Thread by @JoeCutrufo

Why the Houston metro area is overrun by highways and sprawl:

The people who decide how our region spends federal transportation funds mostly represent rural and suburban areas. h-gac.com/getmedia/143b6…

This is the makeup of our MPO's "hugely influential" Transportation Policy Council, which has "considerable sway in setting the agenda" for how Houstonians get around. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

Have you ever asked yourself, "Why doesn't Houston have better transit?" or "Why are they building another highway out in the suburbs?"

It's because Houston and Harris County are outnumbered by surrounding municipalities in a way that is absolutely grotesque.

Take for example Texas City, a city whose population would fit in NRG Stadium with 20,000 seats to spare. They get one vote.

The City of Houston gets 3 votes... but Houston's population is 43 times the size of Texas City's.

Chambers County (1 vote) has 47,000 residents.
Harris County (2 votes) has 4.7 million residents.

Harris County has 100x the population of Chambers County, yet it only gets 2x the number of votes.

Even Metro is shortchanged. The Harris County transit system has 3x the daily riders as Waller County has residents, yet they get the same number of votes.

The Transportation Policy Council's bylaws were last updated in 2013. We can't seriously address climate change and traffic violence in this region if rural and suburban interests continue to have a supermajority.