METRO transit authority approves new budget with focus on ridership, boosts for microtransit – Houston Public Media

Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media

The Harris County METRO Transit Authority approved a budget for fiscal year 2025 on Thursday. It prioritizes improvements to existing services as public transit ridership in Houston continues to recover from the pandemic-era slump.

METRO Board Chair Elizabeth Brock, appointed this year by Mayor John Whitmire, said the new budget focuses on “making sure that METRO is safer, cleaner, more accessible, on time, reliable.”

“We are excited to report that we are laser-focused on ridership and initiatives that will help us increase ridership,” Brock said.

Since taking office, Brock and the other newly appointed METRO directors have emphasized improvements in existing services in an effort to boost the number of riders, which declined dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The average monthly ridership has increased since the pandemic, but it remains lower than it was before 2020. In 2019, METRO’s bus service saw more than 4.9 million monthly boardings. That plummeted to 3.2 million in 2020 and 2.9 million in 2021. It’s steadily increased over the past few years, with an average of 4.6 million monthly bus boardings so far in 2024.

August 2024 marked the first month since January 2020 with more than 5 million monthly bus boardings. METRO forecasts continued recovery in 2025, with a projected average of 4.9 million monthly bus boardings.

The focus on existing services has led to less ambitious plans for the expansion of bus rapid transit (BRT) lines — a pillar of the METRONext initiative intended to expand rapid transit across Harris County, set in motion before the new leadership took office and funded by a voter-approved $3.5 billion bond in 2019.

Under Brock, METRO spiked plans for the 25-mile University Corridor BRT line that would have connected four colleges and universities. The 2025 budget also included changes to a planned BRT line along the I-10 Inner Katy corridor. The initial Inner Katy plan called for bus-only lanes and new stations, but that’s been clawed back to a shared HOV lane.

METRO also shelved plans for a bike-share network, which the transit agency had planned to spend more than $10 million on after the collapse of Houston BCycle.

Before the budget vote on Thursday, BikeHouston Deputy Director Robin Holzer asked the METRO Board to reinvest in a bike-share initiative.

“It’s not a question of should Houston have a bike-share network, it’s a question of how soon and how well can we do our next bike-share network,” Holzer said.

The new budget includes a $10 million investment in new microtransit shuttle and curb2curb services, increased bus frequency, the purchase of more than 200 new buses to replace an aging fleet, and more than $6 million in funding for increased security services.