A Harris County road expert?

Say you are a local media person writing on the topic of road-building, and you need to add an expert opinion to the story. Would your first choice be a light rail enthusiast?

It would be if you are the Chronicle's Rad Sallee. And the person chosen to offer an expert opinion would be the CTC's Christof Spieler:

Harris County will spend an unprecedented amount of its toll road profits next year to build and upgrade roads and streets, some of them miles from any toll booth.

[snip]

Architect Christof Spieler of the grass-roots Citizens Transportation Coalition said he has no problem with using money paid by toll road users to build free roads.

Gosh that's generous of him. It's unclear why anyone cares what Christof Spieler -- Metro's #1 light rail cheerleader -- thinks of Harris County's road-building decisions. You'll notice Rad didn't identify him as a light-rail advocate, but this Chron story clearly notes the CTC's light rail advocacy.

But if government is providing new roads to access new subdivisions in the Katy Prairie, he said, it is making that housing artificially cheap.

One could argue that Metro makes light rail transit artificially cheap, considering the per-rider subsidy is over $25, and a one-way fare costs $1. Oh, and don't forget Metro uses an honor system with occasional fare checks.

Spieler said that, although he opposes suburban sprawl, he likes Radack's idea of having developers — and ultimately the homebuyers — take on that cost.

Some of us would like Inner Loopers and rail riders to take on more of the cost of light rail transit.

Still, he said he would like to see more of the connectivity money used for "infill" projects in Houston and other municipalities. These retard sprawl, and often are more cost-efficient, he said, since the street, drainage and utility infrastructure already may be in place.

"The county spends hardly any of its road budget inside the city limit, although we in Houston pay the same county taxes," Spieler said.

Guess what? Metro spends hardly any of its budget outside the Inner Loop, although it collects taxes in many parts of Harris County, including areas where it provides absolutely no transit services at all!

Of course the biggest difference is that public transit serves a microscopic fraction of Houston-area residents, while roads serve an overwhelming majority of the local citizenry.

Maybe next time Rad can ask some people who actually use the roads!

KEVIN WHITED ADDS: As Anne alludes to above, there is a very interesting passage in this Chron story by Betty Martin:

The University Corridor's approval by Metro as a Locally Preferred Alignment was good news for the grass-roots Citizens' Transportation Coalition, according to the group's Oct. 17 letter to Metro president Frank Wilson.

"Since early 2006, Metro has worked with the community to identify and evaluate options for the University line, the 10-mile line that will form the east-west backbone of Metro's 2012 urban transit system," the letter begins.

The University Corridor would run from west of Main Street down Richmond to Cummins and then Westpark, and east of Main from Wheeler to Ennis and Alabama and then to the University of Houston at Scott Street, with a possible extension north on Scott and east on Elgin to the Eastwood Transit Center in the future.

With the inclusion of the Scott-to-Eastwood-Transit segment, it is the "very alignments that CTC has pushed for," the letter states.

It is worth noting that Rad Sallee has previously -- erroneously -- characterized the CTC as merely a group that pushes for community participation in transit policy formation, when in reality the CTC is a policy advocacy interest group that has long worked with METRO to promote certain rail alignments (even as it was telling gullible reporters otherwise). After being called on that misleading characterization previously, Sallee tried to spin the reporting in a way that didn't seem entirely consistent with a clear reading of the text of his reporting. That instance, the instance highlighted today by Anne, and this week's unusual broadside of various citizen/activists who have taken on a METRO watchdog role seemingly abdicated by the Chronicle years ago suggest that Sallee may have become a little too cozy with certain sources, and that their agenda may be getting undue play in his reporting (intentionally or unintentionally).

BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/08/07 04:54 AM | Print |

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