METRO vote this morning! (and the Mayor's memo)

Frank Wilson, who got a lot of heat from Council Member Ronald Green just yesterday, is among a host of METRO folks at City Hall today.. looking for the passage of the METRO consent agreement.

All sides are trying get this through without tagging.  Let's not forget that yesterday, the Mayor sent out a detailed memo on this yesterday:

From:   Mayor Bill White
Sent:   Tuesday, June 10, 2008 11:23 AM Central Standard Time

Subject:        Consent Agreement

[HANDWRITTEN BUT NOT PROOFED]

I write to all Council Members at the request of a Council Member concerning certain issues in the Consent Agreement.

1.      The consent agreement does envision the need for various permits by the City in accordance with City codes and standards.  The Public Works and Engineering Department will ensure compliance with these requirements.

2.      The City of Houston and its TIRZs will take the principal responsibility for any enhancements over standard for landscaping, sidewalks, and crosswalks.  Please be aware that enhancements will need to be part of some budget or CIP process, and there are also physical limits on existing rights of way that can require contentious tradeoffs (e.g., auto lanes versus sidewalks versus landscaping.)  Dr. Carol Lewis, chair of the Planning Commission, and Director Marcotte shall finalize a structure involving representatives of Planning, PWE, and METRO to analyze streetscape improvements. 

3.      The Planning Department funded an Urban Corridors Plan for all six corridors.  Recommendations for five of the six will be released very soon and will be a useful tool in defining the streetscape elements for every line.  Our planning will ensure that all corridors are addressed, both within and outside of various TIRZs or management districts.  Of course, we must consider the costs and tradeoffs as part of a normal CIP and TIRZ budgeting process.

4.      I urge elected officials to help us communicate to various neighborhood groups that issues which affect either cost to METRO or ridership must ultimately be decided by METRO, since ultimately a decrease in ridership or an increase in cost means that we could jeopardize our federal funding priority.  As one example, the locations of stations can affect both the speed and frequency of trains, which has a large impact on consumers (ridership).  Concerns about streetscape and traffic impacts are very reasonable and proper concerns for the City of Houston, and I commit to address them.   At the same time, if we agree that the expansion of mass transit is our goal, we need to allow METRO to do its job, which is to build cost-effective light rail that will provide efficient service to the most people.

5.      City Council will have regular briefings on various aspects of METRO's plans, investments, and operations.  Frank Wilson responded in writing to such a request at a Council committee, and I am confident that these periodic hearings will occur.

6.      The City of Houston competes with other areas within the METRO service area for funding.  We are not "doing a favor" by letting our transit authority invest funds to give our citizens more options.  Also, a consent for METRO to invest is not an endorsement of any particular plan.

BILL WHITE
MAYOR

Comments

[Royko]

There is not an once of credibility with the Mayor or any of the city council members who wailed about needing a traffic impact study for the Ashby project, yet there is not a whimper from any one of them seeking a proper, city-sponsored traffic impact study of the negative impacts resulting from METREAUX's intent to devestate FIVE major thoroughfares with urban rail, at-grade, where the problems on Main street will be replicated, and magnified 5 times.

[azrael]

I still want to know if the chron has managed to get the rail line to go down Richmond instead of blocking their printing plant in the old post bldg on Westpark.