For years, Houston has been touted as one of the nation’s most affordable major metropolitan areas. But it’s now facing a decreasing supply of affordable housing. To effectively address the affordability crisis in Houston, local decision-makers and individuals must consider the combined costs of housing and transportation and their impact on overall affordability. [Read [...]
To better understand the affordability crisis in Houston, LINK Houston and Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research teamed up to explore where affordable housing and high-quality, affordable transportation overlap in the city. [Read more.] Luis Guajardo and John Park Kinder Institute for Urban Research | May 5, 2020 READ FULL ARTICLE [...]
Dozens of unions, business groups, economic justice organizations, and local transit advocates from across the nation wrote yesterday to Vice President Mike Pence and Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, demanding better federal coordination to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) for transit workers. [Read more.] TransitCenter | April 23, [...]
A few weeks ago, I was walking in Midtown toward Montrose near Spur 527 when I saw a woman on a ladder hanging a sign on a fence. Her name’s Gwyneth Williams. She lives there on Westheimer. The sign warns that the city wants to close parts of the spur “forever” and advertises a [...]
On March 27, during regional COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s Transportation Policy Council held its regular meeting by telephone to discuss adjustments to highway project budgets and protocols. This powerful group of elected officials and bureaucrats from eight counties controls billions of taxpayer dollars and how they’re spent on our roads, highways [...]
V. P. Wright raised her voice and gesticulated, her tight blonde curls bouncing under a black fedora as she explained how environmental disasters like the Flint, Michigan, water crisis have disproportionately impacted marginalized communities. Speaking to a group of students and environmental activists Saturday, Wright went on to explain the concept of epigenetics, how [...]
One of the Bayou City’s biggest immigrant gateways, southwest Houston, is a dangerous and daunting place for pedestrians. Until January, Merci Madilu and his older brother, Espoir, had spent most of their existence in a refugee camp in the landlocked Central African nation of Burundi, where they shared a one-room, mud-walled shelter with their [...]
HOUSTON – Houston City Planners are set to unveil their recommendations to segment three of TxDot’s North Houston High Improvement Project during a community workshop Thursday night. This marks the second series of workshops where concerned residents will have the opportunity to voice their opinions about the design. The first workshop will be held [...]
ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN in Houston for more than a minute knows that one of the city’s biggest drawbacks is the lack of public transportation. Luckily, we already have a lot of the bones in place for what could become a transformative change: the Bayou Greenways 2020 project, the new bus lanes and bike [...]
Free fares appear to be a hard sell for Houston area transit officials, who said while they are open to exploring discounts, people boarding buses and trains will need to fork over $1.25 for the foreseeable future. After a comprehensive analysis by Metropolitan Transit Authority staff, transit board members said removing fares from the [...]
