Intermodality

While the Universities corridor has been in the news recently, METRO is moving ahead on other transit corridors as well. In the next two weeks METRO will hold public meetings on the North and Southeast corridors. Unlike the Universities Corridor, for which an Alternatives Analysis study has not yet begun, studies were done for these corridors in 2002-2003, before the METRO Solutions referendum. (For more details see our light rail fact sheet.)

The big change since 2003 is that METRO has now designated both of these corridors (with the exception of 1/2 mile of light rail) as bus rapid transit. As I’ve noted before, BRT is a broad term, but METRO seems to be planning for a “full” BRT with reserved lanes, stations resembling light rail, and even rail embedded in the ground for future conversion to rail. These meetings will be the first chance the public has to see details on METRO’s approach to BRT.

The North Line is an extension of the Main Street light rail line from University of Houston Downtown to the new Intermodal Transit Center just north of Downtown, connecting to a BRT line along Main, Irvington, and Fulton to Northline Mall (pdf map).

The Southeast line is a BRT line from a connection to the Main Street line Downtown along Scott and Griggs to the Palm Center just inside the 610 loop, serving the University of Houston and connecting with the Universities line there (pdf map). METRO is considering a change from the alignment the board chose back in 2003, using Wheeler and Martin Luther King to avoid a residential section of Scott Street. This addresses concerns from that neighborhood (which I heard lots of at the last round of public meetings in 2004) and comes closer to the center of UH, but it also trades less populated areas for more populated ones (which could lose some ridership) and misses the Southeast Transit Center (though a replacement transit center could be built elsewhere along the route).

Neither of these routes have the ridership potential of the Main Street route (or, for that matter, the Universities line); the only major employment center either serves is UH, and that will also be served by the Universities line. Accordingly, projected ridership is comparatively low: 12,000 average weekday boardings on each line by 2025, compared to 40,000 today on Main. That’s why the FTA didn’t find the projects cost-effective enough for federal funding as light rail (the gory details are in the FTA’s 2007 New Starts Report, a massive 12MB pdf; as METRO noted recently, these figures are for the LRT option, not the revised BRT option). But these lines would provide better transportation options in heavily transit-dependent neighborhoods and serve two industrial areas (just to the north and east of Downtown) that are prime for redevelopment, and they are the first steps towards the airports.

Above, a preview of the what might be coming our way: LA’s Orange Line BRT service.

Meeting details:

North Corridor Public Workshop

Downtown to Northline Mall

Draft Environmental Impact Statement

Saturday, February 25

9 a.m. – 12 noon

Davis High School,

Commons Area

1101 Quitman

Southeast Corridor Public Workshops

Tuesday, February 28

6 – 8 p.m.

Judson W. Robinson Jr.

Community Center

2020 Hermann Drive

Wednesday, March 1

6 – 8 p.m.

Palm Center Business

Technology Center

5330 Griggs Road

Anything to add? Visit the forums.

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