5 Things I Want From the Next Mayor of Houston

by Jay Crossley

1. Better transportation planning 2. Emphasis on sidewalks 3. Return general mobility funding to METRO 4. RSS feeds 5. The mayor needs to read the Free Press Houston

On November 3, 2009, you will vote for your pick for the next Mayor of Houston. This person will guide the city for the next two to six crucial years in our region’s development into a major global metropolitan region for the 21st Century. Because our city is so young, we have the opportunity to do many things right, to build a city of the future as we grow instead of retrofitting the city of the past. Also, as Dr. Stephen Klineberg at Rice University so eloquently says, we are a microcosm of what America will look like at the middle of the 21st Century, a racial and ethnic (and sexual and political) melting pot. He believes that how we learn to live together and to prosper from our diversity will be a test bed of how the nation changes over the coming decades.

Many are calling the national, global, and local crises we face today a perfect storm of economic collapse and rapid change, deteriorating climate, and radical demographic and political changes. It is the blessing of the millennial generation to be born into times of unthinkable challenges at every possible level of endeavor. We have no time to waste. Houston must come to terms with the long awaited free market reforms that will happen some time during the Obama administration to properly account for environmental damages within the market system. Houston must learn to flesh itself out in a world of declining dependence on fossil fuels and the end of the subsidized suburban home and commute.

The next Mayor of Houston must at least understand these changing forces and be excited about leading us – all the crazy different parts of us – into a greener, cleaner, and fairer future while working for a more accessible and robust economy at the same time. The next mayor must fix, defend, and empower METRO so that we can get on with it and build the nation’s most efficient light rail system, and then work with our neighbors on a regional transit system that makes sense. The next mayor must allow and encourage the development of dense urban areas that give the option of living a low-carbon lifestyle throughout the city while respecting existing neighborhoods and empowering communities to participate in guiding growth in their areas.

So, basically, whether its going to be Annise, Gene, Peter, Roy, or even the recently rumored to be joining the race, Sylvester, the next Mayor of Houston is going to have a tremendous amount on his or her plate at a pivotal time in the development of our young metropolis. And while they’re at it, they’re going to have to collaborate with the rest of the growing urban areas of Texas that are all part of the emerging global power, the Texas Triangle Megaregion, to build high speed rail to connect Houston to Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, plan for water and agricultural resources to support the megaregion forever, and find more efficient ways to move stuff around from the Port of Houston.

To help the next Mayor of Houston out, the Houston Area Table (H.A.T.) – of which I am on the steering committee – will be hosting a mayoral forum in August and an event to precede this forum in July for progressives from all over the city to gather and talk about what we want the next mayor to do. To get things started, here’s a list of five things I want the next mayor to get going right away. I look forward to hearing your five requests and hope that together we can better inform this mayoral race of what Houstonians want for their future.

1. Better transportation planning. Currently, City of Houston transportation planning – the most significant planning for our future – is done by the Department of Public Works and Engineering and this isn’t right. PW&E employees do a terrific job of engineering, but they are not planners. Other cities across the country have realized this mistake and have moved the transportation, mobility, and access planning function back into their Planning Department, while leaving the solutions about how to get the job done up to the engineers, and that needs to be done here.

2. Emphasis on sidewalks. The City of Houston has done a poor job of establishing a safe pedestrian space throughout the city for all our citizens – notably for our elderly, children, and handicapped, but also for all Houstonians who need real walkable options just to not be so darned fat (myself included). While the City accepts its role in providing mobility to those choosing to drive, how can it deny such service to the 40% of Houstonians who don’t have a car? I don’t know what mechanisms will best begin to improve walkability, but the next mayor needs to make it a priority to figure it out.

3. Return general mobility funding to METRO. A majority of Houstonians, as shown in Dr. Klineberg’s Houston Area Survey (www.houstonareasurvey.org) believe that improving transit is the most important way to deal with our congestion problems and believe that rail is a key component of our future transit system. One-fourth of the money that Houston voters devoted to transit at the creation of METRO was taken away by Mayor Bob Lanier and every year is handed to the cities within METRO’s service area, to do with as they please. Minister Robert Muhammad has estimated that this transfer has cost the Houston region $5 billion worth of transit funding, more than the total estimated cost of the 2012 light rail system we are building right now. Whether or not METRO was a corrupt, wasteful agency at that time deserving of attack is a subject for the history buffs. Our growing metropolis cannot stand another year of the silly, outdated, abusive view of our transit agency, and step #1 is to return the missing 25 cents of our sales tax money to transit, instead of using it to plug holes in city budgets or reduce property taxes for some.

