McAllen architect Sam Garcia (right) discusses the concept of light rail with a UTPA student. (Photo: RGG/Bill Rovira)

EDINBURG, Jan. 27 - You have just flown into McAllen Miller International Airport from Houston for a job interview at the University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg.

Your companion on the flight has been filling your ears with stories of the new rail transit system connecting McAllen and Edinburg from the airport to the university, passing through the historic but architecturally progressive central corridor of McAllen, ultimately depositing you at UTPA at the end station in a matter of 30 minutes.

“It’s clean, modern, sleek and inexpensive—pennies on the dollar compared to taxi fare, and let’s face it, who wants to fight rush hour traffic to get there,” says your companion.

That’s all you had to hear. You fought traffic all the way to Bush International Airport and want no more of it on the way to your job interview. You decide to take the train, just as you would in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., New York, Boston or Portland. You board the Rio Grande Rail Bicentennial Line passing through the downtown area, continuing up to through the north of the city stopping at several stations along the way, such as the one named for the famous former mayor, Othal Brand and the one at the county courthouse in Edinburg before arriving at the UTPA station.

You de-board your train ready to walk in for your interview on campus much more oriented to this part of the Valley than if you’d been a passenger in a taxicab because of maps on the wall and the themed stations along the way. No taxi fare or tip to pay. No meter ticking on the way. No slick driver trying to make the trip a little longer and your fare a little higher. Moreover, the timeliness and efficiency of the rail system leaves you with a positive first impression of the McAllen-Edinburg area and you do have other interviews in other cities at other campuses in areas of the country without mass rail systems.

One Broken Transmission Away From Unemployment

The above scenario is part of the vision promoted by McAllen architect Sam Garcia, a well-traveled man familiar with the mass transit systems of cities in other parts of the country. “My idea is not to present a finished product but to create a spark,” said Garcia at UTPA on Tuesday night.

Cities of the west and southwestern United States, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, San Antonio and Houston - “loop cities,” have followed a pattern of outward growth, creating urban sprawl, infringing on surrounding agricultural land and countryside, while at the same time leaving deteriorated and abandoned inner cities. “Loop cities are built on the premise of abundant, inexpensive petroleum and the motored vehicle,” continued Garcia. “The only problem with that is that if you are too young, too old or too poor to drive you don’t get to participate fully in society. There are a lot of people in the Rio Grande Valley who are one broken transmission away from being unemployed and unemployable,” said Garcia.

Mass Transit Is Already In Our DNA

Garcia described the McAllen-Edinburg area as “adolescent cities” or still in their growth cycle with the opportunity to make changes in the next few years which would have profound long-term effects in their future make-up and character.

“If you look at us with another country to the south we can’t really build loops but only half-loops and that doesn’t really work,” said Garcia.” What I am proposing is revamping the places that have already been built. It’s in our DNA (Edinburg and McAllen were originally built with the arrival of the railroads in the early 20th Century). These were initially railroad cities. They are already laid out in that fashion. Rail transit consists of a train stopping at designated places at a designated time picking up and dropping off people. If you get that working and get the land use around it to work you can get the sort of dense pockets of growth where you can live and work, walking a short distance to get there. Some say the Valley is too hot for this type of land use. Actually if you bring buildings closer to the sidewalks you get constant shade and if you position the buildings strategically you form urban canyons that are very good at directing wind,” said Garcia.

Playing Monopoly Without the Hotels

Garcia compared the land use patterns of loop cities with playing the game of Monopoly without the hotels. “Present land use systems ultimately lead to a city’s demise. If you played Monopoly without the hotels you would be putting a cap, a ceiling on the economy. Some cities haven’t allowed the typical loop pattern to develop—places like New York and Boston. Looking at places like that you see it can be different. Such cities are places where you have the best universities. The more people you get together, the more interaction, the more vibrancy.

A Motivated and Visionary Audience

Some good insightful questions and comments came from the motivated and visionary audience present. “Alternative forms of transportation are very important for a number of reasons. They take vehicles off the road and reduce urban sprawl, protect natural environment. Portland has doubled its population in the last 20 years without infringing on surrounding lands. Everything important is within a five minute walk,” commented Maria Elena Franklin.

“There is a system of public transportation here at the University. We pay a fee of $525 (per semester) to Rio Metro (an underutilized regional bus system) and no one uses it,” said Maria Bridges of Abrams, indicating that the word needed to get out and people’s habits needed to change.

Joseph Cabrera felt the devil was in the details. “Along with the funding how does it work? How do you get a rail connection to the rest of the state as well as rail connections in the Valley?” asked Cabrera.

McAllen architect Luis Figueroa commented that rail transit was definitely in the future of the Valley. “The political support is already in place. Tonight’s presentation was an eye-opener.”

In response to the concerns of a faculty member that the American romance with the car and pick-up truck, and the house in the suburbs might trump any serious considerations of mass transit in the Valley, Garcia replied: “Maybe you wouldn’t want to give up your house in the suburbs and your pick-up truck to live in an apartment downtown using mass transit but you might like to own a six-story apartment building from which you were earning the rental income. We don’t know yet how people that are just now being born and are yet to be born are going to perceive these concepts,” said Garcia in the true fashion of a visionary.

Present were faculty members, Futuro McAllen’s Nedra Kinerk, who coordinated the presentation, and UTPA Professor Francisco Guajardo, who presented Sam Garcia.

Write Bill Rovira

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