In February 2006, the Harris County Housing and Community Development (HCD) completed a Comprehensive Transit Strategy utilizing the services of The Goodman Corporation. In June of 2006 Commissioners Court authorized HCD to be the Administrator of all non-infrastructure Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Transit funds.
The Transportation Division of HCD has obtained consent from the Metropolitan Planning Organization and Harris County METRO to become an additional Federal Transportation Administration recipient of FTA Section 5307 funds. This action was the first step in the process to obtain up to $4.5 million a year in Federal Grant funds to provide transportation alternatives for residents of Harris County who do not have any transit service. The Office of Transit Services (Harris County Transit) was created by Harris County HCD to begin implementing transit projects.
In October 2007 Harris County Transit partnered with the City of Baytown and Houston METRO to launch a successful Park and Ride program from Baytown to the Downtown Business District. This was followed in July 2008 with the creation of a fixed route service in the City of Baytown that exceeded all ridership expectations. In January 2010 fixed bus route service began operating in the cities of La Porte and Pasadena. All programs are dependent on receiving commitments for local share funding to support federal funding requests.