Getting a piece of the pie

June 29, 2016

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Every day taxpayers are learning new bombshells about the stink surrounding the proposed Uptown bus project.

Last week it was word Uptown planned to eliminate critical turn lanes at Westheimer and San Felipe… promising to strangle traffic for tens of thousands of motorists.

Now we learn the independent study done to support the dedicated bus lane project is riddled with conflicts of interest.

The “third party” independent study by Walter P. Moore called the dedicated bus lane project the right solution for Uptown transit needs. It was released in January 2015. It was supposed to make us all feel better.

It was suspicious enough that Walter P. Moore was a long time traffic consultant for Uptown, but now Dolcefino Consulting has learned Walter P. Moore was being paid in the very same month to help design one of the transit centers needed to make the bus project work.

Documents released by Uptown show the company was given a $237,000 dollar contract just months before their so called independent review, making their report hardly independent. The Walter P. Moore report never identified their involvement in the overall project they were recommending. You won’t find the Walter P. Moore deal on the Uptown agenda either.

The independent report was stamped by Edwin Friedrichs in January of 2015. Now Uptown invoices show he was also on the payroll for that BRT Transit Center design project.

“So now we know Walter P. Moore got a slice of the pie before they recommended the pie to the rest of us. Ironically, that fits this entire project,” says Wayne Dolcefino, President of Dolcefino Consulting. “Taxpayers aren’t stupid. We can smell this deal all the way to Houston City Hall.”

Uptown is scheduled to start removing trees from the median on Post Oak Blvd north of San Felipe on July 5th, 2016, ignoring an ongoing criminal investigation.

Go to SaveUptown.com to donate and sign a petition to prevent the Uptown Board from causing even more congestion.