MCALLEN, Texas - Hidalgo County Prosperity Task Force is likely to recommend the establishment of a rapid transit authority, Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez has confirmed.
The subject came up at a summit the task force hosted jointly with Futuro RGV at South Texas College’s Pecan Campus last Friday. The summit was titled, “CEOs Unite: Let’s Get Uncomfortable.”
Interviewed later, Cortez told the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service:
“One of the barriers and obstacles that we have is moving people from areas, from where they live to where they work. And, as you know, a lot of households only have one vehicle. So, when the husband works and the wife works and what do you do when you only have one vehicle or the husband is gone and the wife needs to go shopping or go to the doctor or whatever is,” Cortez said.
“Transportation is very important. In larger communities such as Austin, Houston, San Antonio, they have a transit authority, that's basically a taxing body to provide for transportation. I think that we're at the size already in Hidalgo County that we need to start looking into that and see if that fits our needs. And everything takes a long time. So we better start looking at it now and start to prepare for it.”
Cortez said he is also concerned about the traffic count in his county.
“We have a lot of people out there on the roads. If we can reduce some of those cars from being on the roads because they have another form of transportation that helps us there also.”
Asked if a rapid transit authority could be part of the final recommendations of the task force, Cortez said:
“Absolutely. No, we're already looking into it. The Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council already has done some work. We just took it off the shelf and started looking at it again.”
The topic of a rapid transit authority came up at the task force summit during a Q&A. From the floor, Cortez asked panelist Jon Hockenyos, president of TXP Inc., of his experience with rapid transit authorities. Eddie Aldrete, principal of Aldrete Strategic Partners, was also on the panel. He, too discussed the merits of a rapid transit authority. Here is a video recording from the summit on the conversation:
https://youtu.be/L0izOoc57X8
This is what Cortez asked Hockenyos:
“John, I want to start the conversation about a transit authority. I mean, we're at least a million people in Hidalgo County and I don't know when San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, at what size they went into this, but I think we need to start the conversation because we have a tremendous amount of cars out there. And I think if we have a transit authority and have other options for people to move around, I think that would help us. Can you just speak a little bit about that and see what we have to do as a community to pursue that goal?” Cortez asked Hockenyos.
Hockenyos replied:
“I'm a former transitaAuthority board member in Austin, but it was literally in the last century. That's how old I am. And so I'm not sure legally what it takes, Judge. But here's what I know. Transit authorities need to evolve. A penny of sales tax, which is typically what transit authorities get in Texas, is a lot of money. And fixed route buses are not the future of modern transportation.
“So, much as when we did the new medical school up in Austin and to some degree, the new one down here too, that I worked with UT Board of Regents on, you're kind of starting from a whole cloth. So, we could invent a transit authority that was more reflective of the modern economy and how modern transportation happens.
“What it really means is the transit authority becomes the financial enabler of transportation as opposed to necessarily the provider of the service. So that's a long conversation, but we could do some interesting things potentially.”
Picking up where Hockenyos left off, Aldrete said:
“Then it leads to transit oriented development right along the stops or along the route. I ran the unsuccessful campaign in San Antonio for light rail and then three years later, I ran the successful light rail campaign in Houston for Houston's metro rail system. San Antonio accepted the loss and chose to move to the advanced rapid transit phenomenon. To Jon’s point, you're no longer on a fixed route with fixed rail, but it is a higher speed bus with fewer stops that can be moved depending upon where the growth of the city moves. If the growth moves from east to west, well then you can reroute the routes, which you can’t do with a fixed rail.”
Editor’s Note: Here is an audio recording of the Guardian’s interview with Judge Cortez, as well as the analysis of Thomas Ray Garcia, one of the lead coordinators of the Hidalgo County Prosperity Task Force:
