Hold Transit Study judgments until we get recommendations

I recently received a letter from a Woodlands Resident complimenting Director McMullan on his recent guest column in The Villager in which he opposed any investment in public transit within The Woodlands.

I have refrained from taking hard, publicly intractable positions before the Transit Study recommendations and report have even been published.

We will not receive the final recommendations until February and then the real work will begin. Right now the Board is not considering anything. The study will only provide consultant recommendations, not a plan that we approve or disapprove.

As with any such study, I doubt the Board will agree to everything proposed. To come up with a real plan, the Board and our staff will need to determine what makes sense, what best fits our community’s needs and what is affordable. It is easy to be against everything. It would be helpful to understand what positive solutions Director McMullan would support, if any.

We need to look at all the ideas when they are presented and determine if they can be molded and adjusted to meet our needs. It is premature to start railing against the Transit Study recommendations before they have even been seen in their final form.

However, I do share some of the concerns expressed in Director McMullan’s column about public transit within The Woodlands. Our community, with its small neighborhoods and cul-de-sacs feeding into our connector roads, is not well designed for the typical mass transit system.

If we are to invest in any transit capability, we should do so in a way that fits our unique community. But, it is too easy to write off any investment in transit as only serving a few at the expense of the many. It is difficult for any director to separate the vocal minority — pro or con — from those who have a true need. Is the need truly only to satisfy a few or is the demand much greater?

For example, at the last public hearing on this subject, my estimate was that the audience was split 50-50, pro and con, on this issue — and, that was a large crowd.

In addition, at the public hearing and at our transportation committee meetings there have been a large number of residents expressing the need for greater service for the “transportation disadvantaged.” What I have learned over the last several years is:

One: The segment of people within The Woodlands who are “transportation disadvantaged” is much larger than imagined by those of us that are more fortunate.

Two: The current services, what are typically called “demand response” services, provided by Interfaith and The Friendship Center fall significantly short of meeting the current demand.

Three: Meeting the needs of this segment of our community by expanding these existing services, as Director McMullan suggests, is very expensive.

Thus, to say we can satisfy the needs of this segment of our community by expanding the current services does not reflect a very solid understanding of their needs or the economics. We need to search for more efficient and economical approaches to meeting this segment of our community.

In response to a couple of other points raised by Director McMullan:

One: Our current park and ride is one of the most successful in the county, both in terms of the quality of service and cost to the taxpayer. For 2014, The Woodlands Express served 684,000 riders. It is fully funded by user fees and Federal Transit dollars. Our objective is to never use local tax dollars to fund this operation as 40 percent of the riders do not even live within The Woodlands

Two: The reverse commute idea is one that could utilize empty buses to get people from Houston to work within the Town Center or the ExxonMobil campus. Since we have already paid for the bus and drivers, this service will make money, not cost money. These additional monies can then be used to fund other transit activities benefiting The Woodlands. The issue to solve to make a reverse commute work is not one of cost or economics, but uncovering where the best place to pick up such riders in Houston is.

Three: Yes, the use of a transit system to reduce congestion within the Town Center is unproven within our community. But this is not true elsewhere; there are many examples elsewhere of “downtown transit systems” solving this problem. I have personal experience with such systems having lived in some of these other communities. The Town Center is already congested with a lack of convenient parking. This problem will only become worse. Eventually, it is expected that 10,000-12,000 people will live within the Town Center. I am sure whatever is implemented will need to be fine-tuned over time but we need to start doing more than what has been done to date.

Right now I suggest judgment be withheld until we actually see what will be proposed. I believe the Township Board understands its responsibilities as the steward of taxpayer monies and will do what is in the best interest of our community. But we need to find new innovative, cost effective solutions to the issue of congestion. There is a practical limit to how many roads we can build and expand.