For years now, since my first foray into blogging in 2006, I've been staunchly against Metro and their rail plans. I've blogged about the error of Metro's design both on this blog and it's many predecessors.
And I've lost.
Metro, Culberson announce agreement on transit. Katherine Driessen, Chron.com
Long-awaited rail complete, but discussion far from over. Dug Begley, HoustonChornicle.com ($$$)
I've long known that any objections forwarded on a small, hobby blog with a readership that wouldn't fill a cafeteria was going to have roughly the same impact as King Canute commanding the tide stop rising. Bad political ideas don't ever die, they just keep coming back until the opposition finally throws in the towel.
That's what happened with Rep. Culberson and it's what's happening with other opposition to Metro. Nevermind that the much ballyhooed 2003 referendum made promises Metro is not keeping (remember the promised uptick in bus service?), or that the agency has dug itself a financial hole from which escape will probably only be achievable through taxpayer bailout*, Houston wanted itself an inner-loop system to establish its world-classiness and it's going to build it come hell or high-water. (Which, amusingly, shuts down the train)
The Billions that have been spent on Light Rail are now a sunk cost. In accounting this means that they're off the table when discussing the on-going costs of the program. They're spent, done, the books are closed and Metro can never get the money back to invest in projects that will actually have a chance at reducing congestion.
The plan that I envisioned (commuter rail from outside the city to terminus points and then circulator bus routes to get people close to Houston's multiple job centers) is as dead as Astroworld. Houston's biggest concern now is going to be the gentrification in neighborhoods that increasingly occurs as developers begin to cash-in on the decidedly "things white people like" aspects of the light-rail system.
Sure, those in the unproductive class will bemoan this, between Sunday morning mimosas probably, but the ship has officially sailed, so to speak.
So, congratulations to those of a new-urbanist lean, you've won, those of us in opposition, and Houstonians who reside outside the Loop, have lost as well.
*Of course, those who support rail will say this could never happen. This ignores both the law of unintended consequences as well as the truism of politics that the primary solution to any problem is to increase the amount of money that is thrown at the problem.
