The Chronicle‘s Bill Murphy reports that newly selected-not-elected Harris County Judge Ed Emmett plans to focus on mobility during the rest of Robert Eckels’ term, and (he hopes) beyond:
[I]f things work out the way he envisions — and that includes winning election next year — he will make his mark as “the regional mobility guy.”
He sees himself building coalitions in and out of the county that will add more toll roads, better freeways and secondary roads, more light-rail and bus lines and a freight-train system that doesn’t cause traffic snarls.
“The entire region is going to continue to grow in terms of population and commerce,” said Emmett, a pleasant, energetic man who looks younger than his age — 57. “We will have more people and more freight. And we will need to add all modes of transportation to accommodate growth.”
Upon our first read, we almost didn’t recognize this “pleasant, energetic” fellow, since almost every story we saw during his whirlwind ascension to head of Harris County government referred to him as political insider Ed Emmett (as if his mother had named the poor lad “political insider”).
It’s actually somewhat reassuring that a Harris County official plans to make regional mobility a priority. Perhaps he’ll be able to exert some influence over the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO), which for many years has been the nearly exclusive political plaything of Houston mayors.
