TX: EDITORIAL: Metro is not a piggy bank for repaving streets. It's a transit agency. | Editorial

How smooth. How whisper quiet. How sweet the roll.

The resurfacing work on Westheimer Road inside Loop 610 is finally delivering an experience all too rare for Houstonians — driving without our coffee flying out of the cupholder, without our brains knocking around our noggins, without our vertebrae rattling out of alignment.

We have Mayor John Whitmire to thank for the baby-skin-smooth roadway. The board members he appointed to Metro, our public transit agency, have spent over $12 million on retopping Westheimer.

Yes, Metro also rebuilt some bus stops along the way, but let's not fool ourselves. The primary benefit goes to bean counters at City Hall. The repaving makes for a nice drive, but it undermines the purpose for Metro by diverting resources to city projects. Metro's sales tax has essentially been transformed into a fiscal fib.

Metro's spending spree on repaving is just getting started. Their proposed budget, up for approval on September 25, appears to dedicate about $100 million out of its $2 billion budget to repaving streets.

That money does little for Houstonians who walk and ride buses. They do exist. Even in the summer. By not driving, they help reduce traffic for others. Ultimately all of us get out of our cars at some point. We all rely on sidewalks.

And at a time when more Houstonians die from car crashes than homicides, we have to question whether easier drives deserve priority over safer streets.

How disappointing that even along Westheimer, a street lined with world-class restaurants and shops, Houston's public realm is as harrowing as ever. To call it "Third World" is an insult to the Third World. Out of expediency, modest plans to rebuild lower Westheimer with wider sidewalks that were years in the making have been abandoned for more of the same embarrassing jankiness — and paid for with transit dollars.

Two Lamar High School students were hit by SUVs within a few weeks at the same repaved but clearly unsafe Westheimer intersection.

We aren't expecting Houston to turn into Paris. Could we at least get decent sidewalks and high-frequency transit through dense corridors — especially near schools given that many students can now ride Metro free?

Last year, this editorial board lamented Metro's decision to drop plans for the University Line, an east-west bus rapid transit connector. We asked Metro to give us some alternative vision.

Metro Board Chair Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock told us in March that she's focused on basics.

"We chose to start with the essentials of what we believe will build a strong transit culture that people choose to use because it's cleaner, it's safer, it's more reliable, it's more accessible," she said.

Fair enough. Getting the basics done right matters.

To Metro's credit, the proposed budget would add 160 buses, 141 MetroLift paratransit vehicles and 200 vans. About $132 million will go towards the buses. Unfortunately, that's not enough. Like Houston's garbage trucks, which constantly break down, the Metro bus fleet needs attention. The agency should put the $100 million planned for repaving into the bus fleet or other core transit needs.

Street rebuilding is primarily the responsibility of cities. Houston even has a dedicated fund for it. Remember that drainage and street repair lockbox that our mayors have repeatedly tried to short for years?

Houston is already using some creative accounting and a nearly 25% cut of the one-cent sales tax Metro collects to help fund those street repairs. The $100 million Metro wants to spend on repaving is on top of that amount.

Mayor Whitmire and the Metro board don't appear to have ambitions for a transformative improvement in transit. That's a shame, but they could at least stick with the priorities they set: clean, safe, reliable buses.

Metro is easy to pick on. So many broken promises over the decades, but the transit agency has had some successes including the Red Line between downtown and the Texas Medical Center. The Route 82 bus down Westheimer Road is the busiest line in Texas. Let's replicate and improve on what works.

Houston voters approved the creation of Metro and its one-cent sales tax in 1978. The full name of the agency is the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County. The word "transit" is in the name for a reason. That's where its funds should go. Not repaving.

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