The Conroe Transportation Department is working to add a third route to the Conroe Connection Transit Service. The joint northeast-west bus route will travel to the Lone Star College-Conroe Center and Tri-County Behavioral Healthcare, to name a few stops, according to the route proposal.
Expanding Conroe Connection’s service routes will provide an affordable transit option to residents in new service areas and allow new and existing riders access to various Conroe area businesses, said Shawn Johnson, transportation manager for the Conroe Transportation Department.
“We want to serve Conroe as comprehensively as possible,” Johnson said. “Right now our routes are linear—we have north and south [routes], and now we’re kind of going east and west—and we want to take those arms [farther] in those directions.”
Furthermore, to meet the needs of Conroe’s high commuter population, the Conroe Transportation Department is negotiating a service contract with the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County for a park-and-ride commuter service to take passengers to Houston.
Expanding transit services
On June 14, Conroe City Council unanimously approved an expanded service agreement between the city and Ride Right, the transit provider for Conroe. According to the agreement, the city is investing $76,841 annually to operate the new fixed route and the Americans with Disabilities Act paratransit service, a separate public transit service for disabled passengers.
The Conroe Transportation Department launched Conroe Connection’s first two routes in January 2015, taking passengers as far north as the Walmart on Loop 336 North and as far south as the Lone Star Family Health Clinic on Loop 336 South.
The proposed expansion will include a 12.3-mile northeast route and an 8.6-mile west route, which will run every other hour. The transit department will present the final proposal to Conroe City Council by August, with the city planning to launch the service shortly afterward, Johnson said.
Johnson said she believes the demand for local and regional public transportation will increase as Conroe’s population grows. She said since Conroe Connection’s launch, ridership has grown to an average of 680 riders per month—many of whom are low-income residents without access to vehicles of their own.
“Our community really embraced this service,” Johnson said. “[New riders] will have to learn how to use it and incorporate it into their lives.”
In addition to obtaining funding for operational costs, the city needed to improve its existing infrastructure to accommodate its growing transportation needs, Director of Engineering Tommy Woolley said. Construction of sidewalks and pedestrian amenities has been ongoing along some of the most trafficked areas of the city.
Woolley said the city received roughly $2.1 million in grants to construct sidewalks along Frazier Street and the Dugan neighborhood. Woolley said he believes the mobility and infrastructure updates will make the streets safer for Conroe Connection riders, ADA paratransit riders and local students.
Access to education, mental health
The northeast route will stop at the Department of Public Safety, Texas Health and Human Services on
Loop 336 North; the LSC-Conroe Center and the H-E-B on North Frazier Street. The west route, on the other hand, will make stops at the Montgomery County Central Library, the U.S. Social Security Office on Sgt. Ed Holcomb Boulevard, Tri-County Behavioral Healthcare and the ALDI grocery store on Loop 336 North.
LSC-Conroe Center President Mary Mendoza said the college is excited to be included on the expanded bus stop proposal because the center does not have any public transportations services.
“We absolutely want the city of Conroe to be better served by the transit [department] ... but we also want our students to be well-served by transit because they come from mostly a 5-10 mile radius,” she said.
According to data from Lone Star College System, more LSC-Conroe Center students live in the 77301 ZIP code—located inside Loop 336 on the east side of I-45—than in any other ZIP code, representing 13.2 percent of all students enrolled at the college.
Furthermore, a report from Houston-based mobility research company The Goodman Corporation showed that most bus passengers live in the 77301 ZIP code as well. The ridership habits were obtained through Conroe Connection passenger surveys that were conducted early this year.
Mendoza said the bus route will be important for students who may share a vehicle with other members of their households or need an alternative mode of transportation in emergencies.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that while a majority of Conroe residents have access to a vehicle,
5.5 percent of residents do not, and 37.3 percent have access to only one vehicle per household.
Catherine Prestigiovanni, director of strategic development at Tri-County Behavioral Healthcare, said a majority of clients at Tri-County are uninsured, indigent or homeless and do not have cars. Tri-County Behavioral Healthcare is a health care facility for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, severe mental illnesses or who struggle with substance abuse.
One Tri-County facility was accessible via Conroe Connection’s routes before Tri-County consolidated its eight locations into one building along Sgt. Ed Holcomb Boulevard in March 2017. While the new center makes it easier for clients to access a variety of treatments in one building, it made it more difficult for bus riders to reach the facility, Prestigiovanni said.
Tri-County clients can be seen walking daily in the heat from the nearest Conroe Connection stop, which is the Conroe Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic bus stop located more than 2 miles away, Prestigiovanni said.
“Indigent people get the worst of everything … and so to have a bus route, it’s another way in which to acknowledge them as human beings because they deserve this,” she said. “Our folks shouldn’t have to walk miles in this heat, so getting the new bus will be unbelievable for them.”
Negotiating a park and ride
Conroe Transportation Department is also looking to expand its public transit options regionally with a new park and ride service, located under I-45 at the corner of FM 2854. Johnson said the Conroe area's large commuter population, who currently use The Woodlands Express Park and Ride service, will have easier access to the Greater Houston area.
“We would be the most northern point for commuter service," she said. "It allows us to really respond to the needs of our commuters here.”
The city of Conroe and the Texas Department of Transportation partnered to construct a roughly $1 million lot for the park and ride service, Woolley said. Although the project was completed in fall 2017, service has been delayed as negotiations for an operations contract between the city and METRO continue.
The city is also seeking funding from the Houston-Galveston Area Council to pay for the majority of operational costs for the park and ride service for the first three years, Woolley said. However, H-GAC’s investment in the service is contingent on results from emission studies that have not yet been conducted.
While the route will not be finalized until negotiations with METRO are complete, Woolley said the Conroe commuter bus service intends to take passengers to downtown Houston, midtown and the Texas Medical Center.
“With METRO involved now, you can go anywhere in Harris County because you'll connect to the METRO system,” he said. “We’re not limited to those three areas ... [Riders] can stop at any stop, and that stop can feed basically anywhere.”
