No rail in Afton Oaks!
It’s tempting to think of the choice of an alignment for the Universities Line as a multiple choice question: (a) Richmond (b) Westpark. But it’s really more of an essay question, and the answer may be a little of both.
You’ll have a hard time convincing me that the right place for rail in Greenway Plaza is anywhere but Richmond. The single most important part of building a successful transit system is serving major employment centers, and the only effective way to serve the Greenway area is to put stations in its center.
But just to the west, residents in Afton Oaks say that Richmond through their neighborhood isn’t the right place for rail. And I think they’re right.
On the western section of the Universities Corridor – roughly speaking, between Weslayan and South Rice – METRO has 3 options:
| Westpark
|
Richmond (Afton Oaks)
|
Westheimer
|
| the right-of-way | ||
| An abandoned railroad line in industrial surroundings | A 4-lane tree-shaded street with a wide grassy median in a residential neighborhood | A 5-lane street surrounded by dense commercial development |
| destinations served | ||
| large office complex, multiple apartment complexes | low-density residential | retail, apartment complexes |
| connection to Uptown line | ||
| potential through running of University Line trains along Post Oak | potential through running of University Line trains along Post Oak | single Post Oak station with transfer required to other Post Oak destinations |
The alignment through Afton Oaks fares pretty badly in that comparison – I’d put it third. Westpark just inside the 610 loop looks a lot better: it maximizes potential ridership, allows a good connection to the Galleria and the rest of the Post Oak area, and minimizes neighborhood impacts.
Putting rail along Westpark has two other advantages over Richmond and Westheimer. There is land available around a Westpark/Newcastle station for a park-and-ride lot well located to serve Bellaire and West University. And putting rail south of 59 west of 610 allows it to serve Gulfton, the densest residential area in Houston, either with a station at Westpark and Chimney Rock or with a high-frequency bus circulator feeding a station at Westpark and South Rice.
So how do you get from Richmond to Westpark? Edloe is too far east. Timmons doesn’t connect. Weslayan connects, but its intersection with 59 and Westpark is already a horrible traffic mess and rail trying to make a 90 degree turn would make it worse. But just to the west, past Greenway but still a long block before the residential neighborhood, there is ample space alongside the Union Pacific railroad tracks. There’s no need to take traffic lanes, homes, or businesses. There’s already an overpass for Westpark, so trains could duck under without stopping traffic.
But the best part of the UP alignment is at Richmond. Light rail can’t cross freight rail at grade, so we need to build an over- or under-pass anyway. That structure can land right in the median of Richmond, so trains entering and leaving Richmond don’t interact with traffic: no stoplight, no crossing gates, no problem. And while we’re building that we can take the chance to solve another problem: grade separating the railroad and Richmond. While light rail goes over the railroad tracks, Richmond could go under. The train horns would be silent, and the train-induced traffic jams would be history.
Here’s how it would work (click for a much larger version):
I like win-win projects. And this looks like one to me: Afton Oaks keeps its trees and its medians and its residential ambience. The office workers and apartment dwellers at Westpark and Newcastle, and the residents of Gulfton, get high-quality transit. The Galleria gets a better connection to the rest of the system. Traffic on Westpark isn’t affected; traffic on Richmond actually gets better.
When we think of transit as a simple binary decision — Westpark or Richmond, yes or no — we miss sight of a whole lot of more subtle but more important decisions. I’m afraid we’re losing sight of those now, with ribbons on trees and lawn signs and lots of shouting. In the end, those kinds of fights become pure politics, and politics tends to preserve the status quo.
I know the status quo here — I drive on Richmond often, and the traffic is bad; I ride the bus in this corridor but the service isn’t fast enough or frequent enough or reliable enough. The status quo is only deteriorating; traffic on Richmond will be worse 10 years from now, and the bus will be stuck in more of it. I think we should try to improve things, and the way to do that is to have a reasonable conversation and find solutions that address everyone’s needs.
The discussion continues in the CTC forums.