For 10 years, you’ve known it as Houston’s only light-rail line, so what did it matter that we called the Main St. line? But in advance of 2 separate advance lines opening up next year, it’s got a color too: The Red Line. You can see workers installing signage with the “Red Line” designation in the photo above. When was that photo taken?
SNøHETTA’S CENTRAL STATION CANOPY DESIGN IS OFFICIALLY DEAD 
Whatever glimmer of hope supporters of a distinctive Central Station were holding out for Metro somehow following through on its design competition or for Snøhetta’s winning canopy design have officially been dashed, Dug Begley reports: “Metropolitan Transit Authority chairman Gilbert Garcia and interim CEO Tom Lambert confirmed [last] week that timing crippled any chance of resurrecting a winning design. Instead officials will build their basic canopy for the block-long stop between Capitol and Rusk streets on Main Street.” [The Highwayman; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Snøhetta
Craig Dykers of Norway-and-NYC architecture firm Snøhetta tells Chronicle reporter Dug Begley his firm has been working for more than a year on its own and with local contractors to lower the construction costs on his firm’s competition-winning design for Metro’s Central Station canopy — in between its work, that is, on a little reconstruction project for New York called Times Square. Snohetta’s design for a canopy made of thin layers of concrete was meant to highlight rainfall, making falling water “a feature of the design.”
Wondering whatever happened to the competition entries from architects competing for the new Main St. light rail station planned for the block between Capitol and Rusk streets downtown, where the new East End and Southeast Lines cross the existing rail line? After a long silence about the project, Metro board members voted yesterday to scrap the plan for a signature station at that location, and to spend $1.05 million to build a standard canopy there instead.
The winner of the invitation-only competition — which included SHoP Architects, LTL Architects, and Neil Denari from New York as well as Houston’s Interloop—Architecture — was New York and Oslo firm Snøhetta. But who’d have known it?
There’s been a Metro train siting at the new Quitman station of the North Line extension, just south of the train’s turnoff from North Main, reader Joel Balderas reports. Unlike earlier appearances, the train appears to be operating under its own power. Here’s the photo evidence:
That no-tracks land along Harrisburg Blvd. between 66th and Cowling on the East End Line is supposed to look something like the underpass that these new renderings depict. Right now, though, Harrisburg isn’t passing under anything — but lying in wait instead between the nearly completed eastern and western sections of the line that stop here dead in their tracks. Though Mayor Parker announced more than 2 years ago that the East End Line would get $20.6 million in diverted funds to build the Hughes Underpass below the Union Pacific East Belt freight rail line, construction hasn’t started. Why? Well, it appears that Metro hasn’t selected a company yet.
GOT ANY BIG IDEAS FOR METRO’S FUTURE? 
You know you’ve thought about Metro. And it just so happens that Metro has been thinking about you: Officials plan to spend the next year and a half imagineering a revamped transit system, almost as though from scratch, and they’ve set up a 15- to 20-minute survey to solicit feedback from folks who actually ride the things. Metro’s Christof Spieler explains to KUHF: “You can’t bring in an expert and get the right answer because there’s no one right answer to [the] question. So the first stage of this, which is what we’re getting public input on right now, is actually what should our goals be. What kind of system are we trying to operate? What is the purpose of that system?” If you wanna chip in and take the survey, click here. [KUHF; Transit System Reimagining; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
Here’s a plan that looks to plug in to Metro’s still-under-construction Southeast Line and redo about 8 blocks along Scott St. in the Third Ward between UH and TSU. Though the plan, drawn up by LAI Design Group and dubbed “University Place Redevelopment,” is provisional, it appears to have in mind something like what the rendering above shows: A reshaped streetscape on Scott St. that would combine apartments, restaurants, shops, offices, and community buildings.
The first phase appears to call for a strip center facing Scott between Holman and Reeves, with 289 1- and 2-bedroom apartments and a parking garage in the rear:
Mark your calendars! The implosion of the big brick box that used to shelter Macy’s and Foley’s has been scheduled bright and early: It’ll go down at 6:10 a.m. Sunday, September 22. The Kenneth Franzheim-designed department store at 1110 Main St. has already suffered some selective chunkage, and it looks like serial crusher Cherry Demolition will be in charge of setting off the final charges.
Though Cherry is pretty experienced with this sort of thing, the building’s proximity to the light rail line seems to have spurred Metro into some serious contingency planning: Internal documents show that Metro has set up alternative service for anywhere from 2 days to 3 weeks in case something goes wrong.
Here’s the plan: The trains will stop running on the evening of Friday, September 20, to give Metro plenty of time to remove poles, wires, brackets, supports, etc. A contractor has been hired to “Utilize Containers,” says those documents, and build a wall around the water spouts and decorations at the Main Street Square station catty-corner from the building. Meanwhile, Metro will be double-checking its insurance policy.
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: HOUSTON HAS ITS COMMUTER RAIL ALREADY, AND IT’S SPELLED H-O-V 
“(1) We have one of the best suburb-to-downtown commuter transit systems in the country in the form of the HOV buses, which METRO has invested a lot of money into (the HOV lanes and transit centers cost $1 billion or so to build, and the service is more expensive to operate per rider than either rail or local bus.) 50% of the people who work downtown and live in the areas served by the park & rides already take transit. Commuter rail would be slower, less frequent, and less convenient. The 290 study showed that a $300 million commuter rail line could actually decrease transit ridership. So why should we build commuter rail in corridors that already have park & ride?
