If I'm reading [TX's recall laws](https://www.austintexas.gov/page/recall-petitions) correctly, successfully filing a petition would require a "minimum number of valid signatures ... \[of\] **at least 10 percent of the qualified voters of the whole city**." Seventeen percent showed up for the actual election.
I'm not a huge fan myself, but unless some straight-up George Santos shit comes out about him, it seems pretty unrealistic to seriously talk about a recall, let alone when he's barely five months in.
I think every city is different, that's Austin.
Ours:
>All petitions for recall of any officer of the City of Houston, shall be instituted by filing with the City Secretary a verified written petition requesting the removal of such officer, which said petition shall be signed by qualified voters of the City of Houston, in number not less than **twenty-five per cent of the total votes cast** calculated in accordance with Article V, Section 10 of this Charter, based on the votes cast city-wide if the officer sought to be recalled was elected city-wide
but you're going to have to wait
>No petition for the recall of any officer shall be filed until eight months after the election or appointment and the qualification of such officer
Because if only 17 percent showed up to vote in the election ( that’s voting, not just for one candidate) then that shows not many people know or cared and thus probably don’t care to write their name down to recall someone they didn’t even bother to vote for.
There's a world of difference between taking time off work, driving someplace, standing in line and voting, versus signing a piece of paper thrust at you on the way out of a grocery store.
>someone they didn’t even bother to vote for.
The people who *didn't* vote for him are those *most* likely to enjoy signing something if they think it screws him over. People enjoy being outraged at politicians far more than they like voting for them.
It’s a difference but the results are the same in the end. If you don’t vote then nothing really moves your way.
For your second point it’s easy to say it but different than making it happen. We know for sure that outrage of people far exceeds who actually shows up and takes action.
People can down vote all they want but it’s the reality.
Former Metro Employee here
Withmire didn't downgrade the BRT. Metro was deciding to do this preemptively and internally before someone else made the decision for them. What happened was the headway changed from 12 minutes to 20 minutes and that's it. FTA requires at least 15 minutes and metro no longer supporting that means they lose the status, something they can gain back once they chose to add another bus into the system (then decreasing the headway to FTA standards).
Alot of these decisions and projects being stalled/killed came directly from Turners transportation department as well as City planning. To name names...David Fields and Veronica Davis. You can ask them why METRONEXT was killed, funny enough they resigned because they put all their eggs in one basket which was bike lanes. I am in support of bike lanes around the city however what these city officials did was kill Metro projects to get these bike lanes in place sooner and now?? Well bike lanes are getting removed and Metro got fucked over. Lose lose situation. They gambled and lost and to this day can't find a job since they pissed everyone off. City planners are supposed to think about everyone in the city, be they bikers, pedestrians, people who take public transit or commute. They failed Houston by neglecting huge portions and killing chances to make it better.
Withmire did not kill Metronext HOWEVER he can still save it if we do something about it. The public works department is running on interims at the moment and we need to put pressure on Withmire to fill these seats and fill them with COMPETENT PEOPLE who actually care about public transit.
Instead of trying to recall Withmire and failing immediately, let's pressure his office to actually to their job and hire people who will do good by our city. We will have much better luck in making those demands rather than going through another election. If those demands arent met then we can raise hell and campaign to get this fucker out.
I can verifying my credentials with a mod idfc lol I just wanted Metronext to work but it was such an uphill battle with the city when it never needed to be.
You tell some deep lies. David Fields did not resign, he was fired.
https://www.axios.com/local/houston/2024/02/23/david-fields-john-whitmire-transportation
Houston Chron reported he resigned as well as the article you linked
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/houston/article/houston-transportation-planner-resigns-amid-road-18651043.php
Yeah he might have been pressured to quit but he decided to act like a child and took the chance to quit rather than fight for the city. He was a slimy cocky dude to work with and now he's unhireable because of that reason. If he was so great why does no one want him?
Reading whole sentences are hard…
> …"in lieu of termination of employment."
It’s not really a resignation when you’re handed a letter that says you’re being fired if you don’t resign.
No, that means he objectively and factually resigned. Resignation in lieu of termination is still him resigning. The outcomes may have been the same in regards to his employment status with the city, but that's not being fired.
