HOUSTON–Yesterday, METRO’s board of directors approved yet another modification to the controversy-embroiled University Line, moving the proposed rail line from Wheeler to Alabama amidst complaints by Third Ward residents. METRO officials lauded the decision as an example of how METRO works with rather than against the community in planning for Houston’s growing transit needs.
In reality, Thursday’s decision proves to be a failure of nerve by a beleaguered METRO board increasingly wary of public upheaval over an already contentious light rail alignment. The transit agency is depending on public support for final approval and funding from the Federal Transit Agency (FTA) for the most critical segment of its inner-city transit network.
Community members who advocated the realignment cited concerns over noise and traffic, gentrification, and a loss of the historical character of the neighborhood as primary reasons for voicing concern over the University line moving forward on Wheeler. For most houstonians, a loss of the historical character of the Third Ward might be an unexpected benefit–as for most houstonians, the historical character and imprinted memory of the Third Ward (at least in the minds of the last two generations) is dilapidated crack houses, high crime rates, and immense poverty. Apparently, not so for Third Ward residents.
Gentrification of inner loop neighborhoods is an inevitable process which is blowing ahead full steam, with or without light rail transit. Ironically, by pressuring METRO into moving the line onto Alabama, the agency will now be forced to increase the number of property acquisitions along the line, seemingly counterproductive to the community’s original intent. And as for the historical character of the neighborhood? The old alignment provisioned for an additional station at TSU–one of the ward’s historical institutions currently in peril.
