Trains, Planes & Automobiles
Room to grow: METRO's proposed University Line needs additional 23 acres
- Inside a metro rail train carPhoto by Robert Williams
- This corner at Montrose Boulevard and Richmond is the future location of theMontrose Station.
METROrail expansion plans keep coming out, this time in the form of the nine-mile University Line that, as currently proposed, will stretch from The University of Houston main campus and the Eastside Transit Center to the Hillcroft Transit Center, mostly down Richmond Avenue.
According to the Final Environmental Impact Statement, the line would require an additional 23 acres of land from 212 parcels along the route. Almost 200 properties would be affected, over half of them commercial (the remainder made up of residential, religious, mixed-use and vacant properties). 100 commercial, 30 residential and 38 mixed-use locations will need to be relocated, and seven properties would be "full acquisitions."
The numbers certainly make the 3.2-acre encroachments needed for the Uptown Line look like nothing. The full report, all 222 pages, can be downloaded here.
[via West University Examiner, Swamplot]