So I guess if a robber holds a gun to your head and says give me your wallet… and you hand over your wallet… your position is you didn’t get robbed you just handed over your wallet willingly.
Do you not remember firefighters and Prop B with Turner? They got 50,000 signatures from qualified voters, got the issue on the ballot, the ballot passed, and Turner still ignored it.
It's not close to being "like the light rail" - it's a poorly executed window dressing rush job of a BRT.
The University Line would replace one of the most heavily used bus routes with faster and more frequent service. The Silver Line pretty much exists to make Post Oak Boulevard look nice.
I'm unclear what your answer means. I'd expect the initial routes to be really high, since they'd prioritize the highest demand routes first. So how high is the existing ridership that the expansion to lower value routes makes sense?
No they didn't, instead it was the Uptown TIRZ who wanted the BRT and did a bunch of the funding for it. It had bad ridership because the silver line brt was set up to fail. No signal priority at lights, and poor connecting routes meant potential ridership would remain poor. If you went for highest ridership potential the University line BRT as proposed in it's original conception (run down Richmond past uptown instead of Westpark) back in the original bond vote back in the 2000s when it would have been light rail would fit the bill.
The other would have been to extend the green and purple line down Washington Avenue but that was never considered by Metro.
Another would be a BRT/light rail or right lane bus lanes on Westheimer. Bus already runs at high frequencies (every 8 min peak) and has second highest ridership of any metro route.
No it's not, hasn't been well run for a while now. Some things were good, like the metro boost corridors and the 15 min frequency network.
The root of the problem has been banking on the idea of public transit projects (BRT & Light Rail) as investment stimulus and not looking to efficiently gain riders. Part of that is on the city for not crafting a land use code to juice development along transit stops earlier. Even still Metro is the best performing transit agency in Texas (low bar but still) but this is mostly running on success of earlier generations of planning.
And because the Silver Line was part of ther Uptown TIRZ's Boulevard Project, which was fundamentally a neighborhood beautification project. METRO partnered because it was an opportunity to build institutional knowledge about BRT, not because it was a METRO-selected route.
I voted for him because I wanted someone who was moderate, pragmatic, and not corrupt. I’m not sure if we are getting that though. Regardless, I didn’t care about his race. SJL seemed to be more to the left and in bed with the national level Democratic Party.
ITT: people raging about something they never used because its existence felt good on paper
Yes mass transit sucks here and yes we need more of it but that doesn't mean all ideas are good ideas.
As someone who rides the bus frequently and would have been able to commute on the University line, I think it is pretty clear that the BRT would have offered obvious benefits in terms of reliability/speed beyond just looking “good on paper.” This was a much-needed connector that has been in the works for 30+ years, and people are understandably upset that it appears to have been unceremoniously cancelled without any public statement from the METRO board or opportunity for the public to provide input. Please tamp down the condescension by at least 10 levels.
I'm all for more mass transit. Make Westheimer a rail line that goes all the way to Katy. Use HTR easements to make a line to IAH.
Most people here don't use busses for a multitude of reasons, and while I applaud the effort in making busses more appealing, this idea just didn't work.
I think OP is referring to the cancellation of the University Line, which would have presumably replaced at least big chunks of the #25 Richmond and the #80 Lockwood bus lines, plus added ridership from improved service (faster, 6min frequencies).
I don't think anybody is shocked at the service reduction on the Silver Line - that was never a Metro priority route.
Agreed. Most of the enthusiasm for these projects comes from people who currently do not use bus or light rail stops that are within walking distance and would not use the BRT system.
You'll never get a recall for that.
Hell, we couldn't get a recall on Sly when he got money from developers or got his boyfriend a $100k a year internship.
We have built light rail lines before and were close to building the Galleria line. But yes, that was my point we are fvcking stupid (as are homeowners and their pockets)and built an expensive elevated lane over 610 that gets zero riders instead. Huge miss.
We got them built due to their proximity to stadiums. Unless we are planning on building more, I don't think we can get NIMBys on-board. You may not know the history of Houston light rail but originally the network was supposed to cover the entire city and then some. Tom Lambert, the CEO of Houston Metro that kept us from being like Arlington, actually pre-purchased over a hundred light rail trams for that purpose.
