TONY MARTINEZ BLOWS OFF MPO MEETING AS DETAILS OF MPO MERGER REVEALED

Board members for the Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee seemed unprepared for Chairman Tony Martinez simply blowing off the meeting with no notice.  

Quickly gathering themselves. Board Member Eddie Hernandez was selected to fill in as chair.

While much of the meeting was devoted to slight adjustments in the description of a multitude of projects, two issues of note were discussed; upgrading the city's bus stops and the MPO merger.

A survey was done of the city's 588 bus stops, determining which had sidewalks, covering shelter and were ADA compliant.  If you're taken back by that number, consider that many are "bus stops" are simply signs on a pole as pictured at left.  

Brownsville Metro's Norma Zamora said 53 of the city's bus stops would eventually be improved with 11 of those projects already completed.  She stated that 1.6 riders use the system annually.

The bus service has subscribed to Ride Systems, an app that allows riders to determine exactly where their bus is on the route and it's estimated arrival time and receive an alarm as their bus nears.  Riders must download the app on their phone to access that information.(Ride Systems received 206 very mixed reviews online.)

Pete Alvarez, representing the Pharr office of TxDot, shared details of the recent merger of the three RGV MPOs.

The agreement to merge was signed April 24, 2019 and submitted to TxDot the following day, then presented to the governor's office May 6 for final review.

Governor Abbot plans a trip to the valley late May, early June to announce the merger.  

The bylaws for the new MPO need to be worked out with a new Executive Director named.

The new MPO should be operational by October 1, 2019 and should be viewed as one RGV MPO with 3 subregions.