(2) Grade separated rail is great, but it’s not cheaper — cost is twice or more of at grade. Subway is 4 times or more. So the question is not if grade separation is good; the question is if grade separation is worth the extra cost. And nobody — not even Chicago — is building elevated rail above city streets, so if you want to grade separate you either need to be lucky enough to have an old rail line or a freeway exactly where people want to go or you need to pay for a subway.” [Christof Spieler, commenting on Comment of the Day: Developing at the Speed of Light Rail] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DEVELOPING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT RAIL 
“Light rail has not to date really spurred development around it’s stations because it is not a speedier transit option for people along it’s route. I’m pretty sure you can drive from Main and Bell to Binz just as fast as it would take on LRT, because the trains ride in the street and also stop for cross traffic in some spots. Also, traffic congestion along Main St., or the East End is nowhere near a critical mass that driving becomes something you want to avoid.
Dallas’ DART rail used railway right of ways that took the trains off the street grid, and is able to provide speedy transit down the North Central Expressway corridor. Real estate development followed around the station nodes because people are willing to eat/shop/live close to a station that lets them avoid a terribly congested highway at rush hour.
METRO did own old railroad ROW’s along Westpark and the Katy Freeway, but never had anyone in charge that was willing to develop those ROW’s for rail use. They became concrete highways instead.” [ShadyHeightster, commenting on Where Downtown Has Developed, Is Developing, and Might Develop Some More] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO DRUM UP SUPPORT FOR BETTER PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IN HOUSTON, FASTER 
“Here’s what I say: make drivers suffer. Yeah, I’m going there. Make it worse to drive. Make the traffic back up. Don’t expand any highways for another 20 years. Don’t do it. Force public transit on this town.
Go ahead, blast me, let me have it. I don’t care. I just spent four fabulous days in Chicago, and I’m so sick to death of all the excuses for why public transit won’t work in this town. We want so badly to be seen as a world-class city, but we’re never going to get there this way. Public transportation can and will work but it’s not going to work if we keep pandering to the drivers who caterwaul constantly about the liberty driving allows us while sitting in the parking lot that is the NW Freeway at rush hour. Oh, but they’re going to get their transportation dollars to drop millions on an expansion of the aforementioned parking lot which will need expansion again in 10 years. What a bunch of garbage.
It’s the old chicken-or-the-egg question. Will it be demand that drives public transit or will it be the reverse? Right now, nobody is giving me much in the way of choices, but I suppose they will say because I drive to work every day, I must naturally love it. If I didn’t, I’d go ahead and pad an hour to my commute by taking the bus. They call this a ‘choice.’
It’s a false choice. Suck it up. Building the kind of public transit that is common elsewhere is never cheap, it’s never convenient, it always comes with a price, but so does catering to drivers. I say, to hell with drivers.
I understand there is some contradiction underlying this argument. The best public transit system would require hard choices in this town. A lot of nice, historic real estate would probably have to come down to make way for more stations and more tracks. And that kind of system emphasizes the kind of urban density we say we want but often oppose in specific cases. I’m guilty of that contradiction myself sometimes, I’ll admit it.
But Houston needs to grow up. Force it on us, go ahead. Make life miserable for the suburban commuters we pander to every time this subject comes up. It’s time. The pennypinchers and the naysayers can shove it.” [Anse, commenting on Federal Money Rolls In for Uptown’s Post Oak BRT] Illustration: Lulu
FEDERAL MONEY ROLLS IN FOR UPTOWN’S POST OAK BRT 
One of the last few items on Uptown’s to-do list was crossed off Friday: The Houston-Galveston Area Council voted to allocate about $62 million in federal scratch to help pay for the construction of bus rapid transit along Post Oak Blvd. This money, along with continued revenue from Uptown’s recently enlarged tax zone, will fund the estimated $177 million project that, like light rail, will run 60-ft. buses in dedicated lanes between 2 transit centers. Uptown Management prez John Breeding tells the Highwayman that construction could begin as early as 2015. But one notable dissenter, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, doesn’t seem convinced this whole public-transportation thing is gonna work out: “I am afraid we are going to look up in 10 years and say ‘What did we do that for?’ I think I know Houstonians enough to know they are going to want to drive.” [The Highwayman; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Uptown Management District
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE TRAIN WILL GET YOU TO THE AIRPORTS — SOMEDAY “Rail to Hobby and IAH is still in the long term plan, though, given the uncertainties of funding, there’s no way anyone can give a date. Hobby is likely first in line, since it’s closer and there’s a lot more population nearby that would also benefit from the connection. And the first step is there — get on Harrisburg at the end of the east end line and just stay on the same lane and you’ll end up at the Hobby Airport parking garage.” [Christof Spieler, commenting on What Southwest Wants To Make Hobby Airport Look Like]
POST OAK BRT THAT MUCH CLOSER TO GETTING ITS MONEY After a month’s delay to take a longer look at the project, the transportation arm of the Houston-Galveston Area Council finally decided to go ahead and recommend that Uptown receive $62 million in federal funds to pay for the proposed Post Oak Blvd. bus rapid transit system. This is just a provisional step, of course, since 2 actual approvals, not mere recommendations, are needed — but it does move things along. Through tax revenue, Uptown is already paying for about half the estimated $148 million project. The Houston Chronicle’s Dug Begley is reporting that this federal money would help buy up $30 million of land so Post Oak could be widened for the bus lanes. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Drawing: Uptown Management District
