Houston’s Transit Future: Leave Driving to Us : Texas City Concentrates on Busways While Los Angeles Looks to Metro Rail

The solid, unglamorous bus is enjoying an unexpected burst of popularity as this sprawling, automobile-dependent city seeks to improve its public transit.

Ever since voters resoundingly defeated a proposed $2.3-billion bond issue to build a new rail system two years ago, Houston has been expanding and improving its bus system and building new busways.

Some Houston leaders are embarrassed that the nation’s space-technology center should be dependent on lumbering buses instead of a sleek new rapid transit rail system, like BART in the San Francisco Bay Area or the Washington Metro.

Some are miffed because archrival Dallas has decided to build an extensive rail system.

Others, who have watched the soaring costs of building and operating new rail lines in other cities, are happy to settle for buses.

Freeway Lanes for Buses

Busways are freeway lanes used exclusively by buses and sometimes by car pools and van pools as well. Most busways are separated from other freeway traffic by barriers.

Two such transitways (as they are called here) are in use, and a third is under construction. Two more are in the design stage.

By the time all five are completed in 1990, Houston will have 73 miles of busways, built for about $500 million, much less than a rail system of similar scope would cost.

By comparison, Los Angeles in 1990 still will have only the 11-mile El Monte Busway on the San Bernardino Freeway, which carries more than 42,000 riders a day in buses, car pools and van pools and is considered one of the most successful busways in the country.

Planners at the Southern California Rapid Transit District are concentrating their efforts on the proposed multibillion-dollar Metro Rail subway and have no plans to build more busways.

The California Department of Transportation recently proposed that construction of a transitway along the Harbor Freeway be postponed until 1990 at the earliest.

20,000 Passengers a Day

The two existing Houston busways carry about 20,000 passengers a day--13,500 in buses and 6,500 in van pools. When all five busways have been completed and have been in operation three to five years, daily patronage is expected to be between 125,000 and 150,000.

A survey by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M; University found that most of the passengers are young office workers and professionals who ride the express buses from suburban homes to downtown jobs.

These “yuppie” (young, upwardly mobile professional) riders are scooped up at 19 “Park & Ride” lots, containing 20,000 parking spaces, scattered around the suburbs.

“What we’re seeing is young, white-collar Texans riding buses,” said Dennis Christiansen of the Texas Transportation Institute. “Six years ago, if anybody said that would happen, nobody would have believed it.”

The biggest advantage of busways is their relatively low cost.

The two operating in Houston, built for $53.6 million, carry almost as many passengers as the $1-billion Miami Metrorail system.

The busway system is also more flexible than rail, because buses operating both on and off the busways can pick up passengers at various suburban locations, carry them downtown at high speed and then make several stops in the central business district.

Lower Costs on Buses

People can get to work faster on the buses than they can in their cars (the goal in Houston is to save one minute of travel time for each mile of busway) and the fares, although high, amount to less than the costs of parking and maintaining an automobile. Houston’s basic fare is 55 cents, but busway fares range up to $2.15 per trip.

Another advantage, said Chuck Fuhs, a busway planner for the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority, is that “if they don’t work, you can just remove the barricades and use those lanes for something else.”

(That is not easily done, however, if the busway takes the form of a fixed guideway on elevated pylons, as some in Houston will do.)

Busways have some disadvantages.

In general, they do not carry as many people as rail lines, although many planners do not consider that a handicap in widely dispersed cities like Houston or Los Angeles, which do not have the dense concentrations of people found in the older cities of the East and Midwest.

Some argue that busways cost more to operate than rail lines, but other studies suggest that the savings gained by having only one train operator are lost to the increased maintenance and security problems of rail systems.

In some cities, including Los Angeles, the central business district is so congested that busways feeding hundreds of vehicles into downtown at peak travel times would only make the jam worse.

Los Angeles transit planners say, however, that many things could be done to relieve this congestion, including parking policies that would reduce the number of automobiles in the downtown area, more one-way streets and more exclusive bus lanes like the present “contraflow” lane on Spring Street.

Problem of Image

The principal problem with busways, as with buses, seems to be one of image, rather than substance.

They are not glamorous. Politicians do not get elected by promising to improve bus service, nor do they receive much media attention by cutting the ribbon on a new busway.

The Reagan Administration, however, has found busways to be an attractive, cost-effective alternative to rail.

“Busways move an awful lot of people very fast and are, relatively speaking, easy to do,” said Bonnie White, spokeswoman for the Federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration. “They also have the advantage of being discreet projects: You build a busway and it’s over with, it doesn’t go on forever.”

Busways fit the Administration’s policy that “we do not want to start anything that we don’t have the money to finish,” she added.

