Efforts Under Way to Clean Up and Secure the Mason Road Park and Ride

By George Slaughter

When someone must clean up his or her yard, it’s easy enough to decide what happens next. One cleans up the yard. But what happens when the lot in question is a publicly-owned space, such as the Mason Road Park and Ride, located at the southwestern corner of I-10 and South Mason? Who has responsibility for maintenance and upkeep?

Local resident Marilyn Spalter and her neighbors in West Memorial have been working to answer those questions. Residents held a town hall meeting on July 27 with local officials to discuss the issues.

“We live one block away from the Park and Ride in a very nice subdivision of brick homes and manicured lawns,” Spalter said in an e-mail interview. “In our daily course of driving past the Mason Road and I-10 intersection, I noticed the accumulation of trash, lack of landscaping/mowing, an impassable sidewalk, and a steady and increasing number of homeless people would often get my attention.”

Spalter said she was not sure how long these issues had been festering.

“For me, it was since January when I decided that I wanted to try to find the actual government entity who has responsibility for the overall upkeep of the property and try to ask if the property can be better maintained,” Spalter said. “In the end, I was just looking to see how the grass can be mowed and the sidewalk made passable, but this morphed into a much bigger project.”

Spalter first began asking questions in early February, when she saw a Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) truck at the Fry Road Park and Ride. She asked the worker whether the lot would soon have an improvement project to the one she had previously seen at the nearby Fry Road Park and Ride. He didn’t think so, she said, but he gave her the contact information for Mark Wooldridge, director of maintenance for the department’s Houston district.

“He (Wolldridge) was very kind and quickly took action to remove hazards that were tossed in the high grassy area,” she said. These items included removing cement stantions, arranging for sweeping and uncovering the sidewalk, and putting in a contract for weekly garbage removal.

“Contract forces mow three to four times per year, and pick up litter on a weekly basis,” Karen Othon, a spokesperson, said in an e-mail interview. “TxDOT supplements the mowing as needed for safety to prevent sight restrictions.”

In addition to clean up, some had observed that homeless people had been congregating in the lot. To work with those people, both the Houston Police Department and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office have homeless outreach teams. Those teams also work with Hope Impacts Katy, a local homeless outreach ministry that has been in operation for three years.

“They’re good friends of ours,” Tina Hatcher, the ministry’s founder and director, said of the homeless outreach teams. “They help us get IDs for them so they can get their birth certificates and jobs.” Six people have been helped this way this year, she said.

Hatcher is also a West Memorial resident.

“I appreciate that they’re getting the lot fixed up,” Hatcher said, adding that the lot had not been kept up well. “I’m excited about the improvements they’re making over there.”

Some homeless people have congregated in the parking lot, Hatcher said, but it isn’t the only place in the area that they congregate. The lot has a fig tree, so people will sit under the tree and rest.

“It’s hot so you can’t stay in a restaurant very long,” Hatcher said. “They have to have some place to go. Some places, they ask you to move, and in some cases, they ask you not to come back because they don’t want homeless people in the restaurant.”

Hatcher said the ministry’s goal is to help people have the access to improve their situations, but it’s a long process.

“We try to treat every person with dignity and respect,” Hatcher said. “We’re all a couple of paychecks away from walking in their shoes.”
Services include a Bible study, food, showers, medical and dental care. Over the last three years, Hatcher said, 46 people have come off the streets and moved to the next chapter of their lives.

“We love them where they are, but too much to leave them there,” Hatcher said.

Spalter said that the original intention of local residents was to simply clean up the lot. In working the issue, they decided that they wanted to have the lot maintained and to address the situation with the homeless people there. Thanks to phone calls and support from Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack and state Rep. Mike Schofield, METRO will be working to secure and maintain the lot.

But the transportation department is taking things a step further.

Fences will be installed around the Mason, Fry, Barker Cypress, and Cypress Park and Ride lots. The fences will be similar to the one installed at the Kingsland Park and Ride.

“TxDOT will install a black coated, six-foot chain link fence around the parking lot,” Othon said. “With the inclement weather we are expecting, the installation will be scheduled to occur within two to three weeks (depending on heavy rain impacts in our area through next week).”

Spalter said the she has heard no decision about whether the fence will be gated, or whether it might have either a guard or ID-card accessible entry to protect access.

Spalter said she said she liked the fence installed for aesthetic reasons. The area around the lot will be more secure with METRO taking responsibility for the lot’s security.

“All those business will feel safer,” Spalter said.

Apparently, not everyone is happy, however. When word got out that the fence would be built, Spalter said she heard from neighbors with a different set of concerns. The lot serves as a place for people to shoot their fireworks on holidays.

Now, instead of using the park and ride lot, she said, the neighbors might want to shoot their fireworks from their homes. Because the area is unincorporated, this can be a concern.

Spalter said she sees this effort as the tipping point of a revitalization of Mason Road, going from I-10 to Highland Knolls. She said she hopes to start a committee and see about beautifying the area and bringing in more visitors.

“Once I saw that the lot is starting to look better, the whole neighborhood is starting to look better,” Spalter said.