METRO begins mitigation efforts in earnest

Jay Blazek Crossley, Jul 12, 07.

METRO announced last week that they will open a METRO Solutions / East End Corridor Office in the Las Palmas Shopping Center at 6215 Harrisburg Blvd. The office will be open to the public, including residents and businesses affected by construction of the East End Guided Rapid Transit line, and will serve as a sort of clearing house for community concerns. Similar offices will be opened for each of the coming rapid transit lines. Specifically, METRO will be working to address the following through this office:

Small Business Enterprise / Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (SBE/DBE) Program

Business Development Training

Construction Trade Training Opportunities

Business Assistance Program

Stakeholder issues

Construction scheduling information

Last year, we conducted research on the experience of other cities that were putting in similar light rail systems to ours and found that these types of mitigation efforts were a strong determining factor in whether the community supported the further development of transit and whether businesses survived the construction. We published a series of reports from this work that can be downloaded from our light rail information page, including the following one-page introduction on mitigation practices in six other US cities.

Light Rail Construction: Mitigation of Business Interruption (Summary)

To make this work, Houstonians should take METRO up on this offer and use this new office to make our new transit infrastructure work best for our communities.

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