Consequently, the mass transit agency has helped to finance the Houston busways and one in Seattle while continuing to oppose the Los Angeles Metro Rail and other expensive rail projects.

Of the $150 million committed to construction of the first three Houston busways to date, $127 million has come from the federal government--either from the mass transit agency or the Federal Highway Administration.

Built on Existing Freeways

Houston is eligible for highway money because the transitways have been built in the medians of existing freeways that were being enlarged or improved.

There is not much room in some of these medians, even when emergency shoulders are removed from the freeways. In some places, the Houston busways are only 14 feet wide, and the bus operator needs the skill of a bobsled driver to negotiate the routes that curve among freeway pylons.

Because the existing busways are so narrow, they operate in just one direction--toward downtown in the morning, back to the suburbs in the late afternoon. However, future busways will be two-way, as is the El Monte one.

Building transitways as part of ongoing freeway construction saves money for the transit authority and removes it from the role of villain for taking away valuable freeway lanes.

“If we’re going to disrupt service to build these critters,” Fuhs said, “there should be some benefit for everybody,” freeway users as well as busway riders.

Although much attention has been focused on the new busways, they account for only 10% of Houston’s daily bus ridership of about 230,000.

The most important transit improvement made in recent years has been the upgrading of the bus fleet, from one of the worst in the nation to one of the best.

“The bus system is the fundamental mode of transport in the urban area,” said Alan Kiepper, Houston Metro’s general manager. “While rail may be desirable in some corridors, in some cities, you’ve got to keep that bus system foremost in your mind.”

Vehicles in Sad Disrepair

When Kiepper took over in May, 1982, the bus fleet included 498 vehicles, many of them in sad disrepair.

The system’s accident rate was high, on-time performance was low and there were so many mechanical breakdowns that the Houston Chronicle published a daily front-page box score.

That has changed.

According to a recent consultants report, on-time performance has improved from 39% in 1981 to 96% this year. The accident rate has dropped from 9.2 every 100,000 miles in 1981 to 2.7 in 1985. Miles between mechanical road calls have climbed from 513 in 1981 to 6,538 this year.

The number of buses has increased to more than 800. Each bus is washed every night and none leaves the garage with body damage or with an air-conditioning system that is not working.

Kiepper ordered a new red, white, and blue design for the buses (“I’m great on a sharp new image,”) and began to hold weekly meetings with top staffers at maintenance garages “to symbolize the importance of the bus system.”

In response, ridership has increased an average of 15% a year for the last three years. The system’s publicists say their “public approval” ratings have risen from 12% in 1982 to 56% today.

Just in case any Houston residents have failed to get the message that bus service has improved, Kiepper plans to pump $3.7 million into an advertising campaign next year to tell them.

Financially Flush

This has been easier than it might have been because Houston Metro is financially flush. A 1-cent sales tax increase approved by voters in 1978, when the regional transit authority was established, is pouring more money into Metro’s coffers than the agency can spend--an estimated $173 million in the current fiscal year.

This will make it possible for Metro, despite an expected operating deficit of about $100 million this year, to add to its capital reserves, which stand at more than $330 million.

“We’re in the embarrassing position of being the only transit agency in the world with this much money on hand,” said W. Randolph Baker, assistant general manager for public affairs.

In 1983, with bus service improving but traffic congestion apparently growing worse, the Metro board of directors asked voters to approve a $2.3-billion bond issue to build an 18.5-mile rail system, serving downtown and the city’s affluent west side.

Supporters of the rail plan argued that it would reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, save energy and produce thousands of construction jobs along the way.

Civic leaders and elected officials joined forces to tout the virtues of the rail plan. Mayor Kathy Whitmire and her three predecessors held a press conference on the City Hall steps to urge voter support.

Famous heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley was chairman of the campaign, which raised more than $400,000.

Unusual Opposition Coalition

Opposition came from an unusual coalition of conservatives, libertarians, apartment house owners and members of Common Cause, gathered together as the Neighborhood Transportation Forum.

They were outspent 10 to 1, but they had political savvy and gained attention with their campaign slogan: “Never have so many paid so much to transport so few.”

Local news media began to examine the pro-rail case closely and found equally persuasive arguments on the other side.

“The best thing we had going for us was the arrogance of the old Metro board,” said Mary Jane Smith, one of the organizers of the opposition. “Every time they opened their mouths, they offended people.”

Particularly offensive was the placing of an order for $135-million worth of Japanese rail cars before the vote was held.

In the end, the measure was defeated overwhelmingly--62.4% to 37.6%--sending city officials and transit planners into shock.

“I thought it was a good idea, and so did the majority of board members,” Kiepper said. “We wanted to think it was a good idea--we were kind of living in an unreal world.”

