Metro to keep some final decisions from ballot in long-term bond vote
As Metro officials close in on the plan they are likely to take to voters, they are finding it is too late to do some things and far too early to do others.
At a board workshop Thursday, officials agreed a proposal to add light rail along Washington Avenue to downtown came in too late for inclusion in the first round of transit projects. Meanwhile, Metropolitan Transit Authority officials said it was premature to make a decision on a preferred extension of train service from the East End to Hobby Airport.
“The first step is to get the bonding authority to get to Hobby at all,” Metro Chairwoman Carrin Patman said.
Metro is expected to ask voters in November for authority to borrow $3.5 billion for the first round of projects of a $7.5 billion plan to improve transit offerings over the next 20 years.
Metro already collects a 1 percent sales tax in Harris County, Houston and 14 smaller cities, of which the transit agency keeps slightly more than 75 percent. Voters are not being asked to approve any additional tax, only to allow Metro to borrow based on future collections.
Officials have spent more than a year trying to prioritize how to spend the money.
Despite all of those discussions, Patman and others said a late proposal from the Houston Downtown Management District to extend rail service to Washington and Heights Boulevard did not get
enough analysis and neighbors remained divided on whether to support it.
“The strongest opinions have thrown a damper on it,” Patman said, noting the concerns raised by neighborhood groups.
Paul Benz, president of the First Ward Civic Council, a nonprofit neighborhood group for the lower Washington area, said more public discussion is needed before the rail plan is added to the transit wish list.
“I am not too sure it is worth the bang for the buck it might present,” Benz told Metro officials Thursday.
The line, however, enjoys vocal support with some advocates and the strong endorsement of some area residents.
“Build it now,” said Paul
Jacobs, who lives steps from the intersection of Washington and Heights, near where workers are building a new mixed-use project anchored by an H-E-B grocery store. “In a few years, this neighborhood is going to be wishing they had it, and by then it might be too late.”
East of downtown, meanwhile, there is broad consensus for a rail line to Hobby, but no agreement on exactly where the line should go. There is concern about the line’s effects on some possible routes, especially along 75th Street and near Mason Park, where rail could claim green space prized by the residents.
Officials, citing the changes that could be required by a federal analysis, punted on making a preferred choice of where the line should go.
“The exact location will be constrained by what the
federal government lets us do,” Patman said.
Though light rail dominates discussion of the longrange plan, for most riders Metro’s long-term upgrades involve more buses than trains. Bus rapid transit projects are planned across the region, along with a more frequent and accessible park-and-ride service and an improved bus service along key corridors.
Those plans, officials said, will happen after months and possibly years of additional public discussion of where to locate key stops, how best to connect routes and where to prioritize the first round of projects.
All of that is contingent on winning support from voters. Patman said she does not believe a voter referendum will suffer by Metro not giving specific, preferred routes to voters.
In 2003, the last time voters were asked to approve rail, vague language in terms of labeling the lines haunted Metro as it sought to build the system. A “Westpark Corridor” listed on the ballot shifted to include light rail along Richmond Avenue to Greenway Plaza, leading opponents to accuse Metro of misleading voters.
Patman said officials want to be careful on this ballot to tell people the locations they are trying to connect, but not the specific routes until far more community discussion occurs.
“Really, all of this is a dotted line at this point,” Patman said, noting federal approval will be necessary to tap into the federal money needed for at least half the $7.5 billion plan.