Start of Uptown bus line stalls
Construction delays, calls for more testing push deadline to July
Opening day for Houston’s first bus rapid transit line has been pushed back to mid-summer as construction enters the final steps along most of the route before reaching a three-month testing period.
Service is expected to start no earlier than July, said Tom Lambert, CEO of Metropolitan Transit Authority. That is four months later than the March opening officials predicted in mid-2019, the result of some construction delays and the desire to test more of the system at once.
“Until you get the whole corridor lined up, you really can’t deliver the service the way it is intended,” Lambert said.
The setback is the latest for the project that at one time was scheduled for completion at the end of 2018. Delays in the relocation of utilities along Post Oak — practically rebuilt between Richmond and Loop 610 — and other hiccups held up progress. Workers also had to redo some curb work after inspections showed the bus-only lanes in the center of the street were too narrow.
Though riders will experience the bus service as a single rapid transit route from Metro’s Northwest Transit Center north of Interstate 10 to a new transit center along Westpark Drive — primarily along bus-only lanes along Loop 610 and in the center of Post Oak — the path involves five different projects, built by different public entities.
That includes the new transit center taking shape along Westpark, now expected to finish in March, that Uptown and transit officials view as a major hub for buses.
Work on the Post Oak lanes is mostly complete, according to John Breeding, executive director of the Uptown Houston Management District, which rebuilt the road and led efforts to add transit to the area.
Construction continues, however, on the elevated busway that will carry the BRT service from Post Oak north along Loop 610 before reconnecting the buses with North Post Oak. Work on the $58 million busway, developed by the Texas Department of Transportation, is expected to finish by the end of March, TxDOT spokeswoman Emily Black said.
Testing in earnest can only happen along the line with the Post Oak and busway portions complete, Lambert said.
Transit expects testing to take 90 days to ensure buses, traffic signals and all aspects of the service are in working order and operators are accustomed to the lines before passengers hop aboard. Officials also work on contingency plans, such as how to detour buses if necessary between all of the eight stations and proper timing so buses arrive every 10 minutes, as planned.
“The whole idea is, no matter what happens in that alignment, we all know what to do,” said Andy Skabowski, chief operations officer for Metro.
Complexities remain
Finishing the two main components of the bus lanes, however, is only part of the juggling act. The massive rebuild of the Loop 610 and I-69 interchange weighs heavily on how the system operates.
At the interchange, where the frontage roads for Loop 610 descend into underpasses on each side of the freeway, workers are expediting the lanes in the hopes that buses will not need a circuitous detour around the construction zone.
North of the busway, meanwhile, Metro is redoing the street for direct bus lane access to a rebuilt Northwest Transit Center, which will become a major hub for commuters. It is expected that many commuter buses along I-10 will add a stop at the transit center, so someone could transfer from a park-and-ride route to the rapid service, easing vehicle trips into Uptown. The new transit center and direct connection to it along North Post Oak are expected to open in December.
The biggest changes for many commuters will be at the southern end of the new bus lanes. The Westpark/Lower Uptown Transit Center moves the major Metro park-and-ride transfer spot to Westpark, just south of I-69 east of Rice Avenue, where a new T-ramp towers over the freeway to the top of the garage.
Just as the north end is expected to draw new use, the Westpark transit center also is expected to evolve as a hub for Metro’s growing park-and-ride system.
“Some of their runs will stop here and continue downtown,” Breeding said.
Because of the rapid transit, the Westpark depot is a rarity among local transfer spots, said Ramesh Gunda, who oversaw engineering for the new transit center.
‘Seat used twice’
Commuter buses, he said, will use the top of the three-level parking garage, while rapid services and local buses will enter from Westpark to use groundlevel platforms and bus bays.
Gunda said the transit center can be a place to access faster trips downtown as other commuters head into Uptown.
“You use the seat twice,” Gunda said of the ability of commuter buses to serve multiple uses between key locations.
The challenge for Metro is to make those added connections without significant more time or complications, riders said.
“If it seems unnecessary, I don’t think people will like it,” said frequent park-andride user John Gibson, 49, of Mission Bend, north of Sugar Land.