A great day for Houston

Jay Blazek Crossley, Oct 19, 07.

The METRO Board met today, listened to a long succession of citizens, and came back from an executive session with a vote for the University Line to go all the way down Richmond to Cummins, a compromise East side solution for the University Line that will end up at the Eastwood Transit Center, and the announcement that the four other new lines (North, East End, Southeast, and Uptown) will be using light rail from the beginning as opposed to running Bus Rapid Transit as previously planned. Technically, today they have selected the preferred local alternatives for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and will be sending that along to the Federal Government for approval.

This is the culmination of decades of work by many different communities to bring rapid transit to urban Houston, and also is just the beginning of the long term vision of providing effective transit across the region.

Thanks to groups like the Citizens' Transportation Coalition, Richmond Rail, the various Management Districts, the Universities (and College), the chambers of commerce, the Greater Houston Partnership, Citizens for Public Transportation, and all of the individual citizens for volunteering their time to support METRO in pursuing effective transit solutions for the City.

Thanks to the METRO Board for putting so much effort into listening to citizen concerns and actually working to come up with solutions to address those concerns.

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