Pictures expose METRO’s Uptown lie

November 17, 2015

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You want to see the best evidence this $300 million dollar transit plan to tear up Post Oak for dedicated bus lanes is a colossal waste of money? We have it.

Pictures speak a thousand words, and the photos of rush hour at Post Oak Blvd bus stops prove there are virtually no Uptown workers even taking the bus. The photos were taken during rush hour between 4-6 pm on Thursday, November 12th, 2015.

In front of Whole Foods, Guilford Court, Alabama, Williams Tower, not a single person waiting for a bus under those nice covered shelters you don’t see in many neighborhoods. NO ONE. At 6:15p the Post Oak Bus #33 picked up a total of 18 riders from Memorial and Loop 610, all the way to the Bellaire Transit Center, and three quarters of them got on the bus after Uptown.

“These pictures don’t lie. We are being sold a bill of goods to make some people rich on a real estate deal disguised as a transit project,” says Jim Scarborough of the Uptown Business and Property Owners Association. “We have been given bogus ridership numbers from the beginning. Uptown has repeatedly lied, and Metro isn’t telling us the truth either.”

Metro does have a lot of explaining to do. To quiet growing criticism, Metro a few months ago revised ridership projections on the Post Oak Bus Project from the fantasy numbers Uptown tried to peddle. Metro says more than 12,000 people will be using the Uptown Bus Corridor by 2018. They cut commuter traffic into Uptown from expensive transit centers in half, but made up for it by dramatically increasing the number of riders who will pick up the bus at Post Oak bus stops, even though they may be the same people. They claim 900 boardings will get on the bus at Ambassador Way. Doing the math, that’s about 450 people. So why is not a soul waiting at the bus stop during rush hour now? You don’t have to be a math major to know something is fishy here.

The New Metro has already exposed the numbers are at least half of what was claimed. Metro numbers from 2014 show average daily boards on the Post Oak bus #33 was 4,861. That same bus in September of 2015 had 2,097 boardings all day long.

What happened?

The New Metro #33 only goes from the transit center to transit center, proving more than half the folks on that bus got off long before Uptown.

It is sad that officials don’t just tell us the truth. Buses on Post Oak at rush hour aren’t close to full now, with no dedicated bus lanes, no fancy buses and no state of the art bus stops. Of course, Metro doesn’t need to spend millions on fancy new cameras to watch the Uptown bus stops. We have just shown them the pictures for free.

THE TRUE PICTURE OF UPTOWN BUS USAGE AT THE HEART OF RUSH HOUR

On November 12, 2015, DOLCEFINO CONSULTING conducted surveillance and photography at bus stops along Route 33, from Memorial and North Post Oak to the Bellaire Transit Center. The photographs provide stark evidence at just how few people actually ride buses, totally devastating any suggestion a 300 million dollar project to widen Post Oak, build new transit centers and create exclusive bus lanes into Uptown is warranted and a proper use of taxpayer dollars.

: You want to see the best evidence this $300 million dollar transit plan to tear up Post Oak for dedicated bus lanes is a colossal waste of money? We have it.