4. RSS feeds. The city has a huge website but none of it seems to have the power of RSS feeds. Suppose you are interested in reading the mayor’s press releases. Say you want to read the City Council agenda before the meeting. Or maybe you’re interested in the sustainable growth committee and want to know when they have a meeting and what’s on the agenda. All these things are added regularly to the website and they should all have RSS feeds. It should be easy for citizens to follow basic things happening with the city to effectively participate, and RSS is a simple, cheap step in that direction that allows citizens to follow those things they find important.

5. The mayor needs to read the Free Press Houston. And the River Oaks Examiner and houston.indymedia.org, bloghouston.net, swamplot.com, handsuphouston, houstontomorrow.org and whatever underground news source reflects the Vietnamese community? Or bike activists? Or the transgender community? Houston is a dynamically changing and growing city with many diverse subcultures and thriving youth cultures. The next mayor needs to meet these people and understand what they want from their city and what they plan to give of themselves for their city. Of course, by “the mayor needs to read,” I mean an intern needs to read these things.

Jay Blazek Crossley does program development and research at Houston Tomorrow, a charitable nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to improving the quality of life in the Houston region. For more information and to sign up for our weekly email newsletter, please see www.houstontomorrow.org.

Please join us at Mango’s (403 Westheimer Rd) on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 from 6 to 9 pm for a progressive happy hour to discuss what you want from the next Mayor of Houston. Also, please add your list of 5 things you want from the next Mayor of Houston in the comments.

Uneasy Rider: Bicyclist Safety in Houston

By Shiraz Ahmed
Artwork by Michael C. Rodriguez

When I was a boy of eight, I jumped in the cage and joined the Ultimate Fighting Championship. At the age of 12, my parents had to call security because they discovered I had climbed into a pit with eight live tigers; by the time the guards got there only I was alive. I frequently enjoy the company of El Salvadorian MS-13. You could say I'm a bit of a thrill-seeker so much so that the lure of escaping Death's cold, bony hands gives me a rush drugs can't mimic. But recently I undertook a challenge that I'm afraid might be too much for even me to handle: I threw down for a bicycle and took it for a spin in our fair town. I've never really appreciated the value of life until I was run off the road by the SUV on my tail.
It's no secret that Houston is notorious for being a dangerous place for any vehicle not running on diesel. While cycling has been viewed by those whose eyes are hooked on their speedometers as a mere past time or pleasure, growing numbers of commuters and day-to-day cyclists have said "no!" to the gas pump and flooded the narrow bike lanes painted on the sides of streets. Now 1,200 cyclists commute to the Texas Medical Center everyday. Between 1998 and 2000, over a fourth of Texas's bicycle crashes occurred in and around Houston. Growing numbers of riders on two-wheels indicates a need for the right infrastructure to support them and the right legislation to protect them.
It took me a while to root out the problem, but I finally did it while buying my first ever bicycle from City Planner for the Energy Corridor and bike aficionado Clark Martinson. "The streets were designed to move cars, [the system's] autocentric," said Martinson, who in fact cycles the ten mile commute to work every day. Rather than undergo the entire revamping of the whole system, Martinson suggested a couple of baby steps. Driver's Education would be the first and most important step to make Houston safe for bicyclists. The hostile attitude that motorists show cyclists is caused by motor-vehicle drivers not knowing the extent of a cyclists' rights. Little known fact: Bicycles are regarded in the eyes of the law as any other vehicle on the road. Face it; my Schwinn equals your Hummer. Cyclists have a right to use the regular traffic lanes and are entitled to be treated as any auto-dwelling motorist as long as they signal appropriately and obey all lights and signs. "I'm a driver of a vehicle that behaves just like a car," said Martinson, and as such should be treated in the same regard.
Locally owned Blue Line Bike Lab is another supporter of "taking your lane." As stated on their website, "It’s not a privilege to ride your bike in the street, it’s your right. In fact, it’s the law. The area near the curb is where all of the water and road debris collects, and in many more progressive places it’s what is known as 'the gutter.'" So goes Houston's bike lanes on the sides of streets, a classic example of a solution being the cause of more problems. "I would clean the gutter," Martinson said as the first step for improving infrastructure, "so you have as much as that curb lane as possible."
I took a weekend visit to Washington D.C recently and witnessed a cyclist's wet dream. Full traffic lanes were dedicated to non-motor vehicles and some lengths were even protected from normal traffic by barriers. Movement towards this standard would end a great deal of the problems surrounding the issue, but in Houston it seems we value our traffic lanes as much as our first-born males. Until steps are taken to widen the bike lanes and make them safe for cyclists, there is no alternative but traffic lanes.
Recently two measures to help out all non-motor vehicles in Texas were passed in the last session of Congress, both authored by avid cyclist and Houston's own Senator Rodney Ellis. The first, which is crucial though, under-publicized, requires questions on the Texas Driver's License Test about motor vehicles' responsibilities in regards to cyclists. This is a great step in driver’s education and prevention of potential accidents and attitudes. The second bill, which gained much publicity with Senator Dan Patrick's (R-Houston) objection to it, is the infamous Safe Passing Bill. It required a minimum of three feet passing distance for any non-motor vehicle as well as penalties for throwing objects at them. Senator Patrick objected to two specifics of this bill which were ultimately removed to gain his vote:

