I think the light rail proposal preceded and was the excuse for the Metro we have today.
There was the Houston Socialist Bus Service, but they had no taxing authority.
Abolishing Metro will just send them back to find a new way to fund it.
So9
Metro was created to shove rail down our throats - no doubt about that. The problem is that they are the only authority who can do this without being held politically accountable. They are the epitome of an incompetant, thoroughly corrupt, and heavily bloated bureaucratic agency with significant unrestrained power and virtually no public oversight.
If we get rid of metro and liquidate its assets in a public auction the pro-rail people will still be there but they won't have a chokehold around the region's neck by way of undeserved political power. They'll be just another private interest group trying to get its issue passed in city hall.