SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
McALLEN — Just weeks after launch, Metro McAllen’s new bus line to the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge is being celebrated as one of the most successful transit initiatives in city history, hauling 90 to 100 passengers a day straight to the international crossing and then, per official city policy, ceasing to exist.
The $3 route departs the downtown terminal at 11 a.m., 1, 3, 5 and 7 p.m., each trip ending at the bridge with a cheerful announcement that riders have reached the end of all known municipal geometry. Officials say the one-way design was a deliberate response to demand from shoppers, who asked for a bus to McAllen and received a bus away from it.
“For the most part, everything worked fine,” said transit spokesperson Gilberto Fuentes, dusting off his hands as the 3 p.m. bus pulled away from the bridge, empty, back toward a depot it would reach by driving directly past dozens of riders waving at it from the Mexican side. “We monitored the launch very closely. Every single passenger arrived at the bridge. One hundred percent success rate. You can’t argue with numbers like that.”
City Awaits Evidence That People Also Return
City Manager Randall Peña confirmed that a return route remains “purely hypothetical” until sufficient demand presents itself, ideally in the form of a formal petition, notarized in triplicate, submitted by riders who have already walked home.
“Look, we’re data-driven,” Peña said, gesturing at a whiteboard reading ‘RIDERS TO BRIDGE: A LOT’ next to a second whiteboard reading ‘RIDERS FROM BRIDGE: TBD.’ “So far, nobody has presented themselves at the downtown terminal asking to be picked up from the bridge. Because they can’t. Because there’s no bus. Which tells us demand hasn’t presented itself. The system works.”
Commuters have adapted. Local entrepreneur Rosa Villarreal has begun selling maps of the Belden-Anaya Expressway shoulder, marketing it as “McAllen’s newest pedestrian corridor.” Students at South Texas College have formed a carpool collective that meets at the bridge flagpole at 6 a.m., which faculty describe as the university’s most popular extracurricular.
Phase Two: A One-Way Route Back, Starting in Pharr
Officials confirmed plans for a companion route launching next spring that will carry riders from the bridge back to McAllen — but will depart from a terminal in Pharr, run the wrong direction for forty minutes, and cost $7.
“You have to walk before you can run, and you have to be stranded before you can walk,” Fuentes said. “That’s just transit.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I get home from the bridge?
A: The city encourages riders to present demand by being somewhere a bus could hypothetically retrieve them, then waiting with confidence.
Q: Is the bus popular?
A: It is McAllen’s highest-volume route. It is also McAllen’s only route that ends. Officials consider this a coincidence.
