Red Line still building, but for bikes
The belief that Northside Houston residents will bike to buses and trains if it is safer to do so is bringing more curb work to Cavalcade, paid for out the same pot of federal money that brought the neighborhood trains.
Metropolitan Transit Authority on Nov. 19 approved the use of nearly $1.3 million left over from building the Red Line light rail extension — which opened nearly seven years ago — to add protected bike lanes to Cavalcade from Irvington to Elysian.
The upcoming work will extend bike lanes along Cavalcade from Airline to Irvington, adding about a half mile of protected lanes. Tikon Group won the contract with Metro, which includes altering the road where needed and striping for bike lanes in each direction, installing rubberized bumps — often called armadillos — to separate cyclists and motorists, and building new curbs at major bus stops.
The curbs and intentional curves force bicyclists to slow at spots where people will be standing for the bus, while making sure biking through “will not have a conflict with the buses,” said Bridgette Towns, vice president of projectmanagement and engineering at Metro.
The extension will connect bike lanes already in use along Cavalcade between Irvington and Airline to bike lanes along Hardy and Elysian that act as amajor spine for cycling through Northside.
Marco Ruiz, who rents a roomin the area and travels by bike, said more and safer riding routes for cyclists are important. At least two of his friends have suffered serious injuries in traffic-related incidents. One was clipped by a passing car, sending him into the curb. Another was hurt when an angry driver threw an object, he said.
“Everyone doesn’t love the lanes,” Ruiz said of the Hardy and Elysian bike routes. “But they respect them.”
For Metro’s purposes, the bike lanes add access to bus routes along Irvington, Hardy and Elysian, Cavalcade and the Red Line light rail. As officials plan more than $7 billion in transit upgrades, including a major expansion of bus rapid transit in the region and upgraded bus routes along key streets, how people will get to those new bus stops is paramount.
Efforts to solve the problem of broken sidewalks and dangerous bike routes are spread across Metro’s 1,200-square-mile service area, but are especially acute in more transit-dependent neighborhoods and areas with more more demand for disabled access. Adding amenities that offer a more appealing trip to transit, and reduce or remove concerns about the safety ofwalking or cycling, are receiving greater focus asMetroworks through upcoming capital programs, including the agency’s $7.5 billion long-range plan.
Though someof the most talked-about parts of the plan such as bus rapid transit or rail line extension are
in the planning phases, work could start far sooner on simpler, cheaper bus route improvements.
“While we wait on these mega projects to come to fruition, the customer still sees some projects taking shape,” Metro board member Sanjay Ramabhadran said.
The bike lane’s completion in late 2021 or early 2022 will come a decade after the decision that paid for it: $900million in federal funds for Metro’s Red Line extension and construction of the Purple Line southeast of the central business district.
Each of the projects had $450 million in Federal Transit Authority funds, but neither spent all of the money allotted as Metro held back some as a contingency against rising construction costs, When it closed the books on most of the work to extend the Red Line to Northline Commons, and with efforts in Congress by then-Rep. John Culberson and Rep. Lizzie Fletcher who beat him in 2018, Metro found itself with about $90 million in additional federal money it
could spend.
Combined with local money and other federal funds, the agency’s second phase of work has about $170 million remaining, Metro spokeswoman Tracy Jackson said. Metro must spend the federalmoney by 2025.
Much of the money — officials do not have clear estimates because costs will depend on when each project proceeds — will covermany routine planned expenses, such as 14 new railcars should the Purple and Red Line require more two-car trains or more frequent trains. Officials also are funding minor street repairs, such as driveway improvements to homes and businesses in the Northside impacted by the rail line and improvements to Metro’s maintenance yard for trains.
Leftover money on the Red Line, meanwhile, will help pay for a new NorthLine Transit Center at the current Red Line terminus north of Crosstimbers. Metro’s lease is expiring on the current transit center and the agency has planned since 2016 to build its own
transit center on nearby land across Fulton on the other side of the rail station.
The new site remains in the early stages of design, but likely would have a parking garage for up to 500 automobiles and include a sky bridge to the rail station.
“That way those passengers can cross without having to get to the street level,” Metro planner Scott Barker told viewers in online public hearing in September when conceptual plans for the transit center were unveiled.
As with Metro’s $7.5 billion long-range plan that is expected to tap into at least $3 billion in federal funds over the next decade, closing out the construction of the rail lines comes as use of the system remains light because of the pandemic. Ridership last month was less than half that of October 2019, the result of few students and workers commuting and riders limiting trips. Metro officials have said people should use buses and trains for necessary travel only.