political football season never ends
It never even reaches the two minute warning. The committee chairman described it as a “food fight,” an after-midnight bout as Republican Congressman Blake Farenthold tried to jimmy legislation to block federal money for Metro to build or extend the University and Uptown light rail lines. In the end, his effort failed. But the wrangling [...]
Meet the new rail debate, same as the old rail debate
I feel like I’ve heard all this before. Opponents of the planned downtown streetcar system said Tuesday that county officials broke a promise with voters when they agreed to use advanced transportation district funds to help fund the project. The group contends that multiple pieces of campaign literature used to promote the ATD tax in [...]
The Bellaire “urban transit village”
Very interesting. Nearly a year in the drafting, a sweeping change to Bellaire’s zoning laws creating an “urban transit village” where there is now a collection of nondescript warehouses will soon be before City Council. On Nov. 1, the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission unanimously voted to recommend Council approval of the zoning ordinance they’ve [...]
Metro signs Full Funding Grant Agreement
Full speed ahead. The head of the Federal Transit Administration on Monday signed $900 million in grant agreements to help pay for two Houston light-rail lines under construction by the Metropolitan Transit Authority. The grants, the first federal funds ever provided for rail in Houston, were formally approved in a ceremony attended by the FTA [...]
Apartment boom coming
I have many things to say about this. High occupancies and rising rents for apartments are driving a new wave of development in Houston’s high-end urban neighborhoods. More than 3,500 units in a dozen complexes are under construction primarily inside the 610 Loop and around the Galleria. Nearly 8,700 more are proposed, according to Houston-based [...]
Metro in the President’s budget
They did all right. Houston Metro’s expansion is getting a $200 million boost in Obama’s budget request to Congress. The money for the North Corridor and the Southeast Corridor projects is $50 million more than the $150 million set aside by Obama in his last two budget proposals. The Metro project is part of a [...]
Metro gets record of decision for University line
Very good news. Metro has received word that final approval has been given concerning the environmental review process for the University light-rail line. “Houston clearly needs the University Line as an East-West transit artery,” said George Greanias, action president and CEO of the transit agency. “We’re extremely gratified the FTA has taken a big step [...]
Another setback for DART
More bad news from Dallas. Dallas Area Rapid Transit can’t afford to build light-rail service to D/FW International Airport by 2013 as it has long said it would, the agency’s chief financial officer said Tuesday. The news comes as a sharp reversal, but CFO David Leininger said the only way the project can be built [...]
Metro approves study of Fort Bend commuter rail line
In the last act for several Metro board members, we get a step forward on another commuter rail line. Moving to extend Metro’s reach into Fort Bend County, the agency’s board agreed Thursday to spend up to $500,000 on environmental studies for a commuter rail line connecting southwestern suburbs with central Houston. During the last [...]
The transition team report on Metro
In addition to naming new Metro board members, today was the day for Mayor Parker’s transition team to give its report on Metro. Here’s the Chron story about their report. I’m going to focus on one piece of it: [James] Moncur, a former deputy city controller and former Metro finance employee, said the attorney general’s [...]
Parker reaffirms commitment to light rail
This is what I want to see. [Mayor Annise] Parker’s letter regarding this week’s Metro board meeting was sent on the eve of her trip to Washington, where she said she would reassure U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that her administration wants to see five new light-rail lines built in Houston. “I just want them [...]
The Hempstead line
Here’s another story about progress on a proposed commuter rail line, this one out US 290. A study to determine ridership on the line, which would go as far west as Hempstead, will be done. The Houston-based engineering firm Klotz Associates will do the $715,000 study. The Gulf Coast Rail District got the money from [...]
More on Metro’s finances
The Chron takes a closer look at Metro’s finances and the recently expressed doubts about their ability to pay for the University and Uptown lines. Mayor Annise Parker said last week that she wasn’t convinced the Metropolitan Transit Authority would have the money to build its planned Uptown and University rail lines. Parker said she [...]
Parker expresses doubt about University and Uptown lines
This is not the sort of thing I want to see. Mayor Annise Parker cast doubt Wednesday on whether the Metropolitan Transit Authority has the money to pay for two planned light-rail lines that proponents say are critical to the success of the agency’s plans. Parker said members of her transition team have “drilled down” [...]