Post Oak bus lane work ongoing without funds

Financing on hold for controversial project after request tabled

Work on a controversial bus lane and street rebuilding project along Post Oak churned along Friday, but additional money supporters are seeking remains hung up after a regional transportation board declined to vote on the request.

Uptown Management District, the sponsor of the $192.6 million project to add two dedicated bus lanes in the center of a new Post Oak, had asked for $15.9 million from the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s transportation policy council. The committee tabled the request Friday morning.

“I think there are so many questions about this project and where the money can be used,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, a skeptic of the project which the transportation board approved in 2013.

Area residents cheered the delay, after they spent most of the morning voicing their opposition to Uptown’s plans.

“It has turned into a nightmare and I see it getting worse,” said Byron Hood, who lives along Post Oak and commutes daily to his office in Williams Tower.

The project, which started construction last year and is scheduled for completion in late 2018, will add a dedicated bus lane along Post Oak from Bellaire to Loop 610. A separate project will build an elevated lane for buses along Loop 610 to a northwest transit center.

Along with the bus lanes, crews are widening sidewalks along Post Oak and replacing them with inlaid concrete pavers, planting mature trees for shade and improving intersections. The road will remain three lanes in each direction, with turn lanes where needed.

Needs council approval

Uptown Management District President John Breeding said the project remains “on time and on budget,” though critics have assailed that claim as the project’s proposed budget to the transportation council swelled from $120 million to $186 million.

Breeding said the increase is from adding elements to the project not previously considered for federal funding to the budget turned in to the regional council, which doles out federal money for the eight-county Houston area.

The project relies on a litany of different sources of money and requires various approvals, and the resulting complexity has vexed some officials in terms of deciding the merits of the project. Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack, a member of the transportation council, asked Friday that lawyers help the board sort out the funding for the Post Oak project so officials can make an infomred decision when the request is considered again.

Uptown, which also operates the tax increment reinvestment zone of the area around The Galleria and west Loop 610, has its own board — many of whom are major landowners in the area — capable of spending local tax dollars.

Houston City Council must approve the capital improvement plan for the area as part of its own budget, including the Post Oak project as line item. The project also relies on state funds and money from Washington, via the Federal Transit Administration.

Metropolitan Transit Authority has agreed to purchase and operate buses along the lanes.

Supporters say it will improve transit into the growing Post Oak area by tying it to Metro’s park and ride system. Commuter bus service currently slows in Uptown because it bogs down on Post Oak, which Metro officials suspect results in fewer riders.

Many opposed to lanes

The request tabled Friday was for additional federal money controlled by the transportation council, to pay for parts of the project not included in Uptown’s original funding plan. Critics have said the money is to cover cost overruns. Uptown officials insist the project remains on budget and officials are just trying to leverage as much as they from federal sources, so they can spend local money to enhance the project and add additional parking to a planned Bellaire transit center.

Many residents and workers along Post Oak and surrounding streets, are bitterly opposed to the lanes. Along with traffic concerns, residents who asked the committee to decline Uptown’s request said the project’s cost was wasteful when Houston has needed flood control projects and posed a safety concern for pedestrians. Many noted Metro’s recent record of fatalities along the light rail lines.

“A bus running down the middle of the road is no different than a train running down the middle of the road,” said Karen Hood, who lives along Post Oak.

Many of the concerns were unrelated to the specifics of Uptown’s request, but showed the level of opposition the project faces even though it is under construction.

Residents stressed they do not believe bus lanes down Post Oak are necessary, especially as transit use along the street has declined in recent years.

“The ridership of the buses is a joke,” Milton Frankfort said. “There is very little ridership that will go up and down Post Oak.”

Instead, he said, keep improving the street but leave the transit lanes for later.

“Beautify it as the pictures show … leave the buses out,” Frankfort said. “If six, eight, 10 years from now, if there is this dramatic need for buses out there, then let’s do it.”

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