The Uptown double cross
Share this story:
You know the old expression putting the “cart before the horse.”
Well the Uptown bureaucrats are doing that and city council isn’t saying a word.
Uptown has started buying right of way land so they can tear up Post Oak, widen the street and then put special bus lanes up and down. Of course, the transparent Uptown folks refuse to tell you who got the deal even though they used your money to do it.
Yet Uptown says they haven’t even yet bought the land for the proposed Bellaire Uptown Transit Center. That is the place where all this sudden invasion of bus happy commuters will come to transfer to Uptown buses.
And there is growing evidence of a bait and switch on this whole deal.
In March of 2015, Uptown president John Breeding told Bellaire lawmakers the $26 million facility would hold 250 parking spaces, not the 700 first thought. Now Metro says they expect only 100 parking spaces and admits there are major issues still being worked out.
That change in parking has caused a major reduction in proposed ridership, even by the wishful thinking folks at Metro. The reason is obvious. Virtually no one will be able to drive to the transit center to take a short bus ride to Uptown. Wasn’t that part of the master plan?
But Houstonians are starting to get it. This isn’t about getting you to work quicker. This is a land deal. That’s why Uptown isn’t investing deeply into the transit center and not worried that no one will be able to park there.
That is why they are buying the right of way first and expanding utilities under Post Oak, using taxpayer money to help make some property owners on the un-elected Uptown Board a big payday.
“This is a giant game being played on Houston taxpayers,” says Jim Scarborough of the Uptown Property Owners group. “Uptown doesn’t need to tear up Post Oak, and they know it.”
Keep up with us on social media:
