Westpark: is it where the politics are?
The discussion about the western end of METRO’s Universities Line has always been about Richmond: it is technically feasible? is it politically feasible? There’s an implied assumption that Westpark, while it may have lower ridership, will be easier to fit into the city and less contraversial. I don’t buy either of those assumptions. I’ll explain the technical issues in another post. But I figured with the news about John Culberson suggesting alternate alignments and Bill White trying to find room for compromise, we should consider whether Westpark can fly politically.
It’s important to realize first of all that nobody is speaking for Westpark. The vocal proponents of Westpark are those who are against rail on Richmond. They don’t want Westpark because they think rail on Westpark is good; they want rail on Westpark because it means no rail on Richmond. That’s in contrast to Richmond, where, while there is considerable opposition, there is also considerable support in the surrounding neighborhoods for Richmond.
And there are those who oppose rail on Westpark. There are residential neighborhoods directly bordering Westpark between Edloe and the Union Pacific railroad; they lobbied against Westpark rail in the past and are doing so again. And any alignment that tries to avoid Richmond east of Shepherd either by elevating above 59 or by running at grade alongside the freeway trench will run into two very organized civic groups (Boulevard Oaks and Neartown) that are already on record for a Richmond alignment and that know how to organize (they’re the reason 59 is depressed under Montrose now). The City of West University Place has taken a formal stance against a line on Westpark. And what about the businesses along Westpark, especially those with back driveways that cross the METRO right-of-way?
One can make the argument that the ballot said Westpark, so those who live along Westpark have no right to complain. Of course, the ballot didn’t say “59″ or “Centerpoint Right-of-Way,” so that doesn’t deal with the people on the east end. More than that, though, what was the last time an election caused people on the losing side to stop complaining? If a project has specific and vocal opposition and no strong proponents, it’s likely to die even if it was voted for. Have you ridden the rail system Houstonians voted for in 1978 when METRO was created? How about the one that was approved by referendum in 1988? The Main Street line nearly didn’t get built despite the fact that it had strong support from the interest groups along the line and no organized neighborhood opposition. A rail line needs proponents, not just a lack of opponents, to be built.
To make things more complicated, the odds are good a Westpark alignment — especially one that included significant elevated sections to address traffic concerns — wouldn’t meet the new, tighter, federal cost-effectiveness standards. Then it would truly need supporters, because the only way to get it built then — short of taking local funding away from other transportation projects — would be to get some congressman to put a specific exception in the law. The right person to do that would be John Culberson. But given how far he goes out of the way to hurt METRO, would he go out of his way to help it?
My guess is that if METRO were to follow Culberson’s advice and choose Westpark, then go to the congressman two years from now and remind him that he said he would make sure we’d get federal funding, remind him that he spoke for Westpark, and ask him to make the feds apply the old standards, he’d say that METRO had to follow the same rules as everyone else (except, of course, the dozens of cities that go specific rail transit earmarks). The result: no Universities Line.
As Chuck Kuffner points out, “no rail on Richmond” may well amount to “no rail.” But that doesn’t bother the opponents. John Culberson may couch his opposition in terms of ballot language and local opposition, but he was vocally opposed the to referendum in 2003. Leaders from Afton Oaks may say they voted for their referendum; but if they did their neighbors didn’t; that precinct, unlike most neighborhoods inside the Loop, voted against METRO Solutions.
The constituency for Westpark is largely a constituency that’s against rail. Once Richmond was off the table, the arguments for Westpark would be a lot less vocal, and the opposition to Westpark would continue to organize. So I ask Bill White and anyone else who favors rail and sees Westpark as a compromise: when the “No Rail of Westpark” fight gets going, how do you compromise the compromise?