BIKE: Even Houstonites prefer other alternatives to roads

[Roger Baker]

Are Houston citizens in love with their cars so they mostly want new 
roads? Think again; the grassroots public really want transportation 
alternatives more, but the special interests tied to real estate, road 
contracting, and the TxDOT bureaucracy only want to give them roads:

http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2004-07-22/news/feature_8.html

“...Next to a towering parking garage, in an office building just a bit 
taller, a public meeting is under way to discuss the transportation 
plan. Marcy Perry, a member of the Citizens Transportation Coalition, 
is suspicious that it's a sham. "[Most] of these meetings were held 
before the project list was even published," she says, addressing 
Eckels and his council members. "It leads me to believe that public 
comment is neither wanted nor accepted."

  Seven other speakers follow, and none of them is there to ask the 
members of the Transportation Policy Council for more roads. They want 
bike paths, commuter rail, sidewalks and buses. They want a new study 
on what would make sense if more people moved inside the Loop. But it's 
not clear they're being heard.

Throughout the statements, Eckels mostly looks down at his desk. The 
first response from a council member comes from James Patterson, a Fort 
Bend County representative, who wants to know if public speakers at the 
next meeting can each be limited to just a few minutes. None of the 
speakers has rambled, but the board also talks about getting a device 
that flashes lights at them, in case they do. And Eckels proposes 
limiting public comments at the next meeting to no more than a 
half-hour.

  Clearly, this agency lacks a history of dealing with public input. 
Pernot found H-GAC even more unprepared when she audited an outreach 
meeting on the plan last year. Officials were required to forward 
comments to the policy council members, yet none of roughly ten oral 
statements, many of them from poor Hispanics who couldn't drive, were 
reported. Another 17 comments submitted in writing were summarized "in 
a way that was completely erroneous," she says. The planners totally 
omitted the most common statement: that people felt the public-comment 
process itself was an exercise in futility.

  After Pernot complained, H-GAC implemented changes. Now a court 
reporter records the comments. And following more complaints, the 
council increased the number of public meetings, though regions such as 
Atlanta offer more once their transportation plans are released.

  Despite holding few meetings, Eckels says he's trying to boost public 
input. His office put out 60,000 notices for one meeting, he says, but 
only 50 people showed up. He doubts comments from those people 
represent a majority viewpoint. "I think they represent a view of a 
group of people," he says. "I think most people in Houston want to see 
congestion reduced. And we are going to work towards reducing 
congestion."    But reducing it with roads probably isn't the most 
popular option. Last year, a poll of Harris County residents conducted 
by Klineberg found that only 27 percent of them preferred roads as the 
best long-term solution to traffic. A full 70 percent supported 
building public transit or living in communities closer to work.

  Eckels's strategy to reduce congestion aligns more tightly with the 
work done by many of his campaign contributors. Since 2000, he has 
accepted $93,250 in campaign contributions from road builders and 
suburban developers. Major contributors include people such as Michael 
Stevens, who led the fight against the METRORail project; roadway 
contractor Charles Beyer; and Bob Perry, owner of Perry Homes, which 
has built only nine of its 48 projects inside the Loop.

  Eckels denies the donations have influenced him. He says many 
contractors would also eagerly build rail projects, and many developers 
would be happy to see them whistle through their communities.

  Klineberg disagrees. "To build a different kind of Houston requires a 
different set of talent and experience," he says. "And it can be 
developed, but people who have the personnel already trained to build 
roads are going to be very much inclined to want to keep doing that..."
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 4211 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bicycleaustin.info/private.cgi/forum-bicycleaustin.info/attachments/20041002/62e4f8a6/attachment-0001.bin