I grew up in a town — Pinole, California — that was served by no less than three fixed route bus operators. The San Francisco Bay Area as whole has over 50 transit operators. From a passenger standpoint, it can be a mess. Schedules are uncoordinated, transfer stations are confusing, every system has their own map, and it’s not uncommon to need two or three different tickets for one trip. There have been efforts to improve the situation — a single trip planner at transit.511.org (covering most of the important agencies), and a new smart card ticketing system, Translink (accepted by two bus operators) — but it’s still a mess. Just this year, the new Third Street Light Rail in San Francisco opened minus its end station, a transfer to Caltrain commuter rail, because at the same time that MUNI was designing the transfer Caltrain decided to move its part of it.

In Houston, we haven’t had this problem because transit has been dominated by one agency. But as the region grows, that’s changing. METRO’s boundaries were set by the state legislature in 1978, and they reflect the where the limits of suburban growth were back then. Since then, the Woodlands, Sugar Land, and Pearland hove grown up outside METRO’s area, and METRO is not permitted to fund service in those areas.

If we build regional commuter rail lines we’re only going to make matters worse. There are already 3 non-METRO bus operators in the 13-county HGAC region, and several more are being planned. Consider the proposed College Station – Cypress – Houston – Clear Lake – Galveston commuter rail line: it would connect to Brazos Transit District service in Bryan/College Station, planned Colorado Transit District Service in Hempstead, Prairie View, and Waller, METRO, proposed Harris County transit service in Clear Lake, proposed Connect Transit Service in Texas City and LaMarque, and Island Transit service in Galveston.

Imagine you’re a doctor at UTMB in Galveston, traveling to M.D. Anderson for a conference in a decade or so. You go the regional online trip planner, and it finds a trip for you. You catch the Island Transit Trolley at UTMB and swipe you Q Card for the $1.25 fare. You get off at the Galveston trains station and walk right onto the commuter train, swiping your card at a reader on the platform. It sees that you’ve just paid to ridden local transit and, rather than charging you the full $7 fare, charges you only $5.75. After a nice ride (improved by a coffee you bought on the train with same Q card) you get off at the Intermodal Terminal in Houston and ride up the escalator to the light rail line. You swipe you card on the platform; it gives you a free transfer. You ride to the TMC and get off, right on schedule.

That’s the best case. The worst case? Finding your way through three web sites to find the best itinerary. Three different ticket systems that leave you fumbling for change two or three times in your trip. A new Houston commuter rail stop for the Galveston line that’s a three block walk from light rail.

There are political and organizational reasons for having multiple transit agencies. I’m not saying those are good reasons: I think it makes much more sense to expand METRO than to create new operators next door with their own fleets, maintenance facilities, and administrative overhead. But I don’t think METRO should be running buses in College Station or Lake Jackson.

Regardless, passengers shouldn’t have to think about what agency they’re riding. As I noted last week, Germany has created a seamless system with multiple operators. They even have a nationwide transit trip planner. We need some central entity that will centralize trip planning and ticketing. We could create a new one. Or we could have METRO take on that function since they already have the technology in place, and because they make up 95% or the regional transit fleet. METRO might produce maps and schedules for all the transit operations in HGAC, and administer a uniform ticketing system, letting the individual agencies buy the fare equipment under METRO’s bulk contract. Individual agencies would still decide what service to offer and what to charge for it.

We haven’t reached the point yet where coordination between different transit agencies is affecting riders in the Houston area. Now’s the time to make sure it never will.