livincinco

That only occurs if the House provides general funding without specific conditions. The House can put specific conditions on funding that restricts the ability of the Executive Branch to spend. It's commonly referred to as an "earmark" and it happens way too frequently. https://earmarks.omb.gov/earmarks-public/earmarks_definition.html Just to clarify, I'm not saying that I agree with what Culberson is doing, I'm just saying that it's completely inside his authority to do it.

Anyone that includes the word "Heights" in the name of anything in Houston should consider enrolling in a geography class. I suggest Tampico Flood Plain instead.

Nice to hear anecdotal evidence, but the numbers don't agree with the anecdotes. The 2010 census reported a 41% increase in work from home over the 2000 census with almost 10% of workers working from home at least one day a week. http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/04/news/economy/work-from-home/ 67% of companies allow at least some employees to work from home, up from 50% in 2008 with 38% of employees allowing at least some employees to work from home on a regular basis. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-getting-easier-for-boomers-to-work-at-home-2014-05-28 Houston had a higher percentage of workers that worked from home in 2012 than used public transit to commute (3.5% vs. 2.6%) Dallas-Ft. Worth had over 3x as many workers work from home in 2012 than used public transit to commute (4.6% vs. 1.5%) http://www.demographia.com/db-2012jtw.pdf

That's awfully close to being an amazingly racist comment, but I'll withhold judgement and allow you to elaborate.

Work from home seems to be the piece that is commonly ignored in transportation discussions. There was considerable coverage of Yahoo's decision to abandon a flexible work schedule, but the only reason that it even deserved any coverage is that it was one company moving counter to the rapidly growing trend. Huge value in providing tax incentives to companies that support work from home and flexible work schedules.

There will certainly always be rush hour traffic and roads will be at capacity at that time. The question is whether you can increase the utilization of roads during off-peak hours to maximize efficiency. While I agree that most people need to be at work during certain hours, what those hours are can definitely vary depending on the role. If a high percentage of your work that involves collaboration with the West Coast, those hours that you need to be at work are different than if you collaborate locally. A 10-7 schedule is highly desirable for the company in that situation.

You're not trying to shift everyone, you're just trying to shift a percentage.

It was really unfortunate that legal issues necessitated the liquidation of John O'Quinn's estate. His intent was to donate his collection to form what would have been a world class auto museum. Unfortunately, sometimes things don't work out the way that they are planned and the vast majority of the collection was sold at auction. http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Car-collection-s-fate-uncertain-after-O-Quinn-s-1725043.php

There tends to be a huge focus on the red state/blue state "divide", but, to your point, it's really an urban - suburban/rural divide. Urban areas, regardless of the state they are located in, are generally more progressive and suburban/rural areas are generally more conservative. Gerrymandering frequently takes advantage of that by weighting districts with the desired proportions of such voters. In the last decade, the suburbs have become considerably more diverse than they have been historically which raises the question of what the political impact will be. My guess is that the suburbs will continue to trend more conservative regardless of ethnicity and the Republican party will diversify as a result. One could argue the opposite will occur, but historically the country tends to self-correct when one party gains too much power. I expect that pattern will continue to hold, despite the best efforts of the Republicans to self-destruct.

One of the advantages of congestion charges is giving people a financial interest to shift their commute patterns to move outside of the traditional peak times. For example, if congestion pricing convinces x% of people to move to a 6am - 3pm schedule instead of an 8am - 5pm schedule, you have a significant reduction in congestion. That's a potential immediate impact regardless of transit alternatives.

It's not Culberson's job to determine if METRO qualifies for transportation funds. It's the FTA's job. With all due respect, that's not correct. The power to appropriate money is exclusively a function of the legislative branch and is specifically a function of the House Appropriations Committee of which Culberson is a member. The FTA is part of the executive branch and is charged with dispensing the funds in accordance with the laws set by the legislature. Denying Congress the ability to set conditions to how money is authorized is a significant rewrite of the Constitution.

The problem with the whole discussion of Culberson though is that, once we get past the blind hatred, he does have a point. METRO has a very poor track record with managing large projects and I think pretty much everyone agrees that they did a poor job managing the funds that they were allocated from the 2003 election. I'm also not overly impressed with the job that they're doing on the current projects either. There's a school of thought that since this is federal money, it's "free" money, but there's a fiduciary responsibility to spend it effectively and I don't think that it is wrong of Culberson to demand that accountability. NOTE - this is not related to Culberson's stance regarding rail on Richmond.

I think that it's probably just a function of maximizing construction dollars. HCTRA was really created to execute projects where there wasn't sufficient state funding to move forward. In these cases, allowing the state to take over construction and management of these lanes might allow HCTRA to execute projects that it might not have been able to get to otherwise.

You all are making it sound like this is a new thing or a Texas only thing. Congressional districts have been manipulated during redistricting by both parties all over the country for over 200 years.

If you ask for federal funding than I get just as much of a say as you do and so does every other US voter. If you fund it at city level, then I get no say. However you might want to remember that only about 25% of the population of the city lives inside the loop. Living inside the loop has no impact on this discussion.

Just when I thought the level of conversation couldn't go any lower, you had to go ahead and prove me wrong. Duh is a brilliant conclusion to any argument...that is being held on the playground of a middle school.

IMO, it's just an extension of the same multi-family construction trend that's happening across the country.

From what I could see, SJ Lee's amendment does nothing to impact the language Culberson put into the original bill.

You're right. He's consistently acted to kill funding for the University line and he gets consistently re-elected. He's up for re-election again this year. If he gets re-elected again, it's pretty hard to argue that his constituents don't understand what they're doing.

Agreed. However, I think that you'll also agree that METRO's track record in doing so has not been particularly good.

I do not live in the city of Houston. However, I do live in the Houston-Sugarland-The Woodlands MSA, so yes, I am in Houston.

It's exactly the way that the federal government is designed to work. Read Federalist #10, it talks about why Congress is designed this way in depth. The problem is that Congress is designed to deal with issues of national interest, not local projects. You have one individual in the House that is passionate about this and a vast majority of the house that could care less because It has no relevance to them. Projects like this should never be discussed at a federal level for exactly that reason, it's a distortion of our system of government. The city is not being held hostage by Culberson. The federal funding is being held hostage by Culberson. He has no say if it gets funded by either the state or the local government. If the city wants the project that badly, then fund it at one of those levels.

It's not exactly a secret that Culberson is against the University line. If you're in his district and you vote for him, it's pretty reasonable to expect that he will take an anti-rail stance. As a Congressman , his job is to represent his district, not the city.

The sidewalks in my neighborhood are great, but I suppose it's politically incorrect to say that.

METRO has a horrible track record executing projects. Not sure why people are surprised that this one is poorly executed too.