Here’s the Temu version of MetroNext.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority unveiled new details Monday on its MetroNow initiative, the seeming replacement for the voter-approved MetroNext plan.
MetroNow first was announced as part of budget discussions for fiscal 2025 when the agency announced it would be investing $33.6 million of its operating budget and $173.8 million of its capital budget toward initiatives that focus on the customer experience. At the same time, the agency announced cutbacks in plans associated with MetroNext.
Those initiatives now have coalesced into a broader plan with a stated focus on increasing ridership and improving the customer experience. At a launch event for Metro’s new direction on Monday, agency leaders discussed safety, cleanliness, reliability and accessibility.
“We are calling this set of initiatives MetroNow because before we develop anything else, we are going to take care of some crucial issues, fundamental issues now,” Metro board Chair Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock said.
Those focuses square with what advocates say are fundamentals of an effective transit system, but the details will be key, one advocate said Monday.
“We want to make sure that all of those things are implemented in a way that truly prioritizes riders and uses Metro funds to serve their customers,” said Peter Eccles, director of policy and planning for transit advocacy group LINK Houston.
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Brock announced a bevy of investments in partnership with other entities around the region, including $10 million to Mayor John Whitmire’s homeless initiative.
Other investments announced by Brock include $100 million in major thoroughfare improvements with Harris County Precinct 3, a $200 million traffic relief plan for the Inner Katy freeway in partnership with the Texas Department of Transportation and the city of Houston, and $300 million on a Gulfton revitalization project in conjunction with the city and Harris County Precinct 4.
Both Inner Katy and Gulfton originally were slated for bus rapid transit lines as part of MetroNext, but changes will be coming. Gulfton still could include a BRT component, but the agency is relying heavily on community input via Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones’ office on what its involvement in a revitalization project would look like.
The same cannot be said for the Inner Katy project, which Brock said largely will be driven by TxDOT’s design of the managed lanes project. As part of Metro’s budget last fall, the Inner Katy project was referred to as a high occupancy vehicle, or HOV, project.
“We’re having to work around (TxDOT’s design), but we’re also desperately prioritizing direct access into downtown,” Brock said.
Despite the changes in terminology and planning, Eccles said he was encouraged that parts of the voter-approved MetroNext plan remain in the planning process for the transit agency.
MetroNext was a plan that previous agency leadership said would drastically change public transit in Houston, including the development of three BRT routes and multiple BOOST corridors. In 2019, voters approved $3.5 billion in bonds for the initiative, none of which have been sold.
After Whitmire took office and appointed Brock and other new board members, the transit agency shelved plans for the University BRT line and altered plans for the other two. Instead, the agency has focused largely on public safety and being more frugal with tax dollars.
“A lot of key components of MetroNext are still moving along,” he said, pointing at the development of BOOST routes – a program to improve sidewalks, bus shelters, and accessibility along certain high-ridership routes. “Some version of a project in Gulfton and Inner Katy were also key parts of MetroNext, and that seems to be moving forward.”
We’ll see about that, as there aren’t many details yet and I don’t have much faith in the current Metro leadership. I will never not be mad about the way they casually tossed aside the Universities Line. If we do get some form of the Inner Katy Line that will be better for me personally, but the system overall is still worse off for not doing the big project that’s 20 years overdue by now. It says a lot about the era we’re in now that “well, it’s not as bad as it could have been” is being seen as a win.
I’m still pissed about the Universities Line, too. I’ve voted for it twice now and keep having my vote trashed.