A train going from downtown Houston to Galveston. Buses or trains running along Richmond Avenue. Light rail connecting the downtown to either of Houston's two major airports.

Choose any Houston freeway, and someone living somewhere along it thinks it is the place where Metropolitan Transit Authority needs to put its next big project. A pending long-term regional transit plan, and likely voter referendum as early as November, will determine where Metro goes. More importantly, they will show what level of support people in the Houston region have for more buses, longer train routes and commuter service to increasingly urbanizing suburban communities.

What's clear, transit officials acknowledged last week during their first in-depth discussion of the transit plan's focus, is many solutions to traffic congestion will sit on transit agency shelves for years to come.

"We know we will never have enough resources to build everything," Metro board member Christof Spieler said. "How do we choose which projects are most worthwhile?"

Board members during the discussion said a host of factors will influence transit project priorities, though the critical litmus test will be whether a project can reliably and quickly serve a large number of riders and solve a congestion challenge. Officials predict that as the region grows, freeways will clog even more with cars and trucks for more hours of the day. Expansion of many freeways is limited, so using the lanes more effectively or drawing people off the freeway will be critical.

"We're all going to be more transit-dependent because we can't spend two hours getting to work," Metro board member Cindy Siegel said.

Transit agency staff has started compiling a list of unfinished projects, including those left over from the contentious 2003 referendum and financial commitments from an extension of Metro's 1 percent sales tax voters approved in 2012.

Along with public input and ongoing discussions, Metro could have a draft of a regional transit plan - incorporating not only service in Metro's area but beyond its own boundaries - by April under an accelerated timetable.

The quick pace could allow Metro to put something on a November ballot in Harris County and Missouri City. Some Metro board members, however, have said a fast pace could be ill-advised.

"I really think that to put up a bond election in November when the city, maybe, is going to be asking to increase its revenue cap … I think it would be wiser to go through a longer plan," Metro board member Jim Robinson said.

More time also means more public comment, Siegel said.

"Otherwise, we are short-changing the people we are trying to serve," she said.

Money always matters

Funding, however, will always dominate the discussion.

"Move the most amount of people for the least amount of money," said Metro board member Lisa Castaneda, deputy director of the Harris County Toll Road Authority.

Fresh off a $2.1 billion expansion of the Houston light rail system, Metro's capital budget and ability to borrow money is tapped, after planned and approved projects for new park-and-ride lots and the purchase of buses for controversial dedicated lanes along Post Oak occurs.

"There is very little funding or excess money left to do much of anything," said Arthur Smiley, Metro's chief financial officer.

Based on current budgeting and sales tax forecasts, Smiley said Metro's ability to consider big-ticket transit improvements won't return until 2022.

Meanwhile, Metro officials are looking cautiously at state and federal changes that could affect funding and force them to keep a close eye on all transit dollars. In Washington, some lawmakers and the conservative Heritage Foundation have urged the eventual elimination of Federal Transit Administration funding and replacing it with highway spending or programs that give local officials more latitude in how to spend federal dollars in their region.

"I don't think that will happen, but we will need every penny of sales tax to operate what we've got," Robinson said.

Available alternatives

There are options for starting major transit projects within the next five years, but they require transit officials to either come up with alternative sources of money or ask voters to approve more spending, which could mean more borrowing and new taxes or fees to pay off the debt.

Officials are exploring both options. Last year, officials approved soliciting interest from private firms for development of a train line from the Texas Medical Center to Missouri City. The line, estimated to cost at least $400 million, has political support from many Houston area federal, state and local officials. Questions related to the proposal pushed the deadline for companies to express interest in partnerships with Metro from Feb. 7 to March 20.

Metro leaders, after new board members were installed by Mayor Sylvester Turner last year, also have said a voter referendum for more spending is likely. Transit board chairwoman Carrin Patman said the regional transit plan could lead to a vote as early as November, though the plan itself will inform what could end up in front of voters.

"It's possible," she said of an election in nine months. "We'll have to see what kind of response we get to the plan and what is the best course."

A referendum, officials said, could be approval for a single project that transit supporters consider high-priority or politically palatable. An entire suite of projects also could be put in front of voters.

Though highly controversial, Metro has a ready-made list of projects that - albeit 14 years ago - won public support. The 2003 referendum approved by voters included projects still awaiting approval and funding. Among those are expansions to both Houston airports and the highly disputed University Line from the University of Houston to Post Oak.

Metro's preferred route along Richmond has been the most divisive transit issue in Houston for more than a decade. The line has drawn stiff opposition, including from Rep. John Culberson, the Houston congressman who repeatedly barred federal funding for the line.

Transit supporters, meanwhile, have said the line is the critical link in Metro's system because it connects the central business district, universities southeast of downtown and the Uptown area along Loop 610's western side.

"We need that connection, the east-west connection," said Daniel Barnum, a retired architect and Midtown resident who spoke before Metro officials last month.

David Crossley, another supporter of the University Line and former director of Houston Tomorrow, which has advocated for increased transit investment, said connecting downtown and Uptown especially cannot wait.

"We are approaching a moment when these dense clusters in the region are going to get worse," Crossley said. "We are not going to widen the streets, and the only solution whether there are driverless cars in the future is transit."

'No longer feasible'

Metro officials - including Patman, who has said an east-west connection should be a priority, but not necessarily a rail project - said the 2003 referendum will serve as a model, but many factors have changed.

"It is conceivable that certain projects from the '03 referendum are no longer feasible," Patman said.

At the same time, last month Patman urged officials to consider the referendum a show of support for transit. She noted opponents often talk about the referendum's narrow passage with 52 percent of the vote.

That win, she said, was over "an extremely well-financed, organized, aggressive anti-transit opposition" that raised large sums of money from a handful of donors. After losing, some opponents acquiesced and moved to make transit as palatable as possible.

"Others turned right around and opposed it with all their money and heart and treasure," Patman said.

Asked directly to name those opponents on Jan. 24, Patman declined, saying she preferred to not dwell on the deep divide more than a decade later.

Officials conceded that whatever the regional plan concludes and whatever they put in front of voters must build on what referendums in 2003 and 2012 taught transit officials, and reflect what the community wants.

"If we are transparent about what we do right now," Spieler said, "it will give every project that comes out of it more credibility."