Light rail may get $180 million from recovery package

Galveston also asks for funds

Steve Hawley, Feb 09, 09.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County may receive $180 million for the light rail extension over the next year if the economic recovery bill passes, according to the Houston Chronicle. The article quotes Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who called the northern and southeastern light rail extensions “very high-rated project[s].”

METRO asked for $410 million overall from the recovery package, a request which Oberstar called realistic. He noted that the bill still must pass the Senate and be approved by a joint House-Senate conference committee, but that if the final bill contains $12 billion in transit funding, as the House bill currently does, METRO would likely get the money. The article indicates that, should the bill pass the Senate this week, Oberstar will likely sit on the conference committee.

The article also notes that Galveston officials are in Washington, D.C. trying to get $25 million to recover from Hurricane Ike, as well as $10 million in stimulus funding to start work on a Houston-Galveston commuter rail line.

In a separate piece, the Chronicle calls for the Texas congressional delegation to support some version of stimulus bill in order to fund the new light rail lines. The editorial calls the METRO extension “a strong reason” to support the final bill that emerges. It notes that, while METRO can expect more money from the upcoming transportation reauthorization bill, which should be signed in one to two years, the stimulus funding would immediately boost the northern and southeastern extensions.

Off the Kuff and Intermodality also discuss the light rail money, and Christof Spieler at Intermodality notes:

It’s easy to think of the stimulus bill as some abstract thing: the total dollars amount involved is so big that it’s hard to visualize, and the funding pots it’s going into are abstract enough that we don’t know what they really mean, either.

But, as the Chronicle reports, we’re talking about real projects in real places that real people will use.

Houston Tomorrow will provide ongoing coverage of the recovery package as the bill moves forward.

Comments

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said:

Funding the light rail projects in Houston with stimulus funds is not a worthy use of this money. Houston’s real transportation problems are not being addressed by light rail in the center of the city. The severe problem is the need for rail transit from the outlying suburbs along all the major highways into downtown, uptown, and other places of major employment, and to both airports. That’s where Houston has failed for the last thirty or more years to bring our city what it needs to be a world-class place to live and visit. The light rail where it is now is a toy to show off. What we need is a serious rail system to remedy our transportation problems.

Posted on Feb 23, 09 at 8:37 am

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said:

I agree that the Houston region needs commuter rail, and officials are hoping to build lines down to Galveston and along the Hempstead/290 corridor.

But the light rail, even as it stands right now, is more than a toy. In fact, it has the second-highest ridership per mile of any system in the United States, with over 40,000 daily boardings on just 7.5 miles of track. Houston is polycentric, meaning the city has multiple activity centers, not just downtown. Think Greenway Plaza, the Medical Center, Uptown/Galleria, Greenspoint, Westchase, and the universities. The 2012 light rail expansion will connect many of these activity centers.

Connecting the suburbs to downtown is not enough. Any successful commuter rail project must be integrated with the light rail system, or else most of the commuters simply couldn’t get where they need to go. The light rail lines are ready to go, making them ideal stimulus projects. Our region will need both light rail and commuter rail to thrive in the 21st century.

Posted on Feb 26, 09 at 1:39 pm

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said:

When the new light rail system opens in 2012 it will immediately have the highest ridership of all US light rail systems. It will continue to expand, slowly moving out to the suburbs. But collecting suburban riders is very expensive compared to the strategy of connecting centers together. The H-GAC commuter rail proposal will cost $3 billion and will deliver about 37,000 riders a day. The entire light rail system of 2012 will cost almost that much, but will deliver between 150,000 and 350,000 a day. In fact, the $350 million Main Street line already carries more riders than the proposed commuter rail system. For that matter, the current park and ride system carries more riders than the commuter rail system would.

Posted on Feb 26, 09 at 2:23 pm

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