U.S. 90A Commuter Rail

I live in the southwest corner of Houston, in Texas’ Ninth District.  This week, I received the Al Green report in the mail.  No, not that Al Green, but U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Houston.  In the first article in the report, front and center, Rep. Green stated that pursuing the U.S. 90A Commuter Rail project was his number one priority.  First, a brief on the recent history on the U.S. 90A Commuter Rail project.

History

A 2003 transit referendum called for the Metropolitan Transit Authority to have commuter rail on U.S. 90A (South Main).  In 2005, the $2 Billion METRO Solutions Phase 2 plan attempted to bump up the timeline for, “28 Miles of Commuter Rail Transit (CRT) – along U.S. 290 from Cypress Park & Ride to Intermodal Facility and along U.S. 90A from Missouri City to Fannin South Park & Ride/Rail Station.”

But, in June 2008 a Commuter Rail Plan presented at H-GAC did not include the U.S. 90A corridor; a Chronicle story attributes Alan Clark, Manager of the Transportation and Air Quality programs for H-GAC as saying, “the U.S. 90A route probably is not currently possible with UP’s increasing freight traffic.”  The same article mentions that Harris County Judge Emmett, “will push for commuter trains to start running . . . on the U.S. 290 and Texas 3 routes.”  With H-GAC and Judge Emmett not supporting the U.S. 90A corridor, the project was put to rest.  Or was it?

Proposed System

Proceed to the present when we have a Presidential administration willing to fund rail projects at many levels and a local Representative working to obtain federal funding to assist local transit projects.  The U.S. 90A project is back on the radar, here’s the scoop.

I haven’t seen any engineering or artistic renderings of the route or the stations, but based on the description given in the previous article, I made the diagram (below) of the proposed corridor and its stops.  The route starts at the existing S. Fannin light rail terminal, proceeds south through Metro’s railyard and turns southwest onto Holmes Rd.  From there, the route is nearly straight for 7.5 miles.  Holmes merges with S. Main St / U.S. 90A about 3 miles into the journey.  The route ends where U.S. 90A intersects with Beltway 8.

The four stops mentioned in the UltimateFortBend.com article are S. Fannin, Buffalo Center, Chimney Rock and Missouri City.  Three of those stops are self-evident, but Google could not help me find any Buffalo Center in the area.  I have two guesses about where this may be: (1) Where a future Buffalo Speedway extension to the south would intersect with Holmes Rd or (2) A shopping center at U.S. 90A and S. Post Oak where two nice big parking lots exist.  I put the pushpin at (2) because I believe (1) is too close to S. Fannin for a commuter rail system.

Editorial

Rep. Green is doing his job: to secure federal money for the benefit of his constituents.  Building this rail system would provide jobs and improve transit options for Southwest Houston.  However, I’m not totally in favor of this plan.  The project is being labeled as “commuter rail,” but my opinion is that this is a simple extension of the light rail system with three new stops and does not reach the outlying area of Sugar Land.

The goal of this rail system is to convey residents of southwest Houston, Missouri City and Stafford to the Texas Medical Center.  That’s a laudable plan and all destinations are nameable, but I believe the U.S. 90A stretch between 610 and Beltway 8 would be better served by bus rapid transit.  A BRT system allows the passenger to proceed on the recently refurbished U.S. 90A and then take S. Main St straight to the medical center rather than jogging over to Fannin and waiting for a transfer to the Red Line.  The $250M price tag of this commuter rail plan just seems too high when one of METRO’s comfortable commuter bus routes would suffice and one equipped with traffic signal priority technology would excel.

Alternative

I don’t like criticizing without providing ideas for improvement.  So, if I were designing commuter rail for the greater southwest Houston area, here’s how I would do it.  I would follow the same route from S. Fannin out U.S. 90A parallel to the Union Pacific tracks that are in-use today.  But I would run the route farther and not make the first stop until Beltway 8.  The Beltway 8 station would have a considerable park & ride lot for commuters coming in on the Beltway.  The second stop would be in downtown Stafford.

I don’t like having too many stops on a commuter line (stops are the enemy of go), but it is so difficult getting from one side of US-59 to the other in Sugar Land, that I believe two stops are in order.  Finally, I would terminate the line with a multi-modal stop at the Sugar Land Regional Airport (SGR).  Private pilots and their passengers need a way to get around town when they land.  Getting to Reliant, the TMC, downtown or anywhere else our light rail network goes would be welcome.

An option to my plan is to continue the rail northeast from the S. Fannin stop along the UP corridor (parallel to Holmes Rd.) about 5 miles to Mykawa.  Make a sharp left onto Griggs Rd. to meet up with the end of the upcoming South East LRT Line.  I like this extension because it gives all commuters from outside the Beltway one more potential destination while also enhancing the interconnectedness of METRO’s rail network.

The plan I’ve just laid out doesn’t stand a chance in hell of succeeding because the rail starts in Harris County and all of the outlying stops are in Fort Bend County.  That’s outside of Al Green’s district so there is little motive for him to support the longer plan.  Also, Sugar Land is a completely suburban area whose NIMBY population is undoubtedly louder than their pro-rail population.  Finally, there’s the matter of Union Pacific.  They don’t have any obligation to sell or lease their corridors.  If Amtrak’s on-time rates are any indication, buying time on UP’s tracks is a poor plan.