Thoughts on the Draft re-imagined transit network - Part 3 of 7

METRO's System Re-imagining website: www.transitsystemreimagining.com

METRO's route-by-route summary of the re-imagined bus network: http://alturl.com/y8kov

My rendition of the old and new bus networks plus re-imagining items: www.metroreimagined.org

16 White Oak Quitman

We've had routes for years that have skirted the Cottage Grove neighborhood, one of the oldest in Houston, but I don't think that for a very long time, we've had one that actually went through the center of this area at Cottage Grove Park.

METRO's maps of this area do not give street names for the many turns this route takes west of Yale, turns that are necessary to give Cottage Grove the service METRO is looking for here, but I think we can get a very good idea of what's going on here: begin at NWTC, up to Hempstead Hwy, east on Kansas, south on Sherwin, east on Larkin, south on TC Jester, east on Inker, south on Shepherd, east on Maxie, north on Yale, and east on W. 6th, which at Heights Blvd. becomes White Oak Dr.

At I-45 White Oak becomes Quitman and we go the full length of Quitman (yay, METRO for doing so much to keep routes on namesake streets - what a concept!), which at I-45 becomes Liberty on which we continue east until Lockwood, when we head south to the route's terminus at Fifth Ward / Denver Harbor TC.

This route takes up routings of the current 58 Hammerly, 77 Liberty, 26/27 Outer Loop, and 52 Hirsch while doing its best to steer clear of the train-tracks between Lyons and Liberty.

17 Ella 11th Clinton

Again, the real marvel (or otherwise) with this re-imagined network is not the Frequent grid, as critical as it is, but how METRO really has 're-imagined' the low-frequency routes that achieve the goal of geographical coverage.

In this new route are included routings from the current 40 Pecore, a bit of 66 Yale (which used to be the Yale portion of the old 65 Bissonnet/Yale before it was split into the 65 and 66 about ten years or so ago, a tiny bit of 6 Tanglewood, innumerable routes on the portion of Jensen closest to Downtown, and, of course, the 30 Clinton. This route is also METRO's sole service to the city of Galena Park, but yes, Galena Park will have more-consistent METRO bus service than ever before, but the dedicated Galena Park branch of the current 30 Clinton is a thing of the past.

18 Long Point

This is one of the shorter routes on the Frequent Network, and yes, it follows the entirety of Long Point, taking routings from the current 20 Long Point, though it leaves off the west-of-Gessner portion of Westview.

20 MLK Lockwood Cavalcade

Great route, but badly-named. This route only goes on a tiny portion of MLK, only a portion (albeit a large one) of Lockwood, though enough of Cavalcade is represented to warrant that portion of the nomenclature.

And in the east part of Cavalcade I can see a trade-off METRO has had to make. Look at how the part of Cavalcade from Lookwood to the east terminus is left out of this route. Leaving this portion out allows the rest of the route to enjoy a straight shot south on Lockwood to Fifth Ward / Denver Harbor TC and on down Lockwood to Eastwood and eventually the Southeast Line at UH Central.

It may be I am misunderstanding how METRO is naming its routes. The naming here clearly describes what the route does - sorta. Yes, it goes up MLK, but again only that portion at UH Central. But it does go up Lockwood and thence on Cavalcade west from Lockwood. People will be confused by the MLK nomenclature thinking it's a bus that goes the whole of MLK when it most certainly does not.

This route takes routings from the current 26/27 Outer Loop / Inner Loop Crosstown, 42 Holman, and a tiny portion of the 80 Dowling. No service to Heights TC?

22 Kempwood Crosstimbers

Drawing this route on Google Maps Engine Pro makes me want to draw it on Clay Rd and W. 43rd., which lead directly into Crosstimbers, but it was a decision METRO had to make in this area as to which streets would get medium-frequency or low-frequency. Clay and W. 43rd lost. Kempwood won.

The current 36 Kempwood and 23 Crosstimbers Crosstown routings are combined to make this new route.

23 Clay W. 43rd

Wow - look how the new 22 and 23 combine to make a somewhat-frequent segment on Crosstimbers between Shepherd and Fulton/Red Line! Note also how METRO has coordinated their western turnbacks, though the mapping for their eastern turnbacks is vague. I'm sure the Final maps will be very, very clear as we are indeed still working from a draft network.

The current 50 Heights gives routing to half of this new 23, but Clay between Beltway 8 and Hollister gets METRO bus service for perhaps the first time ever.

25 Tidwell West

26 Tidwell East

Yep, the old battle-axe that is the current 45 Tidwell is split into three parts: the 25 (Frequent), the 26 (blue), and the 15 Lyons (green) at the easternmost end of Tidwell. Faux branching a la the 7 Richmond would have been utterly-confusing with three frequencies along Tidwell. Unfortunately, METRO could not keep Tidwell as a single route - the ridership in the northeast of Houston was not enough to justify doing that.

As much as METRO endeavors in this project to have single routes encompass all or most of any given namesake street or road, sometimes, it has not been possible to keep to that. Tidwell is for this situation the poster-kid.

28 W Little York Irvington

The current 78 Alabama will be no more, but the 78 Irvington lives on in this new 28 W Little York Irvington. Using routings from the old 78, 79 W. Little York, parts of the 15 Fulton, and spiritual principles from a number of other routes, this new and very-long and one of the 'L'-shaped routes METRO seems to love nowadays with re-imagining gives service to W. Little York between Alabonson Rd. and the W. Little York P&R for perhaps the first time ever.