Traffic in Houston. We hate it. We hate driving in it. It shortens our lives. It sucks our joy and crushes our souls. And as our population continues to grow and unless We, the People, do something about our over-dependence on cars, traffic in Houston will only get worse. This blog is intended to channel your road-rage into learning about what mass-transit is, what it should be, how if done properly it could revolutionize how we Houstonians get around, how it could improve your life immensely and the lives of thousands of others, and why it is worth fighting for.
The theory of mass-transit is this: Buses, trains, etc. can carry far more people in less space, using less fuel, and making a much-smaller footprint on our roads than automobiles. The more people on trains and buses equals fewer people in cars clogging our freeways.
Heretofore, the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, our local mass-transit agency, and our local leaders have not done right by Us, the People in regard to everything to do with mass-transit: vision, implementation, and a genuine concern for the people it is supposed to serve.
Heretofore.
Enter Annise Parker, the Mayor of Houston. The Mayor of Houston appoints five of the nine members of METRO's Board of Directors. Mayor Parker's METRO Board appointees' first task upon taking office was to take stock of the poor job done by previous METRO leadership. Once that was done, it was down to business, remaking METRO and creating for the community a never-before-seen-in-Houston window of genuine community engagement which culminates this year in what will be the most-important seismic change and revolution in the history of Houston mass-transit:
System Re-imagining
More to come.
Jeff Ragsdale's musings on all-things mass-transit in the greater Houston-Galveston area
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