People Had No Faith

Roger H. Hord, transportation director for the Houston Chamber of Commerce, said, “The plan had a fatal flaw in it: The people didn’t have any faith in the agency and didn’t think this would work, regardless of what the politicians said.”

The defeat sobered Houston’s transit planners and largely deflated the claim that Houston would not become a “world-class city” if it did not build new rail lines.

“That’s a foolish argument, a nostalgia thing,” said Robert C. Lanier, the multimillionaire chairman of the state Highway and Public Transportation Commission. “I think we’d be a ‘world-class city’ if we could move people around quickly and not go into debt. It doesn’t give me a feeling of world citizenship to spend $100 million a mile, instead of $10 million a mile. It just makes me feel impoverished.”

The defeat of the bond issue “left a lot of people wondering ‘Where do we go from here?’ ” said W. W. Thorne, a member of the Metro board of directors at the time and now executive director of the Harris County Toll Road Authority.

Part of the answer to that question is provided by the toll roads that Thorne’s agency is building--a 21.6-mile road that runs north into Montgomery County, the fastest-growing county in Texas, and a 28.1-mile “West Belt” that will loop around Houston’s western edge, connecting several existing freeways.

Revenue from the 9-cents-per-mile tolls is expected to pay off the 30-year bonds that are being issued to build these roads. No tax dollars will be needed, Thorne said.

In addition, the state is planning to spend close to $1 billion a year for the next five years to build new highways and freeways and to improve existing ones in the Houston area.

The money to finance this program comes from a doubling of the state gasoline tax (from 5 to 10 cents) and sharp increases in vehicle registration fees.

Despite this massive road-building program and continued improvements in bus service, Houston Metro planners still believe that a network of new busways and light-rail lines will be needed to handle area traffic in the next 25 years.

(A light rail line, like the San Diego-Tijuana “trolley,” often runs at grade, with an overhead power source. It usually costs much less to build than a heavy-rail line, like the proposed Los Angeles Metro Rail, which would be a grade-separated system, powered by a third rail and operating mostly in tunnels.)

133 Miles of Busways

The Metro board recently gave tentative approval to a plan calling for about 133 miles of busways (including the 73 miles to be built by 1990) and about 75 miles of light rail. This is to be built by 2008, at an estimated cost of $3.7 billion, in constant 1984 dollars.)

The board asked for so many changes in the plan, however, that the number of new lines to be built, the technology to be used and the cost are all uncertain.

Also uncertain is whether Houston Metro will again ask the voters to approve a bond issue to help build these new lines.

Board Chairman John J. King, buoyed by opinion polls that show rising public support for Metro, wants to call a bond election next spring.

“I would like to see Metro receive a mandate from the public to build something ,” King said.

There is formidable opposition to a new bond issue.

State highway chief Lanier, who opposed the last attempt privately, said he will speak out publicly against a new election.

Role of Rail Doubted

“I doubt the role of rail in a place like Houston,” he said. “The revitalization of rail was due to that brief period when the federal government was paying for it. . . . If we’ve got to pay for it ourselves, it’s nonsense.”

County Judge Jon Lindsay, the county’s top administration officer, opposes an election because, he said, the county has more pressing needs for new sewer, water and flood-control facilities.

“We’re looking at a $500-million bond program for these things sometime next year,” Lindsay said. “If Metro is trying to sell a bond issue at the same time we are, it’s going to confuse the public.”

Lindsay also said: “I don’t think this community is ready for a rail system, even yet. I think it’s still oriented to the automobile.”

The Tax Research Assn., a financial watchdog group supported by private industry, has pointed out that the bond money would not be needed until at least 1991 because sales tax revenue added to federal and state grants will meet Metro’s building needs until then.

It will be difficult to persuade the public to approve bonds that will not be needed for at least five years, said John Privett, the association’s executive director.

Privett also suggested that if Metro reduced its operating costs, among the highest in the transit industry, by 10%, “it might not be necessary to seek a bond issue at all.”

Although the shape of a future rail system and the possibility of another bond election remain unsettled, the red, white, and blue Metro buses ply their daily rounds, providing some of the best and most innovative bus service to be found in the country.

“Buses aren’t sexy, but they sure get the job done,” busway planner Fuhs said.

COMPARING THE BUSWAYS Houston and Los Angeles differ in their reliance on busways----freeway bus routes. Here are comparative 1985 and 1990 statistics:

1985 1990 Category Houston L.A. Houston L.A. Busway Miles 15 11 73 11 Daily Ridership 13,500 25,000 125,000 No est. % of total Bus Riders 6% 1.6% 30-35% No est. Car/Van Pool Users 6,600 17,875 No est. No est. Park & Ride Spaces 20,000 1,500 30,000 2,000 No. Buses on Busways 120-130 160-180 No est. No est. Cost $54 mill. $61 mill. $500 mill. $61 mill.