Texas Transit Association

Houston’s light rail, the backbone for other passenger rail connections in the future, is literally on the fast track in order to be in place by Jan. 1, 2004 — just in time for the Super Bowl. The original schedule called for an opening in October 2004.

*Metro insists rail plan on track
With stakes high, officials say line will be ready for big game*
By LUCAS WALL and BILL MURPHY, Houston Chronicle, June 29, 2003

Today, when the last piece of rail is scheduled to go into place on the Main Street bridge over Buffalo Bayou, Houston’s first light rail track will stretch 7 1/2 miles from downtown past Reliant Stadium.

Much else remains to be completed, however, before the rail line will be in shape to serve commuters headed downtown or football fans going to a game.

Noticeably absent along the line are rail stations, signs and landscaping. Even more important, Metro has received only one of 18 cars that will travel the route, and overhead lines to power them have been installed above only a third of the track.

Despite all the work that remains, Metro officials insist they will meet their deadline and launch the light rail system Jan. 1 — in time to work out the kinks before the spotlight is turned on Houston for Super Bowl week, less than a month later.

“We have lots of work yet to complete, but that is as scheduled,” said John Sedlak, the Metro vice president overseeing construction. “We are going to accomplish that. It hasn’t been easy, but we will get the project up and running.”

The stakes are high. With about 130,000 Super Bowl visitors expected on game week, it would be a public-relations debacle if the tracks are dormant, say members of the Houston Super Bowl XXXVIII Host Committee, which is organizing events that week.

The original timetable had rail opening in October 2004. That deadline was moved up to have the line in place for the Super Bowl, to be played Feb. 1.

Though overhead lines still need to be installed over two-thirds of the route, Metro president and chief executive officer Shirley DeLibero says that is relatively quick work.

The trains themselves, of course, make up the other critical component. The first of 18 cars arrived two months ago and has been undergoing testing at Metro’s railyard and test track near Six Flags Astroworld. Another car is scheduled to arrive next month from the Siemens plant in Sacramento, Calif. Cars are then supposed to begin arriving at the rate of one a week, starting in August.

Obtaining the cars remains a concern, however. Siemens’ ability to deliver them “in a fast-track mode remains challenging and requires close monitoring,” Metro reported on June 18.

A good deal of construction remains. At some intersections, traffic signals and crossing gates are still needed. Most have been put up on the line’s south half, and signals just now are starting to go up in Midtown and downtown.

Rail stations must be finished, light rail signs erected and trees and shrubbery planted. Transit centers have yet to be built in the Texas Medical Center and the south side of downtown.

A blocklong fountain, which will be part of a new plaza called Main Street Square, remains under construction at Main and McKinney. In a number of downtown areas, Metro still has to finish repaving sections of streets and put in sidewalks.

“We’re on target to operate this system, though there will be last-minute things being done right up to the last day,” Sedlak said.

If there are unforeseen delays, he said, the system still can begin operating so long as the trains are certified, the track and power system are finished and signals work. Finishing touches such as landscaping can be completed after Jan. 1 if necessary.

A significant milestone is expected tonight, when crews plan to lay the line’s last piece of track on the Buffalo Bayou bridge near the University of Houston Downtown. The bridge was to reopen for traffic Tuesday, but that has been pushed back to Aug. 1. Metro officials say they will monitor the delay closely.

The $324 million project has proceeded at a remarkable pace, said project director Anthony Venturato, who has overseen construction of rail systems in other cities. Light rail was approved four years ago, and construction began just over two years ago.

Venturato boasts that no city has built a light rail line faster, noting that Metro and the city did more than just install a track. New utility lines were installed under the Main Street corridor, and Main and other roads were rebuilt.

“Main Street had not been touched since the 1950s,” he said. “That whole infrastructure was so old.”

The efforts to pretty-up the city could reap rewards during Super Bowl week, when visitors will flock here. More than 5,000 are expected at downtown hotels, with another 12,000 at Uptown hotels. How many will use the rail is uncertain, however.

Don Henderson, managing director of the Hyatt Regency and chairman of the host committee’s hotel subcommittee, said many of those staying in downtown and prime Uptown hotels will be the National Football League’s well-heeled corporate sponsors, who will get around town in limousines or buses.

The horde of media members, estimated at 3,000, is another story. The main media hotel will be the Hilton Americas, now under construction next to the downtown convention center. About 800 reporters will stay there, and many others will be at other downtown hotels.

The Host Committee’s game plan is to have the media ride the light rail to and from Reliant Park on some days, providing a chance to show off downtown, Midtown, the Museum District and the medical center, said George DeMontrond, who heads up transportation issues for the committee.

“We think the light rail and the whole downtown area will be positive things about which they’ll write, and we hope they’ll do that,” he said.

The city runs the risk, however, of having sportswriters — especially those of the cynical East Coast variety — make fun of its failure to get the light rail operating before the game, host committee members have said.

Such press would undermine one of the main reasons for hosting the game: to promote Houston’s image with national and international movers and shakers and possibly convince them to open branches or hold conventions here. Shedding the title of the only major U.S. metropolitan area without a rail transit system is part of efforts to improve the city’s glamour and make Houston, as Mayor Lee Brown frequently proclaims, “world class.”