If the city eliminates parking and loading zones on Oregon for a new bus route, Jim Scherr said it would probably doom Texas Tower along with its ground-floor tenant, Café Central, Downtown’s premier restaurant.
Many Downtown business people and property owners along Oregon learned just this week of the city’s two-year-old plan to do away with parking and loading zones on Oregon from Downtown’s Third Street to Glory Road.
That is part of a City Hall-Sun Metro plan to make the Smart 101 bus route on Oregon the city’s first installment on a new kind of mass transportation service called bus rapid transit.
The Smart 101 BRT route up Oregon is primarily intended to serve the estimated 5,000 to 7,000 students who come from Ciudad Juarez each weekday to attend classes at the University of Texas at El Paso during the school year.
City Council’s first move on that plan may come Tuesday when council members consider a proposal to make Oregon a two-way street for its entire length, eliminating a half-mile stretch of the street Downtown that is one-way.
Scherr and Mike Breitinger, executive director of Downtown’s Central Business Association, have no problem with that proposal, but they think the Smart 101 route should go up Santa Fe, where parking and loading zones have already been eliminated.
“We are very good citizens in Downtown and are behind the efforts to redevelop Downtown, but the proposal to eliminate loading zones is devastating for our 15-story office building,” Scherr, the building’s owner, said.
“We have three loading zones that are occupied all day long on Oregon and Texas Court, which they have discussed closing. If they take our loading zones, it will close our building.”
With dozens of businesses along Oregon, from Scherr’s office tower to hospitals, medical offices, vintage apartments and an array of small enterprises along Oregon, what Breitinger, Scherr and even City Council members don’t understand is why there was no public notification of the city’s plans.
“This is a mistake we can all be blamed for at City Hall,” said city Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who represents much of the area involved.
After all of the internal discussions and planning sessions, he said, “You start to make unfortunate assumption that everyone knows what you’re talking about.
“We should have gone to the property owners. We didn’t do the out-reach.”
Jane Shang, the new deputy city manager for mobility, has said the plan to is have the Smart 101 line going by March, O’Rourke said.
“We still have five months before the planned roll-out of this, so it does give us some time,” he said. “I am optimistic that we will have it done.
“I have a very strong commitment to getting a rapid-transit system up and running.”
But there are those who wonder whether the demand for a rapid-transit addition to the city’s bus system is coming from El Pasoans or a small group that includes O’Rourke.
“You can’t take something away from people to give them something they didn’t ask for,” Scherr said, referring to the parking and loading zones that businesses now rely on as the loss and rapid transit as the gain.
He thinks the city should use Santa Fe, and so does Breitinger.
Ken
November 14, 2008
Better be careful with Scherr, he will just file suit if he doesn't get his way and make sure he drags out the litigation for years. Good citizen, yea right.
Helen Marshall
November 14, 2008
Why can't the route go up Santa Fe and on up Yandell to Sun Bowl and into UTEP? Seems like a no-brainer to me. And the City has been planning this for two years without talking to the business community?
DJ
November 14, 2008
The stated figure that 7000 students commute daily from Juarez to UTEP needs to be questioned. It seems this "fact" was used to justify the need for this route and I personally think it's grossly over inflated.
I just checked some published statistics on UTEP's website and they claim a foreign student enrollment of about 11%, with 20,000 total enrollment that makes it a bit over 2,000 foreign students. I thought it would be higher, but those numbers are verified in several places and a call to a university office for information supported them
We know that not all foreign students are from Mexico, as I've had the pleasure to meet many from Asia and Africa in our community, which would take away from that 2,000 figure.
Also, I think we also can conclude that many of the Mexican citizen students who attend UTEP actually live here in El Paso. Now, there is a possibility that US citizens who are UTEP students live in Juarez, but how many?
I'm sure transit planners have some statistics they use to determine mass transit usage, but considering the number of Chihuahua license plates in UTEP parking lots, it's clear many students have cars and most will continue to use them, bus route or not.
Granted, some of this is speculative on my part, but that 7,000 number is just too large to be real. It needs to be questioned. I would be surprised if there's a thousand.
While I am all for improved mass transit in El Paso, this plan does seem to solve a problem that doesn't exist, at the expense of businesses and residents. We must also consider that in this economy, with increased costs and peso devaluation, many fewer Mexicans will be able to afford an education in Texas schools.
I guess the City should do what it always does, go hire a consultant from out of town for $100,000 to do a study of the issue without ever coming here, and then deliver a report that justifies whatever outcome they were told to find. Someone from City Hall just going to talk to UTEP students that commute over the bridge to see what they need would just be too easy.
Ken G
November 14, 2008
Progress can be messy
Ron Stewart
November 15, 2008
Mr. Sherr should consider loading from the alley, not the front door.
Enrique Medrano
November 16, 2008
Why does this "rapid transit" bus route require that no parking or loading zones be allowed on either side of Oregon Street?
What number of daily riders on this "rapid transit" bus route is anticipated by Sun Metro? After all, this is a short route between downtown and UTEP.
Will the buses on this route be making stops between downtown and UTEP? The number of daily riders will be considerably fewer on a bus route that makes no stops between downtown and UTEP.
Ultimately, the determinative question on this proposal must be whether the anticipated convenience to the riders of this "rapid transit" bus route outweighs the inconvenience to the owners of the properties, the owners of the businesses, the apartment dwellers, and the customers and patrons of the businesses on South and North Oregon Streets and the crossing streets.
Since the lack of parking and loading zone access can lower the property values of the affected properties and, consequently, property tax revenues, are the benefits of this proposal worth the cost in terms of reduced property tax revenues to all the taxing entities?
Will City Council members demand answers to these questions in considering the proposal to eliminate parking and loading zones on the Oregon Streets "rapid transit" bus route?
Can we hope for a miracle in journalism in El Paso that an El Paso journalist would go out and find out the answers to these questions, rather than just print or broadcast the City's talking points on this proposal?
Rasta
November 18, 2008
Bus rapid transit routes are normally a good distance, not less than 5 miles round trip. "Students" normally go to classes at a certain time and return at a certain time. Is the Rapid Transit bus going to operate all day long or only during peak passenger hours. Seems like much to ask of residents and businesses for such a rinky dink start up of a rapid transit operation.