Predictions for this month's Special Board Meeting

With the close of public comment on METRO's Draft Proposed Network Map, work has begun on integrating as much as possible the tenor of the public comment and input on same gathered over the past three months into a Final Proposed Map that will go before the METRO Board for a final vote in what is most-likely to be Thursday 25 September.

In advance of that fateful day will be at least one Special Board Meeting this month in lieu of a normal Strategic Planning Committee meeting, the sole agenda item being the presentation to the Board by the agency the public comments and the going-through these comments, including responses to the Online Survey (now closed).  I've mentioned this meeting before, and it promises to perhaps be the longest Strategic Planning Committee meeting to date.  It will certainly be among the most-interesting!

In advance of that meeting, I feel the need to make some startling predictions as to what the biggies issues raised at that meeting might be - in no particular order...

1. The numbering of the Acres Home bus

It doesn't matter me personally how any bus in this system is numbered, but if Acres Homes can retain a route numbered '44', it would be a good thing!

2. The lack of a single bus taking one from Town & Country (or further west) along I-10, servicing Memorial City, Northwest TC, and Downtown

The current 131 Memorial, even as infrequently as it runs, is as close to a 'rocket-bus' as any local route we currently have.  It's awesome!

3. The lack of deviations to the Hillcroft TC of the proposed 41 Fondren and particularly the proposed 42 Hillcroft

Riders of the current 132 Harwin and the current 163 Fondren are on those buses to get Downtown.  As currently proposed, the 41 Fondren and 42 Hillcroft (Hillcroft not even being on the Frequent Network!) would require an ill-conceived transfer to and from the Harwin Frequent Segment to get to Hillcroft TC.  This is untenable.

4. The lack of inclusion in the Draft Proposed Map of the Heights TC

In writing, one has to sometimes 'kill their darlings'.  I cannot imagine the same does not hold true for mass-transit.  However, the proposed 20 MLK Lockwood Calvalcade and proposed 54 Airline Montrose hardly route away from the Heights Transit Center whatsoever.  A deviation to that transit center for both buses would not hurt anything, yes?  Ditto for 53 Almeda N Main.

However, it is true these three routes already intersect at the west terminus of W. Calvacade @ N. Main, negating in theory the need to deviate to a transit center and waste minutes in doing so.  I say let's trust in the wisdom of METRO planners, put a bunch of good shelters at this intersection, mothball Heights TC for now... [CORRECTION: I had originally lamented the lack of a bus running directly on Heights Blvd.  Wrong!  In my gorgeous Google Map of the Draft Proposed Network, I had omitted the north (blue) section of that route that runs all along Heights Blvd.  Mea culpa.]

5. Clarewood House no longer having direct connectivity to Westheimer or Richmond, and therefore Downtown therefore requiring a transfer - 30-minute frequencies in the current system, but with a required transfer in the new system to get to the Frequent Network.

Deviating the proposed 7 Richmond to pick up Clarewood House would be a real problem.  The whole point of System Reimagining is to fix the rampant inefficiencies inherent in a deviation like this one, not make new ones.

I'm not sure what METRO is going to be able to do for Clarewood House. 

6. The lack of a single bus route taking one to multiple hospitals in the TMC as the current 1 Hospital does, however inefficiently.

7. The lack of Quicklines, rapid east-west transit including light rail

Quicklines, as METRO envisions them, work well in terms of return on ridership where there are, as is the case on Bellaire Blvd., a small number of stops with lots of ridership on each.  Contrast that to Westheimer, where there are umpteen stops with very few people on each, certain stops of course being the exception.

This is why, as I understand things, METRO is not currently envisioning Quicklines on Westheimer or anywhere else.  The current 402 Bellaire Quickline will in the coming network as the 5Q Bellaire Quickline serve as a guinea pig.

We have to remember, folks, the coming reimagined local bus network does not just change utterly our local bus route system, but also force-changes the time-schedule for each and every route in the system.  Every old data model, paradigm, scenario, etc. we have used for our current network becomes next 7 June obsolete.  Though how certain routings work in certain ways will remain relevant to the discussion, literally everyone on earth will start with our new local bus network in the same patch of unchartered territory.

8. And of course...  FLEX.

Look to that Special Board Meeting lasting at least two hours, and if public comment is on the agenda, Lord help us!

UPDATE: As of at least 14 August, there will be no Special Board Meeting about all this in the month of August.  Most of the regular Board Meeting on 28 August will be concerned with sifting through all the public comments about the Draft Plan.  It promises to be a very, very, very long meeting. - JR