Chron: Some in East End start to feel pinch of rail expansion
Today's Chronicle runs a story by Allan Turner on Lenox Barbecue, a longtime East End barbecue joint that will be forced to close down because of the light-rail expansion.
In what is now a familiar refrain, some members of the community feel like METRO has not been responsive to their concerns about the expansion:
East End voters approved Metro's light rail plan in 2003 by a 14 percent margin, but since then, a number of issues have left area residents in an uproar.
“We really feel badly about Lenox,” said Diane Lipton, president of the East End Chamber of Commerce, “but we don't have any control over it.”
Lipton said her group favors light rail development on Harrisburg, but believes Metro disregarded community concerns in designing the project.
“We can't get a response from Metro,” she charged. “They do things behind our backs. They are not community-responsive.”
We feel for those who were naïve enough to trust their political leaders (some of whom undoubtedly have profited from a positive relationship with METRO) and their regional transit authority.
But the political reality has always been this: METRO needed the votes of this community in passing the rail referendum overall. That was the input that most concerned METRO. Details of construction and the impact on the community after the vote? Well, input from "experts" who don't live in the area (but who are affiliated with firms that will benefit handsomely from the expansion) tends to carry much more weight with the like-minded "experts" at METRO. That's The Houston Way, after all!
Incidentally, for those who might wonder what other fun changes are coming to Harrisburg, be sure to check out some of the links (to the various EIS statements and to the Parsons contract) in this post. It's dense, but informative, reading.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/20/09 09:00 PM | Print | Comments (1)
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