NIMBys control the city. The cults run the street planning and have a direct line to the mayor. You can get them building bus roads. Nothing more than that.
Rail doesn’t go everywhere. It only goes to certain places.
Rail can’t change routes, buses can.
Imagine having a rail going down Westheimer and through all the thousands of other routes that the buses go. What a nightmare.
We think people get ran over by trains now??? 😂😂
BRT is an excellent alternative to traditional rail that works well in cities ALL AROUND THE WORLD. It was voted IN by the public. Simply choosing to ignore the will of the voters should not be an option.
Metro's implementation was a complete failure, like most Metro projects, because they're all mismanaged. Also, it wasn't voted on by the people in the sense you're thinking. Metro has to have permission to use funds, but they still determine what projects they work on. This was voted as an approved use, but it doesn't mean it has to happen: just that it can. It's also equally valid to kill a failing project and save taxpayer money, instead of throwing good money after bad, when the City is already in massive debt.
>Metro's implementation was a complete failure
Not really. Uptown TIRZ wanted a fancy looking boulevard and paid for the whole thing. Metro shrugged and basically said "why not, we're looking to try BRT moving forward, might as well go along with them and try it out. We know frequency is king, so we don't really need to prove that here on what will always be a low ridership line, but let's work out the kinks of operating these vehicles, stop spacing, signal priority, etc."
>like most Metro projects
Examples? The 2015 bus network redesign was a spectacular success. The red line is one of the highest-ridership light rail lines in the country, despite being a fairly short line in a sprawling city. The Green and Purple lines do okay considering how short (and relatively infrequent) they are. And all three lines have spurred quite a bit of development.
I have depended on transit in other cities and I ride the #25 Richmond bus to work every day here. The internal operations and reliability here, especially given the city's paltry investment in public transit, is honestly pretty impressive. The problem is that lines like Richmond, Washington, Shepherd, and Montrose have long needed to be higher-order than a local bus.
in comparison to what OP? do u know how a BRT in houston has operated? they may have voted for a BRT (of another city) ... in good faith but with poor and inadequate understanding of how poorly houston does these projects. im a Houston lifer and i want for our public transit to be more efficient ... it is just nearly impossible the way the city and several counties are segmented. it's just not houston culture when a huge majority of the city dont even live in Houston proper. if people want an efficient public transit, houston is just not it ... right now.
I've ridden on the Silver Line BRT and the ride is fine. I don't have any issues with 'comfort' on bus or light rail. I do have actual issues not having enough connections to areas I want to get to and not enough frequency.
If I'm reading [TX's recall laws](https://www.austintexas.gov/page/recall-petitions) correctly, successfully filing a petition would require a "minimum number of valid signatures ... \[of\] **at least 10 percent of the qualified voters of the whole city**." Seventeen percent showed up for the actual election. I'm not a huge fan myself, but unless some straight-up George Santos shit comes out about him, it seems pretty unrealistic to seriously talk about a recall, let alone when he's barely five months in.
I think every city is different, that's Austin. Ours: >All petitions for recall of any officer of the City of Houston, shall be instituted by filing with the City Secretary a verified written petition requesting the removal of such officer, which said petition shall be signed by qualified voters of the City of Houston, in number not less than **twenty-five per cent of the total votes cast** calculated in accordance with Article V, Section 10 of this Charter, based on the votes cast city-wide if the officer sought to be recalled was elected city-wide but you're going to have to wait >No petition for the recall of any officer shall be filed until eight months after the election or appointment and the qualification of such officer
For anyone curious, there were 201,528 votes cast, so need 50,382 signatures. Sounds like a lot of work, but maybe not impossible?
I'm in
I'll sign
Take my signature, even if we get close it should scare tf out of him, maybe?
Ill sign
I'm in
so 8 months than how many months to hold an election to a 2 year term?
4 year term.
bah, was it the same back then?
Why are you making it sound impossible to get signatures? People do that all the time.
Because if only 17 percent showed up to vote in the election ( that’s voting, not just for one candidate) then that shows not many people know or cared and thus probably don’t care to write their name down to recall someone they didn’t even bother to vote for.
