Westpark light rail: Who's proposing what? (Update: Culberson comments)
Since the report that first appeared in the Chronicle on Friday night, it's been a little hard to keep track of who is proposing what in terms of the Westpark light-rail alignment.
To recap, on Friday night, Rad Sallee reported that METRO had announced that Councilmember Anne Clutterbuck and Rep. John Culberson had asked METRO to look at several proposed alternative alignments.
Here is the relevant part of the story that carried a Chron.com timestamp of 9:07 pm (copied to my furl archive):
As a result, Tuesday's expected route recommendation by Metro staff has been postponed for several weeks while consultants develop cost and ridership estimates for the proposed alignments, said agency spokeswoman Sandra Salazar.
She said an alignment suggested by City Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck calls for the line to travel west on Richmond from Metro's current Wheeler station near Main, turn south on Mandell or Dunlavy and follow the north side of the freeway to Edloe, where it would cross over to Westpark and continue to the Hillcroft Transit Center.
Salazar said she does not have details of another alignment, proposed by Culberson, but she described it as similar. Because the routes would pass through Councilwoman Ada Edwards' district, Metro said, her approval will be sought.
A Chron.com story at the same url with a timestamp of 10:14 pm revised that account slightly:
As a result, Tuesday's expected route recommendation by Metro staff has been postponed for several weeks while consultants develop cost and ridership estimates for the proposed alignments, said agency spokeswoman Sandra Salazar.
She said an alignment suggested by City Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck calls for the line to travel west on Richmond from Metro's current Wheeler station near Main, turn south on Mandell or Dunlavy and follow the north side of the Southwest Freeway to Edloe, where it would cross over to Westpark and continue to the Hillcroft Transit Center.
Culberson's suggestion, Metro said, would run "from Richmond in the vicinity of the University of St. Thomas to U.S. 59 (Southwest Freeway) to a transition point into the Westpark right-of-way." Other details were not available.
Culberson aide Nick Swyka said the congressman only was asking Metro to look at this proposal, which Swyka said he told Culberson about after learning that Afton Oaks resident Ted Richardson had an idea for an elevated rail beside the Southwest Freeway.
The current Chron.com story (carrying a timestamp of 8:03 am Saturday) contains the same account.
That comment by Swyka makes sense, since Rep. Culberson was adamant at his Richmond/Shepherd press conference that while Richmond was off the table, he was not going to be telling METRO where it should put the line. In short, the Congressman said he would not be proposing alignments, and Swyka's comment to Rad Sallee seemed to confirm nothing had changed.
Nonetheless, Zeke Minaya's reporting for the Chronicle today suggests that Rep. Culberson is indeed proposing alignments, along with Councilmember Anne Clutterbuck:
The idea was floated by Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck, who said she did not want to cause her neighboring district any hardship, but that all options should be explored before a final route is chosen.
"I asked (the Metropolitan Transit Authority) to take a look at the possibility of running the line along the north side of the Southwest Freeway," Clutterbuck said. "And when they looked at that idea, their immediate reaction was, 'We have to take all these houses.' "
Metro's timetable to present a preferred route has now been pushed back several weeks because of requests from Clutterbuck and U.S. Rep. John Culberson for an examination of further options.
Culberson's request, Metro said, is similar to Clutterbuck's.
It asks that a route be examined that would run "from Richmond in the vicinity of the University of St. Thomas to (the Southwest Freeway) to a transition point into the Westpark right-of-way."
I emailed Rep. Culberson's aide Nick Swyka, who is quoted in Rad Sallee's article from Friday night, and asked him if the Congressman's view had changed from his press conference, and if he was now negotiating alignments with METRO. Swyka reaffirmed for me what he told Sallee, and went into even more detail:
[Rep. Culberson] urged Metro to look at other routes based on the public comments they had received and any other ideas their staff could come up with. The concept of elevated rail along the shoulder was one put forth to Metro in the presence of John Sedlak and Anne Clutterbuck by Mr. Ted Richardson, and we think its something worth looking at, as are any other options.
