Last week Rep. John Culberson held a town hall-type meeting on Metro’s proposed Richmond Rail line. Also in attendance was the pro-rail group RichmondRail.org (headed by an architect with a firm that hopes to capitalize on light rail development), and by the Chronicle‘s account, things got wild:
RichmondRail.org, a group of civic associations, neighborhood groups and business owners, which supports light rail on Richmond, met in the same auditorium just prior to Culberson’s meeting.
Culberson repeatedly had to ask the crowd to settle down and speak politely.
“One at a time!” Culberson cautioned. “I am not going to recognize anyone who does not speak politely.”
Culberson was red-faced when the crowd gave a standing ovation to Robin Holzer, chairwoman of the Citizens’ Transportation Coalition, who told Culberson that he was “misleading” the audience.
“I feel pandered to, I feel marketed to, I feel misled,” Holzer said. “You never told us you oppose rail. And, I’m a bit suspicious about hearing you say local government makes the best decisions, then you come here and tell them how to do it.”
Culberson responded, “I’m sorry you don’t recognize reality.”
Ahhh, Robin Holzer.
How can she possibly say that Rep. Culberson has misled or pandered to anyone? Hasn’t he been consistently skeptical of light rail? And, if I recall correctly, he “supported” Mayor White’s new and improved Metro Solutions only IF Metro could convince the feds of the project’s worthiness. He was not involved with Metro’s redesigned Solutions plan, and only promised to make sure that “Metro competes with other cities on a level playing field,” when it came to federal funding. But, he added, “In the end, it is entirely up to Metro to prove to the FTA that this new transit plan meets federal guidelines that require sufficient ridership to justify the costs of design, construction and operation of these transit lines.”
The misleading and pandering are wholly on the part of Metro, as it put Westpark on the ballot, then decided Richmond was the preferred route; and as it promised the minority and poorer parts of town that they would see a 50% increase in bus service, along with new light rail lines, then slashed bus routes more than 20% and changed some light rail lines to bus rapid transit.
And Rep. Culberson is a locally-elected congressman representing his district on a federal funding issue. It makes a nice soundbite for Holzer to complain about Rep. Culberson getting involved, but this is an instance where he should be involved!
Metro has not completed environmental studies for the line nor finalized its route, but it says that one along Richmond, Cummins and Westpark would attract the most riders at the least cost and be most likely to win federal funding approval.
Culberson says he prefers a route along Montrose, the Southwest Freeway and Westpark, which Metro says would cost more and attract fewer riders.
Again, why did Metro put Westpark on the ballot? Probably because officials knew Richmond would be voted down, as it had before. The reality is that Metro still has the deal with the fact that it created the 2003 ballot’s language, and it now wants to pretend the ballot said something different.
It’s hard to top what Kevin Whited wrote last year on this topic:
In the end, it remains unclear why the preferences of Christof Spieler, Robin Holzer, architects who hope to benefit from Richmond rail development, Galleria/Greenway realtors, and bloggers from the Heights should trump the preferences of 2003 voters and Richmond homeowners and businessowners who oppose METRO’s Westpark/Richmond bait and switch.
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