Tory Gattis, a founding senior fellow of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism, wrote an article in last weeks Chronicle discussing the newest proposed $2.45 billion plan from METRONext.
The METRONext 2040 plan or “Moving Forward Plan” includes many large projects that span from adding new park & ride structures throughout the city, to extending the light rail system and regional express.
Gattis states that the Metro plan has “some wonderful, cost-effective local and express bus improvements […] but continues to throw mountains of good money after bad on new light rail extensions.”
The West Houston Association’s Regional Mobility committee submitted comments to METRONext to provide insight into making transit in our region as successful as possible. WHA found that the Metro plan did a great job connecting downtown job and suburban centers but did little to connect the job centers together.
The committee also found that a lot of the overlooked areas in need of transit improvements would be better serviced with a West Belt Regional Connector that stops at the exisitng and proposed transit centers. Some of those being mini-transit centers that are placed closer to the places where people live.
Though the period to submit comments for the METRONext plan has passed one thing is for sure, with the population growth projected to add more than 1 million people to the West Houston region we all need to do our part to be sure and create quality and sustainable growth for the future of West Houston.
***Links to the original documents are below (Click WHA Logo)***
