Third Ward to Main Street Connectivity Project

The Third Ward to Main Street Connectivity Project is a collaborative, transportation initiative to link Houston’s Third Ward community with the Main Street Corridor and light rail system. The Third Ward is predominantly an African-American community, immediately adjacent to the Main Street Corridor.

Included in the Third Ward are the Texas Southern University and the University of Houston. Both institutions are largely commuter campuses and together serve a student population of over 39,000. Building upon and leveraging the planning, transit, redevelopment and other revitalization activities of the Third Ward Redevelopment Council, OST/Almeda TIRZ, the Main Street Coalition, METRO, TxDOT and the City of Houston, the project will focus on improving and expanding transit access between the Corridor and Third Ward neighborhoods and institutions, creating essential east-west, transportation and pedestrian connections.

This initiative will have a major influence on the future vitality of the Third Ward; it will significantly improve the physical appearance of the neighborhood, and boost its economic stability through the construction of transit-related physical improvements along various transit corridors. This will result in the attraction of additional reinvestment to the neighborhood. Reaching into the Third Ward community to enhance and improve transit, pedestrian and alternative transportation linkages between the Main Street corridor, the light rail system and the neighborhood will be the key to unlocking job opportunities within the Main street Corridor, as well as, opening up the neighborhood to the rest of the city and to the institutions of higher learning.