A map is worth a thousand words
Imagine if Houston had a rapid transit system that connected the suburbs to downtown with fast, frequent, comfortable, non-stop service.
Actually, we have it. METRO has spent over a billion dollars over 20 years to build a system of HOV lanes and park-and-ride lots that’s unlike any other in the United States. Dedicated ramps and barrier-separated lanes let busses go from outside Beltway 8 to the streets of Downtown without ever encountering a stoplight or a traffic jam. The result: 40,000 daily transit trips in 5 major freeway corridors, helping transit get a remarkable 40% market share for Downtown commuters.
Yet somehow this system has been all but ignored in our transit debate. In part, that’s because the HOV lanes have never had a political constituency. Conservatives dislike them because they are nice pieces of concrete that not everyone is allowed to use; liberals, even those who don’t recall that this is what Bob Lanier built instead of the monorail, are loath to endorse something so suburban and, well, concrete.
But METRO is also to blame. I made the map above myself because METRO doesn’t have anything like it, and I’m forced to refer to this thing the “HOV lane commuter bus system” because METRO has never come up with a better name (the “METROExpress” tag on the map is also mine). Perception means a lot in transit, and the fact that METRO treats these routes as if they were just ordinary busses has a lot to do with the fact that the public sees them that way. We have a service that is more extensive, faster, and more convenient than many commuter rail systems, yet nobody knows that. A little marketing would go a long way here.
Regardless, when we debate transit options for Houston, we need to keep this map in mind. We have a great way to get from the suburbs to downtown; we don’t have anything comparable for the Texas Medical Center or Post Oak (the handful of routes you see get stuck in the same traffic jams as cars) , and we don’t have any way to get between those centers. In that light, METRO’s light rail and BRT plan — which concentrates investment in urban areas — makes sense. So does David Crossley’s “urban backbone” plan (http://www.gulfcoastinstitute.org). It only makes sense to build new transit along the HOV corridors if that new service will be better than what we already have. It makes a lot of sense to create new connections to that existing network so it can connect to more destinations.
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