DALLAS Twenty-five years after Houston voters gave the thumbs-up to a city transit department that would likely oversee a citywide light-rail system, the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County is set to open its first light-rail line to riders on Jan. 1.
Although the 7 1/2-mile starter line from downtown to the Houston medical district is not funded with bonds, the impetus of a starter line may have helped spur voter approval this year of a $640 million revenue bond authorization for a Metro expansion that includes rail lines to many of the countys most congested areas.
In Dallas, after being defeated in a light-rail bond referendum, officials from Dallas Area Rapid Transit built and operated rail lines to prove their value to the city before revisiting the polls with a second bond question. In 2000, just five years after the first DART rail line opened, voters overwhelmingly approved a $2.9 billion bond package to expand rail service for DART and its 13 member cities.
Officials from Metro began finalizing their plans for a light-rail starter system in 2000. That plan, which was to include pay-as-you-go funding, also included a hefty share of federal dollars to meet costs. However, U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Houston, who was then House minority whip, inserted language into the federal transportation appropriations bill that prohibited Metro from using federal money for light rail because voters had not yet had a chance to weigh in on the matter.
Metro officials juggled the projects $324 million cost to enable them to use their funding a one-cent sales tax levied in Houston and 14 other member cities to pay for the starter line. In addition, Metro began putting together a comprehensive referendum package that includes over $5 billion worth of service expansions and the $640 million sales-tax revenue bond authorization to build 80 miles of additional rail lines.
Houston is the last major U.S. city to adopt light-rail lines.
In addition to opposition from DeLay, Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, wrote a clause into this years appropriations bill barring Houston from using federal money for rail projects without explicit voter approval. Culberson wants Metro to use tax money for projects approved by voters, saying he believes Metro which is a Houston city department and not an arm of the county or a separate municipal issuer has too much authority to use its funding for projects not necessarily endorsed by the majority of taxpayers in the area Metro serves.
However, when Houston voters approved the creation of Metro in 1978, rail was listed as a possible project of the agency and its penny tax authorization.
While Houston is the 19th major metropolitan area to build light rail, it is only the second city in Texas to do so.
