Houston METRO pays $150K to remove elevated bus stops that were initially installed for safety

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The city's only floating bus stops have been removed. They were part of the 11th Street improvement project in the Houston Historic Heights District.

The measures were first put in to improve safety and are now being removed for the same reason.

The purpose was to protect the bike lane and make it easier for people to get onto the bus, but everyone who spoke to ABC13 said all it did was create a mess.

"It was really confusing. I didn't understand what it was for," Shawn Roe, a cyclist, said.

Roe cycles along Heights Boulevard just about every day. He said that in the few months that the elevated bus stops were in, his typical commute became chaos.

"I have also seen several cars wreck into it. Like in the night, it was hard to see there is no sign saying it was there or anything like that," Roe said.

The city installed the unique bus stops as part of the 11th Street redesign aimed at improving safety. ABC13 reached out to public works and the city's chief transportation planner but was told to contact METRO, so we don't know how much it cost to install these stops.

Roe said regardless of how much it costs, it's a waste.

"I think they should have not done it in the first place. Seems like a waste of money," Roe said.

METRO said their safety team decided the stops were unsafe and offered up the $150,000 needed to remove them.

"Some things work. Some things don't work. We take corrective action, and that's what we're doing here," Traci Jackson, with METRO, said.

Emily Guyer is with the Houston Heights Association, the group that advocated for their removal.

"We watched several of our neighbors run their cars right into them, metro buses have hit them, and they just because a hindrance," Guyer said.

Guyer is glad METRO listened, and they can focus on the next safety project.

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