1) The penalties for throwing objects at non-motor vehicles were removed because Senator Patrick felt it unnecessary, being covered by existing assault laws. All right, fair enough.

2) In the original wording of the bill it was made illegal to cut off non-motor vehicles forcing them to brake instantly or swerve right, commonly called a right hook and what Martinson refers to as "a real danger on our streets." Countless cyclists can attest to the dangers of being cut off by an object weighing 2000+ lbs more than them. While helmets and pads are useful protection in actual collisions, they do little to prevent the collision, which should be the main focus of our legislators.

In an interview with FPH, representatives of Senator Patrick stated, "The issue becomes a judgment issue. It's a problem with interpretation." When one person feels like as if he has been cut off, the other feels as if he were simply merging and the cyclist must not have been looking properly. Bickering ensues. Senator Patrick was advised by a council that this aspect of the bill would create what is known as a "cause of action," a reason that one person might sue another. "We don't want to create another cause of action, another reason to sue," said Senator Patrick's office. One might argue though, that the purpose of any traffic law is to prevent situations where accidents could occur. Since the nature of a right hook is harmful to a cyclist's safety, creating a cause of action might be necessary to discourage them. No one likes going to the courts, but it's necessary. I would speed all the time if I knew that the judicial branch would never bother to call me in and make me pay my ticket. I'll withhold complete contempt for Senator Patrick's positions regarding this bill though, for there are better reasons out there to dislike him.
The conspiracy isn't confined to our fair, polluted, majestic city. Just the other day Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) submitted a letter to President Barack Obama that proposed, among other things, ending all federal funding for bike projects. This would include the Transportation Enhancement Program, meant to grant funding to non-motorized transportation projects, and the Safe Routes to School Programs, which according to the website is "designed to decrease traffic and pollution and increase the health of children and the community." The idea is to redirect this funding to expansion of highways, although the programs were created because America put so much money in to creating highways. I commend Representatives Boehner and Cantor in wanting to cut these programs, because what America needs now is more highways, higher pollution, and fatter children.
I won't pretend that I'm any experienced cyclist. I really rode a bike for the first time a year ago, and didn't buy a bike of my own until a week ago. Yet in my short time cycling, I have nearly been run down on the street once, and I have run out of sidewalk forcing me to ride into a ditch. I have seen a sobbing woman pray for my friend whom she nearly ran over while about to make a right turn. Everyone present shared a group hug. And even so, it's bad, but it's not unbearable. Houston's a great town to bike in. There's so much to explore, so many streets to venture. Even in the hottest parts of the day it's nice. "It's better than it ever was before," said Martinson, a cyclist in Houston since the 80s who has frequently lobbied for safer regulations and a better infrastructure.
I'll end this with a vision of the future. The wide lanes for cyclists weren't all that were available in D.C. The city has the nation's first public bike rental system, SmartBikeDC; and they poured $600,000 in to a radio and transit ad campaign aimed to educate the population on cyclists. This and more designated D.C. as a Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists, not the highest qualification but still a reasonable goal for the future. Houston does not have to create an entire separate system for cyclists. A small change in the attitude with which people look at cyclists is all that is required, and although we have a long way to go, we're making slow and steady progress. The Houston Bikeways Program, headed by the first Houston Bicycle Pedestrian Coordinator Dan Raine, is aimed at increasing ridership and more off-the-road bikeways. As of now the step that everyone can take to improve Houston as a biking community is to simply break out the old bicycle and go for a roll, or buy a bicycle if your old one isn't suitable. Soon we'll all have bicycles and we'll overtake the streets! Bicycles aren't a cure all for the problems of congestion, pollution, obesity, and high traffic accident numbers. But they can't hurt.