EDITORIAL University Line would improve the city’s future
It’s often observed that Houston doesn’t just have one “downtown,” but several.
The lack of traditional zoning has allowed miniature cities within the city to flourish. Apart from downtown Houston itself, places such as Uptown, Energy Corridor, Texas Medical Center and Westchase are nuclei for jobs, housing and amenities, each boasting bigger numbers than many American downtowns.
What Houston has lacked for decades is connective tissue linking these employment hubs to its neighborhoods. The Metropolitan Transit Authority is on a mission to change that. In responding to the overwhelming will of voters, who approved $3.5 billion in bonds in 2019, Metro has planned several new transit corridors to provide multiple modes of transportation for a city starved for alternatives to driving.
If Houston wants to grow its population without traffic getting even worse, we need to give future generations transportation choices — from light rail to buses to bicycle lanes. A future where Houstonians won’t have to be tethered to a car for their daily commute isn’t just some urbanist fantasy; it’s a necessity for the city to stay competitive with its big-city rivals.
The keystone to realizing that goal is the 25-mile University Line, a $1.5 billion bus rapid transit proposal that will connect neighborhoods from Westchase to the Tidwell Transit Center. Not every transit investment makes sense, but this one does for three reasons: It connects several of Houston’s biggest downtowns. It connects Metro’s existing investments, making the system work better as a whole. And, finally, it will improve the lives of Houstonians who either leave their cars at home or must rely on transit.
Although the University Line vehicles will roll on wheels, they will look like a light rail train running in a dedicated lane and will stop at stations with platforms. The central part of the project along Richmond Avenue has been at the forefront of Houston’s transit plans for nearly 20 years. Former Congressman John Culberson made a science of blocking any federal funding for the plan. Now, with a final virtual hearing scheduled Monday, the project is inching toward construction by late 2024 or early 2025. Once completed, it would be among the longest BRT lines in the nation, with 40 stations connecting northeast Houston to dozens of communities, as well as the University of Houston and Texas Southern campuses.
And yet the promise of the University Line hasn’t swayed its consistent critics. The Chronicle’s Dug Begley reported last week that many transit opponents are raising a stink that Metro system’s relatively modest ridership has failed to justify the project’s high cost. They worry that construction of the University Line will snarl traffic, invite unwelcome development and cripple local businesses.
Some of these concerns are reasonable. Building out public transit from scratch is often a messy ordeal. Unlike robust mass transit systems such as those in New York and Chicago, which have existed for more than a century, Metro is still in its relative infancy. Its first light rail project, the Red Line, is barely old enough to vote. And transit officials have mismanaged expectations for attracting riders. When the Purple Line was proposed in 2012, officials estimated that the route would carry 28,800 riders daily by 2030. So far, the line’s highest average daily ridership was 7,581 in 2019.
Yet raw ridership numbers don’t tell the whole story. Public transit agencies across the nation have suffered declines in ridership since the COVID-19 pandemic and are struggling to adjust to the new reality that many of those riders might never return as working from home becomes the new normal for those tapping away at keyboards. Still, Metro appears to be beginning to recover its lost riders. Its most recent monthly ridership data from May shows a 36 percent increase from 2021 in both total riders and average weekday riders.
Metro’s planning strategy revolves around a basic premise: If we put transit where the people and jobs are, riders will come. The University Line is a crucial east-west corridor linking the Silver Line with the Red, Purple and Green. A Downtown Houston worker who rides a commuter bus in from Sugar Land would be able to make meetings at the Medical Center or Uptown with ease.
“These things work as a system; they don’t work as individual segments,” Metro board chair Sanjay Ramabhadran told the editorial board. “So when you build multiple segments of the overall system, you recognize the full benefit of the connectivity that then translates into ridership.”
Higher and higher ridership isn’t the only goal. The people who consistently use Metro — lower-income commuters who can’t necessarily afford a car or have the ability to drive one — remain reliant on it. Transit opponents complaining that buses are a nuisance must realize that there are people who wait for the bus in blistering summer heat every day to connect them to jobs, education and health care.
As for cost concerns, it’s true that a $1.5 billion bus line is expensive. It’s also a pittance compared with the $12.5 billion the Texas Department of Transportation plans to spend on highway expansion in Houston over the next decade. As a car-centric city, we are conditioned to see roads and freeways as a public good. We hardly bat an eye at the astronomical price tags; only until recently have advocates and local leaders asked TxDOT to justify the cost and prove that those added lanes won’t simply become clogged with cars and trucks when completed.
Houston’s population is expected to nearly double by 2040. In the same way that boosters of the state’s highway expansion argue that adding car capacity is necessary to accommodate this projected growth, transit officials believe their fully realized long-term plan will enhance the city’s menu of transportation options.
Metro officials have their work cut out for them. They must reassure the people who have showed up to the numerous public hearings on the University Line that they are going to do right by the businesses and neighborhoods along the proposed corridor and ensure construction will be as accommodating as possible. What’s needed now is a process that makes the line work better for everybody.
Transportation options are needed if we want to grow without worse traffic.