Whitmire cheers Westheimer overhaul as good start
Calling it “a new beginning” for improving infrastructure, Mayor John Whitmire used a repaving project by Metro along Westheimer to declare more work is coming to city streets.
“People complain and know we can do better with our streets,” the mayor said, standing in front of a row of workers. “We are not going to tolerate our broken infrastructure.”
As a result, he said drivers should expect to see workers on a lot of neglected streets, smoothing them and addressing what he said were unacceptable conditions.
Tackling the miles of broken curbs, pocked streets, cracked concrete, burst pipes and crumbling drainage, however, will take much more than just the city’s resources, the mayor said.
“We are going to look at all the options for how to pay for it,” he said, noting the city’s other looming fiscal challenges.
Along Westheimer, it is Metropolitan Transit Authority footing the bill for more than $12.2 million worth of work. Officials added $2.3 million earlier this year to planned improvements along the street related to new bus stops and repaving.
“The original plan was to have metro put a Band-Aid on the bus lane,” Metro chair Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock said.
The additional work repaves two stretches of Westheimer from Loop 610 to west of near Wesleyan, and then from Montrose east to Bagby. By adding the repaving, Metro is allowing the city to delay a more substantial redesign and rebuild of lower Westheimer that would have narrowed the street east of Montrose.
Brock called moving to a single project a better use of resources, defending the use of transit agency money for road work.
“We should be looking at it as the taxpayers’ money, and how can we use the taxpayers’ money to meet those needs,” she said, noting the bus stops and improved street directly benefits bus riders.
Metro and the city are working closely to make sure construction solves many issues along Westheimer, from drainage to pavement condition, said Tom Jasien, the transit agency’s interim CEO.
That coordination is important to keep all traffic moving, including a lot of bus riders. The Route 82 service along Westheimer is Metro’s busiest bus route, with a ridership higher than every other transit route in the region except for the Red Line light rail through downtown. Along the entire route, Metro officials plan to spend $46.2 million on various improvements to bus stops and curbs — as well as the street and some drainage along it.
The work, part of Metro’s long-range plan that voters approved in 2019, is one of three so-called BOOST corridor initiatives that bundled improvements along major routes with the overall goal of making the entire route better for passengers.
Work continues along the 56 Airline/Montrose and 54 Scott bus routes as well. In addition, similar projects continue to upgrade bus shelters around the Houston region and add traffic signal prioritization, where warranted, along bus routes so buses can avoid red lights if a couple extra seconds of green would let them pass by.
Whitmire cheered the work along Westheimer as commonsense improvements, which improve not only bus service but the conditions of some of the city’s most-used streets. He said building on that collaboration will be important for the city to get its infrastructure in order, citing the need to tap federal, state and Harris County funds to maximize what the city can spend.
“It is cost-effective to work together,” Whitmire said.
The focus on fixing streets, however, comes as some clash with the city’s reluctance to move forward on some planned projects. Shortly after residents complained of tree loss along Montrose related to a drainage and street project, sponsored by the Montrose TIRZ, Whitmire’s team halted the permit process. City officials also paused construction of a portion of Shepherd and Durham over what they said was the removal of a vehicle lane in order to widen sidewalks for cyclists and pedestrians.
Meanwhile, Metro, with new Whitmire-appointed members, is touting the new Westheimer work while slowing the public process of its other ongoing long-range projects. Parts of Metro’s web page detailing its three bus rapid transit projects, currently under design, were removed last week.
“Since most of the new board members haven’t had a chance to review the proposed projects, we wanted to pause items that appear to be advocacy,” Jasien said when asked about the removal.