From Houston Tomorrow:
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) released its recommendations for the President’s FY2011 Budget, which include $75 million each for Houston’s North (pdf) andSoutheast Light Rail Lines (pdf), continuing the funding that began in the previous year.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) plans to pay for the Uptown and East Light Rail Lines with local funding. The University Line (pdf), for which METRO has just released the Final Environmental Impact Statement that will have to be followed by a Record of Decision, has not yet received a recommendation for funding.
The recommendations include all the transit projects across the country considered in the new starts and small starts programs as well as Project Profiles, which for the first time use new transit funding criteria that have expanded to include livability, environmental, and accessibility concerns, as opposed to the previous auto-centric criteria, which focused on reducing freeway congestion.
I believe there’s still more to come for the North and Southeast lines. Getting the funds for the University line will be the next big step forward.