Good morning, Houston. How better to end the week than with a little soul searching — and when better to do it than on Evaluate Your Life Day? Yeah, we know, it used to take hours (days, even) to find your true self, but the good news is that you can get things taken care of much more quickly these days: using online quizzes, you can figure out whether you're CEO material, which celebrity's......

Well, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone who's been in Houston for a while: The Chronicle reports that a draft agreement for the operation of the toll lanes on the new, super-wide Katy Freeway doesn't include a provision for rail transit. Instead, we'll have four toll lanes running down the middle of the freeway, which will take the place of Metro's HOV lanes — but will be accessible for free to......

The Metro board approved a $77.3 million agreement yesterday that's a step toward construction of four new rapid transit lines — the first step in a construction project that's estimated to cost more than $1 billion. Under the contract, Washington Group Transit Management Co. will begin work on the early design and construction of four transit corridors: north, from UH-Downtown to Northline Mall; southeast, from downtown to Palm Center; East End, from downtown to......

Correction: The legal motion Scarborough filed was not a lawsuit, as some media outlets reported, but rather a motion seeking information from Metro officials. Ubiquitous Richmond Avenue rail opponent Daphne Scarborough has pulled out a new weapon in her fight against the light rail expansion that she says would destroy her livelihood and her street: Scarborough has sued Metro, claiming that the transit agency has broken a "contract with the voters" established by the 2003......

An interesting note on Metro's proposed downtown intermodal terminal: Yesterday, the transit authority's board apparently voted to buy land on which the terminal will sit, but Metro officials are refusing to tell anyone exactly where the land is. The proposed terminal, which has been discussed for months, would connect the Main Street rail line, the northside GRT line, some Metro bus routes and, eventually, a northwest commuter rail line. And though we know it'll......

The Chron's Rad Sallee takes a look today at the question of right of way in the Richmond rail debate, focusing on comments from Metro Chairman David Wolff about some property owners along Richmond Avenue "stealing" the public right of way. What Wolff meant was that some people have put things — lawns, parking spaces, driveways — on the right of way, which usually isn't a problem until the land needs to be used for......

It looks like Metro might not have won critics of the proposed University light rail line's Richmond Avenue alignment over last night at the first of three public meetings on the project: KTRK and the Chronicle report that the people who oppose having the rail on Richmond still oppose it, even with a "compromise" unveiled this week that would switch the line from Richmond to Westpark at Greenway Plaza. "None of this is any......

There's news today from the Chronicle on Metro's proposed University light rail line: Metro Chairman David Wolff met with the Chron's editorial board this morning and said he could "live with" an alignment that would take the line from Main Street west along Richmond Avenue, then south at Greenway Plaza to Westpark. It's a Metro compromise between keeping part of the line on Richmond and avoiding Afton Oaks and residential areas between Greenway and the......

Metro took a step forward in planning its next four rail (or rail-ish) lines yesterday, approving almost $40 million in contracts for design, preliminary engineering and environmental impact studies. The contracts cover the proposed University line — the one that may run along Richmond Avenue and may not — as well as the Uptown, Southeast, North and Harrisburg lines. The University line will be a full-fledged rail line from the start, while the other......

It's looking like the route of Metro's future University light rail line could end up being more controversial than we thought — but it turns out Metro might be able to put the line wherever it wants to, thanks to a rather nonspecific clause in the 2003 rail referendum. Controversy erupted over the University line, which will run east-west from the University of Houston to the Galleria area, after Metro announced it was looking......

About 350 people turned out yesterday to hear Houstonians tell the Metro board what they think about the route of the proposed University light rail line, and the message was a resounding "We're not sure what we think." Metro's plan to run most of the line along Richmond Avenue rather than Westpark, as originally proposed, has drawn concern and continued to do so Thursday: Whatever the board decides late this year, it should "keep the......

Metro's been talking for a while about a downtown transit hub that would tie a bunch of bus lines, the MetroRail network and future bus rapid transit and commuter rail lines together, much like South Station in Boston, Union Station in D.C. and Grand Central Terminal in NYC. And now the idea is a step closer to reality, maybe — the Metro board has asked for a preliminary design for a huge transit station on......