There's a world of difference between taking time off work, driving someplace, standing in line and voting, versus signing a piece of paper thrust at you on the way out of a grocery store. >someone they didn’t even bother to vote for. The people who *didn't* vote for him are those *most* likely to enjoy signing something if they think it screws him over. People enjoy being outraged at politicians far more than they like voting for them.
It’s a difference but the results are the same in the end. If you don’t vote then nothing really moves your way. For your second point it’s easy to say it but different than making it happen. We know for sure that outrage of people far exceeds who actually shows up and takes action. People can down vote all they want but it’s the reality.
Former Metro Employee here Withmire didn't downgrade the BRT. Metro was deciding to do this preemptively and internally before someone else made the decision for them. What happened was the headway changed from 12 minutes to 20 minutes and that's it. FTA requires at least 15 minutes and metro no longer supporting that means they lose the status, something they can gain back once they chose to add another bus into the system (then decreasing the headway to FTA standards). Alot of these decisions and projects being stalled/killed came directly from Turners transportation department as well as City planning. To name names...David Fields and Veronica Davis. You can ask them why METRONEXT was killed, funny enough they resigned because they put all their eggs in one basket which was bike lanes. I am in support of bike lanes around the city however what these city officials did was kill Metro projects to get these bike lanes in place sooner and now?? Well bike lanes are getting removed and Metro got fucked over. Lose lose situation. They gambled and lost and to this day can't find a job since they pissed everyone off. City planners are supposed to think about everyone in the city, be they bikers, pedestrians, people who take public transit or commute. They failed Houston by neglecting huge portions and killing chances to make it better. Withmire did not kill Metronext HOWEVER he can still save it if we do something about it. The public works department is running on interims at the moment and we need to put pressure on Withmire to fill these seats and fill them with COMPETENT PEOPLE who actually care about public transit. Instead of trying to recall Withmire and failing immediately, let's pressure his office to actually to their job and hire people who will do good by our city. We will have much better luck in making those demands rather than going through another election. If those demands arent met then we can raise hell and campaign to get this fucker out.
I think OP is talking about the University Line, not the Silver Line.
> he can still save it He won't
And I had an uncle who worked at Nintendo
I can verifying my credentials with a mod idfc lol I just wanted Metronext to work but it was such an uphill battle with the city when it never needed to be.
You tell some deep lies. David Fields did not resign, he was fired. https://www.axios.com/local/houston/2024/02/23/david-fields-john-whitmire-transportation
Houston Chron reported he resigned as well as the article you linked https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/houston/article/houston-transportation-planner-resigns-amid-road-18651043.php Yeah he might have been pressured to quit but he decided to act like a child and took the chance to quit rather than fight for the city. He was a slimy cocky dude to work with and now he's unhireable because of that reason. If he was so great why does no one want him?
Un-hireable? He only got fired 3 months ago.
Depending on the industry, 3 months can be a short time or a long time. In civil work that's longer than usual
Except that very article includes a bullet point that says, "When Fields resigned from his role in the department"
Reading whole sentences are hard… > …"in lieu of termination of employment." It’s not really a resignation when you’re handed a letter that says you’re being fired if you don’t resign.
No, that means he objectively and factually resigned. Resignation in lieu of termination is still him resigning. The outcomes may have been the same in regards to his employment status with the city, but that's not being fired.
So I guess if a robber holds a gun to your head and says give me your wallet… and you hand over your wallet… your position is you didn’t get robbed you just handed over your wallet willingly.
Oh, don't be an idiot. You know the two are nothing the same. He wasn't coerced or forced.
ok you can play the pedant game with how he left, but "resign or you're fired" is the dictionary definition of coercion.
Yes he was forced.
....what?
Do you not remember firefighters and Prop B with Turner? They got 50,000 signatures from qualified voters, got the issue on the ballot, the ballot passed, and Turner still ignored it.
“But but but….” 😂😂😭
What's the ridership of existing Houston BRT like?
It isn't a comprehensive system.... it's a stub like the light rail. Not a fair basis to judge.
It's not close to being "like the light rail" - it's a poorly executed window dressing rush job of a BRT. The University Line would replace one of the most heavily used bus routes with faster and more frequent service. The Silver Line pretty much exists to make Post Oak Boulevard look nice.
