Dan Felstein and Claudia Kolker of the "Houston Chronicle" said in 1997 that most Houstonians who take public transportation are poor. A 1995 survey concluded that 76% of people riding on local bus lines of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) took the buses because they had no other means of transportation. A 1993 survey concluded that of the people who had stopped riding local bus routes of METRO, 46% had acquired or repaired automobiles. 37% of the respondents said that METRO could not possibly do anything to convince them to ride the buses again.