HALV: All in the name of transit.

After the last Harris County Election Cycle your local quasi-governmental groups are planning on going on a spending spree.

METRO Moves to the Next Phase of Developing a Regional Transit Plan. NPR

METRO Chairman Carrin Patman said they’re also expecting feedback from a new group of Harris County decision-makers.
“We have a new county government, there are some changes on the congressional level, and we need to take all those things into account,” said Patman. “Because some of the opinions of some of the stakeholders may have changed too.”

It should be of some interest to you that METRO considers their primary stakeholders to be elected officials and NOT the people who, you know, might or might not USE their services.

On the bright side, at least they're acknowledging now that people work in different places than downtown.  They're still seemingly focused on at-grade, inflexible solutions on moving people to those various locations, and it still seems like the Downtown area is still envisioned as the hub, but at least they understand that concept. 

Further in the article Metro CEO Tom 'What part of safety don't you understand?' Lambert talks about the public which raises the question of whether or not he means the "public" or designated "leaders" who have vested financial interests at stake in seeing the Danger Train go more places (among other things)?  I guess time will tell.

Given the history of Metro however their concern for the public is probably just limited to how big of a bond issue they think they can fleece the people into voting for.  Given the hue of the County right now I'm betting it's pretty big.  All they have to do is make either the "no new taxes" or "cup of coffee" argument and people will forget that money borrowed DOES eventually have to be paid back, with interest.

On a bright note, they do have one thing in place, a scrubbed and focus grouped name: METRONext  Ooooh....sparkly. 

They also have a timeline that is making the late Peter Brown smile in his grave as it's got a big chunk saved for "planning".  OF course, then there's delivery and beating down and opposition Public Education.  As we've seen in the past the latter is very important to the success of any plan. Fortunately they have the media ready to do that heavy lifting for them.  Mrs. White is dusting off her catapult and the Chron's way too many editorial writers are ordering various coffees to see just how many per month will cover the anticipated tax increases.

Now, if Mayor Turner could ONLY get the pillow-soft revenue cap lifted some fiscal omelettes could REALLY start getting cooked up.

Until then we have what METRO is calling "The Vision".

Whether it's a vision of true regional mobility or more toys for the wealthy to play in remains to be seen. Either way, you're going to hear that without this, Houston cannot be "world class"  and you don't want to stand in the way of Houston's World Classiness do you?  DO YOU?




I didn't think so.