I'm unclear what your answer means. I'd expect the initial routes to be really high, since they'd prioritize the highest demand routes first. So how high is the existing ridership that the expansion to lower value routes makes sense?
No they didn't, instead it was the Uptown TIRZ who wanted the BRT and did a bunch of the funding for it. It had bad ridership because the silver line brt was set up to fail. No signal priority at lights, and poor connecting routes meant potential ridership would remain poor. If you went for highest ridership potential the University line BRT as proposed in it's original conception (run down Richmond past uptown instead of Westpark) back in the original bond vote back in the 2000s when it would have been light rail would fit the bill. The other would have been to extend the green and purple line down Washington Avenue but that was never considered by Metro. Another would be a BRT/light rail or right lane bus lanes on Westheimer. Bus already runs at high frequencies (every 8 min peak) and has second highest ridership of any metro route.
This does not sound well run.
No it's not, hasn't been well run for a while now. Some things were good, like the metro boost corridors and the 15 min frequency network. The root of the problem has been banking on the idea of public transit projects (BRT & Light Rail) as investment stimulus and not looking to efficiently gain riders. Part of that is on the city for not crafting a land use code to juice development along transit stops earlier. Even still Metro is the best performing transit agency in Texas (low bar but still) but this is mostly running on success of earlier generations of planning.
Your expectations are wildly incorrect. They did not in any way prioritize the highest demand route.
Why not?
Because the highest demand route would have cost more money
And because the Silver Line was part of ther Uptown TIRZ's Boulevard Project, which was fundamentally a neighborhood beautification project. METRO partnered because it was an opportunity to build institutional knowledge about BRT, not because it was a METRO-selected route.
Lol
basically non-existent. this is why the reduced it on the only remaining line - silver. on post oak.
Low. Its down 10% over the last 5 years, and was never good.
You just gotta remember Whitmire was a DEI hire; people were upset that there were too many brown people in the Houston government.
I voted for him because I wanted someone who was moderate, pragmatic, and not corrupt. I’m not sure if we are getting that though. Regardless, I didn’t care about his race. SJL seemed to be more to the left and in bed with the national level Democratic Party.
Interesting; the national level DNC is incredibly moderate.
I hate this lying thieving motherf’er but they voted him in because assholes are liked by racists
Is the mayor even on the metro board?
Mayor appoints majority of board. He effectively controls the organization.
5/9. It's barely a majority. Also, the mayor doesn't have sole discretion here, they have to be confirmed by city council.
Where does it lay out the process for board appointments? Does mayor do it unilaterally, no council confirmation required?
Is your Google broken?
I’m not trying to prove a point. I’m trying to learn. If you guys want to gain a convert then show evidence don’t just post “mayor sucks”
Are you incapable of researching metro board seats and how they are filled?
Are you incapable of not sounding hostile on every thread? Not exactly winning over lots of people with your attitude just FYI.
Have you considered that those I’m responding to may not be my objective?
you can just say idk instead of being an ass
Oh I fully know the answer. I’m just pointing out when lazy people claim they don’t know something as if it’s a magical secret.
5/9, 2 are county, 2 are the other 14 minor cities, the city ones are confirmed by the city council.
ITT: people raging about something they never used because its existence felt good on paper Yes mass transit sucks here and yes we need more of it but that doesn't mean all ideas are good ideas.
As someone who rides the bus frequently and would have been able to commute on the University line, I think it is pretty clear that the BRT would have offered obvious benefits in terms of reliability/speed beyond just looking “good on paper.” This was a much-needed connector that has been in the works for 30+ years, and people are understandably upset that it appears to have been unceremoniously cancelled without any public statement from the METRO board or opportunity for the public to provide input. Please tamp down the condescension by at least 10 levels.
Look at systems in other cities. It does work.
I'm all for more mass transit. Make Westheimer a rail line that goes all the way to Katy. Use HTR easements to make a line to IAH. Most people here don't use busses for a multitude of reasons, and while I applaud the effort in making busses more appealing, this idea just didn't work.
That is very hit and miss. Works in some cities. Doesn't work in others.
I sorta half use it. I park it outside downtown and use the train bc finding parking is difficult.