In short, there is no "Culberson alignment" being proposed, and to the extent METRO is suggesting otherwise to Chronicle reporters for whatever reason, it should stop.
In any case, Councilmember Clutterbuck's suggestion seems to have annoyed fellow Councilmember Ada Edwards, as Minaya reports:
Clutterbuck suggested Metro explore the possibility of turning the line off Richmond at Mandell or Dunlavy and following the north side of the Southwest Freeway to Edloe before continuing to Westpark and the Hillcroft Transit Center.
Clutterbuck said she was simply asking Metro to look into the idea.
Determining how many homes or businesses would be displaced or how the line would be situated in relation to the freeway are not questions for her to answer, Clutterbuck said.
"It's up to the engineers to decide," she said.
Edwards, informed by Metro that the route proposed by Clutterback could cost her district dozens of homes, said Clutterbuck should have contacted her before presenting the idea.
"Nobody discussed it with me," Edwards said. "The council member can call it what she wants — a plan, a directive, a good idea. But the point is that, at the end of the day, it would take homes in District D and I am against that."
Edwards said she will be attending hastily scheduled meetings of civic clubs in her district today to discuss the proposal.
She said she did not know how residents will react.
"We have no decision on it, because we haven't seen (the plan)," she said. "But from what we heard of it, I'm not pleased."
The "best" alignment remains the one approved in the referendum, which specified Westpark. Such an alignment makes good use of existing METRO right of way, and gives METRO a broader basis of popular support (a majority of voters in 2003) for its decisions when a councilmember inevitably suggests that changes be proposed to spare one district or another. The devil is in the details, of course, and one such devilish detail is how to get the line from Main to Westpark, since Westpark terminates at Kirby. Just because Rep. Culberson has removed METRO's preferred solution (substituting Richmond for Westpark and saying to heck with the 2003 referendum) doesn't mean that all of the problems are solved.
UPDATE: Rep. Culberson emails the following comment:
I have not offered an alternative rail route because route selection ended on November 3, 2003 when the voters approved the routes and the light rail for those routes which the Metro board had formally approved on August 18, 2003.
These routes are now the "locally preferred alternative" that federal law requires before the funding process can even begin.
The Metro board and the voters approved rail on Westpark, which ends at Kirby. Richmond was not on the ballot.
I opposed the entire rail package and it turns out everything I said in opposition was correct.
Nevertheless, I lost that argument and the voters narrowly approved it, therefore, route selection ended nearly 3 years ago.
Plus Metro has sole responsibility under state law to choose routes.
I have always supported long range high speed commuter rail that is elevated where necessary to avoid losing freeway lanes. One should be on 59 from downtown to Ft. Bend County and another on 290 from downtown to College Station.
By the way the Chron never called me Friday or Saturday or today for the stories they have been running on this alternative route. They never called me for a quote so they are being untruthful when they say I have been unavailable for comment. I have not spoken to Metro since July 18 when Frank Wilson and David Wolfe first showed me their Richmond plans.
UPDATE (08-07-2006): METRO has posted the press release that two Chronicle reporters apparently relied upon for stories over the weekend on this matter. Given the fact that Rep. Culberson was not contacted, it seems that this reporting was not vetted very well, leading it to be less accurate.
UPDATE 2 (08-07-2006): After rereading this post and emails, I think it's probably worth noting that while Rep. Culberson says in his email that the Chronicle didn't contact him, obviously reporter Rad Sallee did speak with Rep. Culberson's staff for the story that was first posted on Friday night. It's not clear if Zeke Minaya attempted to contact Rep. Culberson or staff for the subsequent story. The larger point is unchanged -- METRO put out a misleading press release on a Friday night, when media availability is always poor, and mischaracterized a number of items.
BLOGVERSATION: Houston Strategies, Off the Kuff.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/06/06 03:21 PM | Print |
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