Years of planning fail to get bikeway for Acres Home

By Frances Allday

The City of Houston is asking for the public's input on plans to update its 15 year old Comprehensive Bikeway Plan. But for one community leader trying to get a bikeway to come through her neighborhood, it has been 15 years of frustration.

Mary Taylor is a community activist and president of the Acres Home Beautification Committee. Her committee has taken on numerous projects including planting trees along the Veterans Memorial esplanade, getting brick entrance signs installed in the subdivision, and conducting graffiti cleanup projects.

Her efforts to get a bikeway for the Acres Home community began in the 1990s when she became involved with the Statewide Transportation Enhancement Program (STEP) to develop beautification and bike trail projects.

During the 90s her committee worked with the City of Houston to develop a bikeway plan for Acres Home. She has a copy of a 1995 Proposed Bikeway Network plan which shows a cost estimate of $1,664,000 and the signature of a Public Works official. She also has a copy of a map titled "Houston Comprehensive Plan," designating the bikeway the White Oak Bayou Trail Extension. The proposed trail connected with the White Oak Bayou Bike Trail just below Pinemont at W. T.C. Jester Blvd. and traveled north to West Little York, where it turned east into Acres Home.

The map shows the trail winding through the neighborhood and ending at Veterans Memorial. Ms. Taylor believed that funding for this route was approved by the State. "I saw our bike trail listed on the very papers that went to the legislature," Ms. Taylor says. Indeed, there was funding of $9 million approved by the State for Houston bike trails in 1996. The State was to pay for 80% of the construction, with the City and Harris County picking up the other 20%.

But construction of the bike trail extension into Acres Home never began. Ms. Taylor shows another map drawn up in 1997 for the "Proposed West White Oak Bayou Trail Extension" that changed the route, traveling east on West Tidwell instead of West Little York, and on to Knox St. in Acres Home. "I'm not sure why they redrew the bike trail map and I don't know what happened to the money from the State. I suppose the City failed to pay the 20% or it was diverted elsewhere," she says.

In 1999 Mary Taylor served on the Houston Bicycle Advisory Committee as a citizen member. She has a copy of a funding list she received around that time. It was titled "City of Houston Funded Bikeway Projects Programmed for Implementation." The list shows that there were twelve funded projects under the STEP and Air Quality Act including the "West White Oak Bayou Trail." The funds allotted for the trail were $2,602,000. There is also a 1999 STEP document showing the City's request for an Inwood Trail, which would connect "south to the existing planned route to Dolly Wright and Metro Park-and-Ride" in Acres Home.

Ms. Taylor has now learned that the West White Oak Bayou Extension will begin construction this fall. But to her great disappointment the trail will begin at Watonga Park on W. T.C. Jester, and travel west along the bayou from Pinemont to Antoine instead of east into Acres Home. This was confirmed by Dan Raine, Bicyclist-Pedestrian Coordinator for the City of Houston, who said "the design has been finalized and we hope to let the project for construction later this fall/early winter 2009."

"We thought that the extension had been funded," Ms. Taylor says. Mr. Raine says that the Acres Home proposal was submitted for STEP funds in 1999 but no funds were allocated for that proposal.

Ms. Taylor is frustrated by the loss of the trail project for Acres Home. "A lot of hard work has been done on the extension by my committee and it was supposedly funded in the late 90s," she says. She wonders what happened to the money for the Acres Home extension. The trail was designed to pass by schools, the health center, post office, a grocery store and the transit center. She feels that the bike trail is important to her community for transportation, and for beautifying the neighborhood. "With the economy and gasoline prices, people can't afford to drive cars," she says, "so they must have alternatives available. I hear stimulus money will be going for the extension. But our community needs stimulus help also."

There has been a proposal to pay for the West White Oak Bayou Extension with Recovery Act Funds, according to a Houston-Galveston Area Council (HGAC) agenda. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has submitted a priority list of funding to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that includes the White Oak Bayou Trail.

Mary Taylor laments that her beautification projects will be difficult to implement without the bike trail. "We had a project that would enhance the area along the drainage ditch near the Post Office and Transit Center. But I guess all of that is on hold since our bike trail extension seems to have evaporated."

With the possibility of stimulus funds and a growing interest in urban bike trails, the City of Houston is eager to identify new bikeway projects. Though the City boasts of the many types of cyclists who use the bikeways, there are scant statistics on the percentage of Houstonians who actually use them. Most Houstonians obviously use their cars to travel, and some bike trails have a look of desolation. For the most part the bike trails are recreational in use. The City's CIP funds are currently funding more than 40 additional miles of bike trails in fiscal year 2009. With coordinated funding and planning from TxDOT, the HGAC and the federal government, the City has managed to construct more than 300 miles of bikeway.

(The Banner, June 11, 2009)