Residents protest northside transit line

We've heard a lot about opposition to Metro's planned University light rail line, but it's not the only one that's generating controversy: Yesterday, a group of northside residents marched on City Hall, following the route of the proposed northside GRT line, to oppose what they say is Metro deviating from ballot language and condemning property like crazy. Sound familiar?

"They misled the community by having North Hardy on the ballot," protester Mario Umanzo told KTRK. "Because people, when they read North Hardy, automatically comes to my mind, North Hardy not North Main." It's a similar argument to that being made in southwest Houston, where opponents of a Richmond Avenue light rail alignment say the 2003 transit referendum specified an alignment along Westpark. In the referendum, voters approved a "North Hardy" line that would connect UH-Downtown to Northline Mall, Northline Mall to Greenspoint and Greenspoint to Bush Intercontinental Airport. Various alignments were discussed — none of them centered on Hardy Street — and in August, Metro chose a route that would take the line from UH-Downtown along North Main Street through the proposed intermodal transit center at Hardy Yards to Boundary Street, where it would turn east, then back north on Fulton to Northline.

Now there seem to be at least three arguments against the line: that it doesn't run along Hardy Street; that it will involve the condemnation of all or part of more than 200 properties; and that it will initially be served by buses, not trains. We're not sure how the alignment fight will work out, but as Kuff notes, the amount of property Metro plans to take has dropped sharply since initial reports. As for the question of whether the line will operate with buses or trains, we heard last month that some officials were fighting for trains from the get-go, but there hasn't been much word on that since. As seems to be the case with all the Metro expansion lines, this one should be interesting to watch.