THE 30 PHANTOM BUS SHELTERS VIENEN EN BURRO: AFTER MORE THAN A YEAR AND $737,000, STILL NO BUS SHELTERS

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Back in May 2022, the denizens of the Brownsville Multimodal Transportation Department came before the city commission to get approval for the purchase and eventual construction of 30 new bus shelters so desperately needed to protect bus riders from the elements and give them a place to sit while waiting for the bus.

Now, imagine that since then you're one of those people who lack their own transportation and has been waiting under the hot sun (or blue northern) by the bus stop sign since then. 

It is now September 2023, one year and four months since Gennie Garica, Deputy Director of Multimodal Transportation (includes BMetro, taxis and bike riders) assured the city commission that the shelters would be in place in either June or July 2023.

Well, have a seat under a nearby tree or light pole because the shelters won't be arriving soon.

According to Garcia, who addressed the city commission June 6, 2023, everything was ready to go after performing a ridership analysis with the "stakeholders," the purchase of the deluxe shelters, the right-of-way acquired, and an engineering firm, SWG, had been hired to select and prepare the sites.

The three-phase process, according to her, would come to $737,000 for the 30 shelters. But these weren't your basic enchilada shelters, no sir. They were purchased from a firm called EnGo Planet Energy Solutions LLC. and were equipped with solar power, benches, USB chargers, solar lighting, advertising space and a space to identify a passenger's route map and bus schedule times. They would also have sidewalks, ADA ramps and concrete pads.

Gee wiz! That sounds a lot better than waiting for the bus in the shade of a nearby mesquite or a PUB light pole, Ama!

During that time – from May 2022 to June 6, 2023 – Garcia and the Multimodal crew were working with abandon to build the new and improved shelters and at the June 6, 2023 meeting had finally chosen a bidder, Houston-based EnGo Planet, the same company which sold them the shelters, to construct them. The company, in its website, identifies itself as a company that develops innovative products such as smart solar street lights, benches and bus shelters to help cities across the globe to achieve their vision of becoming sustainable and energy independent smart cities. No pos wow!

They are also avid advocates of bike and hike trails. and are members of the American Trails network that have graced the city with its active-tourism, revenue generating, hike and bike trails.  Yup, the same kind of guys who cashed in on city commissioner Rose Gowen's vision of svelte, diabetes-free, bike-pedaling Brownsvillians and bike-riding enthusiast tourists spending millions to come to ride their chiscas in Browntown.

But we digress.

By June 6, after all the heavy lifting, Garcia and her crew recommended awarding of  the construction contract to EnGo Planet. At a total cost of $737,000, each shelter comes to about $24,560. 

Still standing there waiting under the mesquite?

Well, Garcia and her minions came back to the city commission this last Tuesday, four months after the contract award, and asked the  commissioners – through city manager Helen Ramirez and under the commission's consent agenda where the item does not need to be discussed – to rescind the contract with EnGo Planet because, apparently, they could not produce the Payment and Performance bond required from vendors on a public project.   

We looked up the meaning of these bonds and found out that performance bonds guarantee the company's adherence to contract terms and are used to protect the project owner from financial loss if the contractor breaks the contract. Payment bonds, often obtained with performance bonds, guarantee that the contractor will pay subcontractors, laborers, and material suppliers required by the contract, even if they default. Public construction jobs can’t place liens, so a payment bond protects labor or materials suppliers on a public job.

They would need to rebid the job, according to the agenda memo provided to the city commissioners by city manager Helen Ramirez.

So now, a job that Garcia and the Multimodal guys assured the city commission would be complete by June or July 2023, just got delayed again for another two or three months, say December, after the bidding and evaluation of the proposals which are submitted. Another 120 day construction period after that and it might be May or June 2024. If these were the same guys who sold the city the equipment, why didn't the city and the Multimodal denizens do their due diligence before awarding them the contract? No one knows.

But wait until they get here. Some of the new bus shelter locations promised to bus riders include one at Hortencia Boulevard and 30th Street to placate the Southmost quadrant, FM 802 and Valley Resaca Palms Apartments, Alton Gloor Boulevard outside Walmart, the Frontage Road near Sams Club, 1304 and 1101 Central Boulevard and McDavitt Boulevard and Roosevelt Street.

"We are currently looking to improve 30 sites throughout the city and looking at these sites. They have no shelters or amenities. We looked at the top highest ridership in areas that had right-of-way access to identify which sites we would be installing bus shelters," Garcia told the gullible commissioners and the equally gullible public in May 2022.

The city has 600 bus stops and of that number maybe 100 have shelters in various stages of disrepair. The new coverings are promised to be  5-feet-by-10-feet prefabricated bus shelters. At a rate of 30 every two years, it will be 2054 before the city can convert the remaining 500 bus stop signs to shelters. By then the waiting bus rider will have been long dead and buried.

Garcia said some of the benefits of having bus shelters is to protect the bus riders from harsh weather conditions and have lighting in them for safety reasons.

Each city commission district was to get between six to eight bus shelters, Garcia said. They consist of residential and commercial areas.

Still waiting? Sientate pa que no te canses.