HAS METRO BROKEN ITS PROMISE TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT LIGHT RAIL?
Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) has added his voice to the chorus of disappointed citizens who recently learned the Metropolitan Transit Authority (METRO) may cut six blocks from its planned East End line connecting downtown Houston and the Magnolia Transit Center.
The original route, approved in a 2003 voter referendum, is intersected by the former Houston Belt & Terminal Railway tracks, now owned by Union Pacific. To date, METRO has been unable to develop a plan to cross the tracks to extend the line to the Magnolia Transit Center.
In a letter to METRO authorities dated April 4, Green said METRO had missed opportunities over the past several years to resolve the obstruction, and that the original route provided opportunities that were “absolutely essential to the further development of [the] area.”
Green also urged METRO to work with Union Pacific, the City of Houston, Harris County, the Freight Rail District, the Port of Houston, and local residents “to expeditiously reach a consensus agreement on a total crossing of the tracks.”
Proposed solutions include building an over or under pass at the train tracks, which could delay the rail line extension for several years as there are no current plans or funding for such a project.
Green has actively supported plans for a light rail system in Houston through appropriations requests. Last year , Green helped secure $19.6 million to continue the implementation of rail and bus rapid transit portions of METRO Solutions, including the North and Southeast light rail lines.
If D**k heads like Tom Delay wouldn't have tried to stop rail in Houston the city would have had a full rail system when other cities in the South got theirs. The government needs to approve what ever is needed to make this work. I say make it into a subway line that way you won't have to stop traffic or other trains. Putting rail on the streets defeats the purpose of having rail.
ReplyDeleteObviously the previous poster pays no attention to what is really happening with light rail. Frank Con Artist Wilson and the rest of the Metreaux N.U.T.S. have continued their distortions and lies about the costs of rail in Houston. Bottom line, it will not work, it's not economically feasible and millions of dollars will continue to be wasted on an overpriced transit system that is being designed to only cater to people that don't need mass transit. Meanwhile, the people that really need mass transit are being neglected and left out of the equation. Bus routes are being deleted at the whims of the morons in Metreaux when they should be devoting funds to expanding bus service to the folks that really need it. Idiots like the previous poster that "want" rail to get to and from places like the Galleria aren't who the area's transit agency should be catering to. It should cater to the segments of the population that actually "need" affordable, effective mass transit to get to and from work. Metreaux will never admit that it cares not in the least about these people. Tom Delay saw the boondoggle that urban rail in Houston has always been. For all his faults, that's one thing Delay got right, his opposition to New Urban Rail Transit. It is not economically feasible. Buses, however have been and will continue to be in a large spread out city like Houston. But that's no whirled class enough for the morons that "want", but don't "need" mass transit. To them, rail is sexy, and buses are not. These people also have no concept of fiscal budgets either. I love that comment, "The goverment needs to approve whatever is needed to make this work." Don't use cognitive reasoning, just feeeeeellllll. Never mind how the transit agency has lied to the public about how much it really will cost, or about how few people it really serves.
ReplyDeleteAmen to the second poster...the first poster is an idiot..bet he is planning to vote for Obama. Houston's light rail is a joke and numbers support that. Ridership is almost non-existent and costs per person per mile are enormous. Just like a liberal, poster #1 wants to "feeeel" good and believes government actually has money of it's own. Nonsense.
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