Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                            Matt Dulin                             Tony Hernandez 
                Jim Parsons             Dusti Rhodes           Richard Whitrock

Trainspotting

Specifics of a future light rail line past the UH campus will be discussed at a public meeting set for tonight at Texas Southern University -- and the issues raised will be of interest not just to UH, but to the entire city.

The topic of the meeting is the Metropolitan Transit Authority's proposed Southeast line, which would serve the East End before swinging south past UH on its way to Hobby Airport. The meeting will likely deal with the line's alignment, which is expected to be along Scott Street. The word is that two stations are planned near the campus, along Scott at Holman and Wheeler avenues. Both would be handy to the campus and UH housing -- and the Holman station would be adjacent to the proposed University parking garage.

Although tonight's meeting probably won't deal with the downtown segment of the line, the question of how to build along streets in the central business district is causing some discussion. The Southeast line would intersect the Main Street line either at street level, along Capitol Avenue, or in a subway beneath Walker Avenue.

Officials said there's a growing feeling that a second at-grade line should not be built downtown, which seems sensible -- even without the disruption a line along Capitol, a major east-west street, would cause, there's still the issue of Houstonians who can't stop running into the trains.

That and other questions remain about the proposed rail network that will be taking shape in the city over the next few years. Even if sounding off isn't your bag, you'll take away valuable information about the future of the MetroRail system.

Tonight's meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in Room 318 of the Texas Southern University School of Education, 3100 Cleburne Ave. Other meetings are scheduled for the coming week; for information, visit www.ridemetro.org.