Houstonians See Folly of Debt-Financed Sprawl, Even If Leaders Don’t

Voters in Montgomery County, Texas, rejected a road-building bond referendum. Despite local support for transit, county leaders plan to give the referendum another try.

The Houston Chronicle reports that opposition to a $350 million bond measure, all of it for road construction, was led by residents of one affluent enclave who don’t want a traffic-inducing parkway extension. But there's more to the story.

Like virtually all U.S. metros, the Houston region has a broken transportation system that won't be fixed by building more roads. Jay Blazek Crossley at Houston Tomorrow points out that nearly half of Montgomery County residents surveyed for a Rice University study wanted improvements to transit, while far fewer think road expansions are the way to go.

“Fewer than one-third of the respondents in any of the counties (including Montgomery County) thought the best solution involves ‘building bigger and better roads and highways,’” writes Crossley.

Yet it looks like local officials intend to bring the same referendum back to voters, only without the parkway project.

Elsewhere on the Network: Cap'n Transit says that in 2015, major urban transit systems must focus on expanding capacity, not filling seats; and ATL Urbanist thinks a trail that will allow people to walk and bike through a monstrous new Atlanta interchange is welcome, but beside the point.