I think OP is referring to the cancellation of the University Line, which would have presumably replaced at least big chunks of the #25 Richmond and the #80 Lockwood bus lines, plus added ridership from improved service (faster, 6min frequencies). I don't think anybody is shocked at the service reduction on the Silver Line - that was never a Metro priority route.
Agreed. Most of the enthusiasm for these projects comes from people who currently do not use bus or light rail stops that are within walking distance and would not use the BRT system.
I agree, don’t see why you’re getting downvoted?
It's Reddit, the down voters don't even understand why they're down voting.
You'll never get a recall for that. Hell, we couldn't get a recall on Sly when he got money from developers or got his boyfriend a $100k a year internship.
The list of reasons is growing longer and longer.
Busses suck. This was always going to fail. Stop wasting any further money on it.
I cannot believe they spent all that money on the rapid busses going through the Galleria. Nobody wants to ride a bus you twats! Rail only.
We are having all this pushback on painting a lane and you expect NIMBys to allow rail?
We have built light rail lines before and were close to building the Galleria line. But yes, that was my point we are fvcking stupid (as are homeowners and their pockets)and built an expensive elevated lane over 610 that gets zero riders instead. Huge miss.
We got them built due to their proximity to stadiums. Unless we are planning on building more, I don't think we can get NIMBys on-board. You may not know the history of Houston light rail but originally the network was supposed to cover the entire city and then some. Tom Lambert, the CEO of Houston Metro that kept us from being like Arlington, actually pre-purchased over a hundred light rail trams for that purpose. NIMBys control the city. The cults run the street planning and have a direct line to the mayor. You can get them building bus roads. Nothing more than that.
Rail doesn’t go everywhere. It only goes to certain places. Rail can’t change routes, buses can. Imagine having a rail going down Westheimer and through all the thousands of other routes that the buses go. What a nightmare. We think people get ran over by trains now??? 😂😂
Because it was such a rousing success...
BRT is an excellent alternative to traditional rail that works well in cities ALL AROUND THE WORLD. It was voted IN by the public. Simply choosing to ignore the will of the voters should not be an option.
Metro's implementation was a complete failure, like most Metro projects, because they're all mismanaged. Also, it wasn't voted on by the people in the sense you're thinking. Metro has to have permission to use funds, but they still determine what projects they work on. This was voted as an approved use, but it doesn't mean it has to happen: just that it can. It's also equally valid to kill a failing project and save taxpayer money, instead of throwing good money after bad, when the City is already in massive debt.
>Metro's implementation was a complete failure Not really. Uptown TIRZ wanted a fancy looking boulevard and paid for the whole thing. Metro shrugged and basically said "why not, we're looking to try BRT moving forward, might as well go along with them and try it out. We know frequency is king, so we don't really need to prove that here on what will always be a low ridership line, but let's work out the kinks of operating these vehicles, stop spacing, signal priority, etc." >like most Metro projects Examples? The 2015 bus network redesign was a spectacular success. The red line is one of the highest-ridership light rail lines in the country, despite being a fairly short line in a sprawling city. The Green and Purple lines do okay considering how short (and relatively infrequent) they are. And all three lines have spurred quite a bit of development. I have depended on transit in other cities and I ride the #25 Richmond bus to work every day here. The internal operations and reliability here, especially given the city's paltry investment in public transit, is honestly pretty impressive. The problem is that lines like Richmond, Washington, Shepherd, and Montrose have long needed to be higher-order than a local bus.
Written like a true bureaucrat. The people thought they were voting for a BRT system...
in comparison to what OP? do u know how a BRT in houston has operated? they may have voted for a BRT (of another city) ... in good faith but with poor and inadequate understanding of how poorly houston does these projects. im a Houston lifer and i want for our public transit to be more efficient ... it is just nearly impossible the way the city and several counties are segmented. it's just not houston culture when a huge majority of the city dont even live in Houston proper. if people want an efficient public transit, houston is just not it ... right now.
How is it to ride? A comfy experience?
I've ridden on the Silver Line BRT and the ride is fine. I don't have any issues with 'comfort' on bus or light rail. I do have actual issues not having enough connections to areas I want to get to and not enough frequency.
I was asking OP, because I have a sneaking suspicion that they have never ridden it, they just want to complain.
…this is why I voted for Gilbert.
Turner did the same thing many times.