Lynn Walsh

A story produced for Texas Watchdog:

Metro outpaces HISD on transportation costs; Metro says trend is true nationally
Thu Jul 22 18:47:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

Metro spends more than $270,000 per bus in its fleet, more than seven times the roughly $37,000 per bus that HISD spends, according to a Houston Independent School District analysis that was produced this month.
“I know the cost per bus number difference is quite huge, but to be fair to Metro, they run more routes than we do so that probably explains a good portion of the difference,” said HISD Government Relations Director Rebecca Flores, who produced the analysis. Flores said she included capital costs for both HISD and Metro.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority took issue with the numbers underpinning Flores’ analysis, and said its buses have more amenities, travel more miles and require maintenance that school buses don’t require.

The HISD report said it costs Metro more than $371 million to operate annually, more than nine times the amount of money HISD spends on transportation, just over $41 million annually, the report says.

But according to Andy Skabowski, acting senior vice president of operations for Metro, the operating figure should not have included costs such as rail and the MetroLift service to transport people with disabilities. The more comparable figure is $195 million to operate Metro’s fleet of more than 1,232 buses, he said.

“The operating cost utilized in the HISD report was incorrect,” Skabowski said.

Skabowski questioned the figure HISD used to calculate how many miles per year its buses travel, saying they travel 49 million miles per year. HISD used a figure of 55 million miles, which Metro lists in its 2009 Annual Report.

Still, HISD was right about its overall thesis. According to the report, HISD does spend less money on transportation costs than Metro.

Even using Metro’s figures, the cost per bus would be about $158,000, still higher than HISD’s.

Skabowski said that nationwide the cost to maintain a transit bus is higher than the cost to maintain a school bus.

Why? Skabowski provided the following reasons in an e-mail:

* School buses are not designed for the type of service a transit bus operates. No air conditioning, they have a very basic suspension and minimal interior amenities.
* The mileage a transit bus runs in its 12 year life, (over 500,000 miles), the power plant (engine and transmission will require to be rebuilt in its lifetime. School buses never reach that mileage threshold in the 10 yr design life due to the low miles they are operated (around 100,000 miles).

Flores compiled the report after a comment at an HISD board workshop back in April:

Hisd says they have more buses than Metro and travel more miles than Metro BUT spend less money on transportation than Metro #Hisdless than a minute ago via Ping.fmLynn Walsh
lwalsh

HISD trustees requested more details and received the analysis three months later. HISD used Metro data from the beginning of October 2008 through the end of September 2009; the HISD figures are from the beginning of July 2008 until the end of June 2009.

Contact Lynn Walsh at at 713-228-2850 or lynn@texaswatchdog.org. Follow news about the Houston Independent School District on Twitter, #HISD.

Photo of a school bus by flickr user Michael (mx5tx), used via a Creative Commons license.

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Judge orders Metro not to destroy any documents
Fri Mar 5 18:31:58 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

A judge ordered Metro Friday to not destroy or delete any documents until further investigations can take place.

All physical documents, paper and electronic documents fall into this category, said 61st District Judge Al Bennett, but voicemails do not fall under the order.

The order comes after the agency said certain documents had been shredded. It remains unclear whether the documents included any records responsive to a public records request from former City Controller Lloyd Kelley. Kelley told the Houston Chronicle that the records he received in response were incomplete and sanitized.

In the temporary injunction hearing Friday, Bennett questioned a lawyer for Metro about any policies the agency has involving the destruction of documents. Attorney John Beckworth, with the Houston firm Watt Beckworth Thompson and Henneman, acknowledged that there is not a specific policy like that in place.

Bennett said he was concerned that without a policy in place there is the potential for more documents to be deleted.

In recent weeks Metro officials have admitted that some documents at the agency were destroyed. When Bennett asked Beckworth which documents officials were referring to, Beckworth said the agency has not been able to identify which specific ones were destroyed. In the clip below, a TV news reporter tries to pin Beckworth down on this question.

The lawyers for Metro and Kelley are set to meet on Tuesday with the judge to present proposed language for an order.

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Finishing 5 light rail lines will be tough job, Houston Metro transition chief says
Fri Mar 19 23:57:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

Completing Houston’s five proposed light rail lines is going to be a “very heavy lift.”

That’s the word from James Moncur, the leader of Mayor Annise Parker’s Metro transition committee. “It’s going to be a consistent monitoring analysis process from here on out. It’s going to be a very heavy lift, and I think these board members understand this,” he said.

The board members Moncur is referring to are five nominees Parker named at a press conference on Thursday. The nominees are Gilbert Andrew Garcia, Christof Spieler, Allen Dale Watson, Carrin F. Patman and Dwight E. Jefferson.

Parker said she and the five new board members are committed to building all five of the proposed lines. But both Parker and Moncur said that the time table for completion may have to be adjusted.

Moncur said the completion of the five new rail lines depends on the financial stability of Metro. Financial numbers presented to Moncur and other members of the transition team seem reasonable, Moncur said, but those numbers could change.