Downtown Businesses Lobby For Nighttime Shuttle Service

Here are some of the problems with heading to downtown Houston at night: “Where will we park?” and “How much will it cost?” are at the top of the list. Biking at night isn’t practical for those of us who live in the suburbs. There are some scary and empty sections of downtown, which intimidate people who might want to walk alone from, say, Bayou Place on the west side of downtown to House of Blues on the east side. And cabs can cost a fortune. (This past Friday night, I was quoted $51 (plus tip) for a one-way, 20-mile cab ride from downtown to my house.)

The upshot is that driving a car downtown is, for many of us, non-negotiable. Add the fact that hopping from one place to another downtown will incur multiple parking fees and … hey, let’s just hit some place on Kirby, okay?

On a recent visit to Reserve 101,  I parked in the lot next door and paid the $10 parking fee. I was there to interview Reserve 101 co-owner Mike Raymond. It was then that I first heard about an effort to get a downtown shuttle service running at night. His next-door business neighbor, Dirt Bar co-owner Lea McKinney, is spearheading the effort, which is heating up. Lea also co-owns El Gran Malo, a tequila bar in the outskirts of The Heights.

You’d think that the Downtown District would be all in favor of this, right? After all, if people were reasonably assured that they wouldn’t have to walk several blocks or pay multiple parking fees to get from one place to the other, downtown Houston would be a more vibrant, exciting, business-friendly scene, right?

The idea is for the existing free Greenlink shuttle to extend their hours and run a pilot program on Friday and Saturday nights until 3 am. At the moment, the Greenlink stops running at 6:30 pm. After meeting with the District though, Raymond said, “We didn’t get as much support as we thought we would.”

Angie Bertinot of the Downtown District says, “It is not that we are not receptive to the idea. It is on our list of considerations as the program moves forward.  The service has been in place only since June of last year and our primary focus is to make the existing route work well.  We plan on reviewing the program with our partners, Houston First and BG Group approximately every six months.

“Also, we have a very specific budget for the program.  It is an expensive undertaking, especially when it is a free service to the public, and we do not have the funds at this time to expand.  Maybe in the future though. The restaurants and bars have recommended selling advertising on the Greenlink buses, but we do not allow that per our agreement with our partners. If it makes sense to expand the Greenlink program to evening and weekends and we can make it work financially, we will absolutely explore the idea. First, we need the existing program to thrive and we are on our way — we’ve had more than 100,000 riders to date.”

McKinney and Raymond—along with a loose coalition that includes Lucrece Borrego of Kitchen Incubator, Haig Tcholakian of Phoenicia Specialty Foods (which opened a downtown location last year) and advocacy group OKRA (owners of The Original OKRA Charity Saloon, which recently opened on Congress)—are looking at other options as well.

They’re talking with the Washington Wave service that already operates downtown Thursday through Sunday nights about adding a route that brings people closer to their businesses. Riding the Wave is not free, but a flat $10 gets you rides all evening.

Still, there are other cities, such as Denver and Nashville, that offer free shuttles at night, and that is McKinney’s ultimate goal for Houston as well. “The Greenlink could connect all of the active areas of Downtown Houston. The Theater District, Bayou Music Center, The Pavilions and House of Blues, The Toyota Center and Discovery Green, Minute Maid Stadium and Market Square could all be part of one viable destination. We believe that if people could come and park in one place then travel safely from venue to venue without having to move their car, wait on a cab or walk through dark areas that they would come downtown more often. Also, visitors would be able to experience more of what we have to offer in a comprehensive and convenient manner.”

That’s not all McKinney is doing. She’s also trying to negotiate parking rates from $3 to $5 with garages, and to encourage people to come give downtown businesses a try she’s proposing a big pub crawl weekend. “People can park in a garage, hop the shuttle and go to bars and restaurants. We’d have a printed map and would hope to work with a big company in order to sponsor it.”

McKinney and her partners have a grand vision for what downtown Houston should become. “We see no reason why Downtown Houston shouldn’t be One Neighborhood, a showpiece and point of pride and revenue and a one stop entertainment destination.”

Plenty of other cities have a downtown like that. Why shouldn’t we?