Bus Runs At West Bellfort Ave. And Willowbend Blvd.

[DrFood]

Curious if anyone on here works for Metro or knows the best contact to actually get something done about modifying a route to make more sense. At least to me as a layperson it makes more sense.

W. Bellfort is now completely through from Highway 6 to Fannin South. The last segment between S. Main and Buffalo Speedway was just opened. The currently bus line on W. Bellfort is the Number 8, South Main, route. It takes you down W. Bellfort to Stella Link and up Stella Link to S. Braeswood to S. Main to TMC Station to Wheeler Station. Now am I just not thinking logically. Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to run the route from W. Bellfort P&R (or wherever the inception of the route is) to Fannin South and then back out W. Bellfort? I do not see the purpose of a bus running to TMC and then Wheeler on a parallel route to the LRT. If you dump the riders at Fannin South they can take the LRT to TMC or Wheeler or wherever they need to end up. I know it would certainly cut some wear and tear on the busses and on S. Main. Also, you would not have busses dumping folks at Wheeler who trample the grass simply to get on the LRT.

The same thing could be done once Willowbend is opened up to Buffalo Speeway.

Like I said I'm no transit expert but it appears the use of a "hub and spoke" type system feeding the LRT at various centers such as Fannin South and TMZ and Wheeler would make a lot more sense than running bus routes to the stations and then parallel to the train just hopping and skipping stations. Are we that freaking lazy we can't walk an extra block?

Course of I had my way they would simply run light rail down the middle of W. Bellfort from Hwy 6 to connect with a system to Hobby airport. W. Bellfort has HUGE esplanades with room to run a system on it.

[MetroMogul]

Curious if anyone on here works for Metro or knows the best contact to actually get something done about modifying a route to make more sense. At least to me as a layperson it makes more sense.

W. Bellfort is now completely through from Highway 6 to Fannin South. The last segment between S. Main and Buffalo Speedway was just opened. The currently bus line on W. Bellfort is the Number 8, South Main, route. It takes you down W. Bellfort to Stella Link and up Stella Link to S. Braeswood to S. Main to TMC Station to Wheeler Station. Now am I just not thinking logically. Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to run the route from W. Bellfort P&R (or wherever the inception of the route is) to Fannin South and then back out W. Bellfort? I do not see the purpose of a bus running to TMC and then Wheeler on a parallel route to the LRT. If you dump the riders at Fannin South they can take the LRT to TMC or Wheeler or wherever they need to end up. I know it would certainly cut some wear and tear on the busses and on S. Main. Also, you would not have busses dumping folks at Wheeler who trample the grass simply to get on the LRT.

The same thing could be done once Willowbend is opened up to Buffalo Speeway.

Like I said I'm no transit expert but it appears the use of a "hub and spoke" type system feeding the LRT at various centers such as Fannin South and TMZ and Wheeler would make a lot more sense than running bus routes to the stations and then parallel to the train just hopping and skipping stations. Are we that freaking lazy we can't walk an extra block?

Course of I had my way they would simply run light rail down the middle of W. Bellfort from Hwy 6 to connect with a system to Hobby airport. W. Bellfort has HUGE esplanades with room to run a system on it.

Well good sir, the reason for your gripe is because the lineage for these routes dates back to the Rapid Transit era, pre Metro and pre HouTran, when both of these runs were part of a huge hooked route called the 10 - S. Main/Jensen. The Jensen portion had five or six branches that would later be pruned and turned into standalone routes. The S. Main portion had a number of short turns and the Willowbend and Bellfort branches along with an Astroworld loop. After Metro stabilized in the early 80s they began to look at huge routes like the 10 - Jensen/Main, 48 - Washington/Navigation, and the 80 - Dowling/Lyons with several branches and spin them off into separate routes. This process continued throughout the 90s and early 2000s with the elimination of all short turns and the elimination of most branches if they could not be spun off into separate routes.

Now how does this tie into your query? Well, for about 20 years, after the dismantling of the 10 - Jensen/Main, the 8 - South Main (with the Willowbend and Bellfort branches) operated as a thru route with the 8 - North Main necessitating what would later become duplication with the LRT. A few years after the LRT opened, the 8 - S. Main was disconnected from the North Main portion and tied to what is now the 66 - Yale. That pairing didn't last long and they eliminated all 8 trips to downtown and truncated the line at Wheeler Station. In the meantime the Willowbend portion had been spun off into it's own route and it's northern terminus was the TMC to allow riders to transfer to/from the LRT. The routing of the modern 8 and 10 are remnants of when nearly every bus went downtown. Perhaps one day Metro will have the 73 run from end to end on Bellfort but that's likely years away.