{SA} Light rail proposed for San Antonio (again)
 

More will be known after Friday's transportation forum.

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story...a-d49321384e1d

good

Yes, very good.

I've known about this for awhile, I posted that the city and county were thinking of going back to the table with light rail a while back, but I didn't think they'd get to an announcing point this soon. I am quite happy.

Great to hear. Hopefully progress in SA will light a fire under some AUS officials arsh.

Can they build light rail over a 90 mile distance? It is my understanding that light rail is electrified and used primarily in urbanized areas. Seems like commuter rail would be the answer between SA and AUS. I would love either. I would love to get down to SA more often, but really don't want to drive.

Don't read too much into what KSAT.com wrote in that regard. I know one of the web editors and will see if he can correct that.

I'm hoping whatever is proposed won't be as ambitious as the last proposal, though that really wasn't way it was voted down from what I've learned. I'm hearing the city/county wants VIA to amend their Downtown to Medical Center BRT line plan into LRT. As well as all their future lines.

I'm for it and maybe we can get the word out to the communities so they would see the benefits rather than crying about taxes and what not...... We could also cash in on the whole "GREEN" trend to jump start interest in any future LRT talks .:)

It's quite exciting to see the city and county do so many things within just the last two years that will adversely improve the quality of living in San Antonio.

Without question this is undoubtedly due to both Phil Hardberger (and his good working relation with the county) and City Manager Sheryl Sculley.

I agree and and I feel that our city will indeed see that passing up on this in 2000 ma have been a mistake.

Thank God for this, I surely hope that it will not be turned down. 2000's vote was a shame, but now with more residential downtown, and smarter people in power. Things will hopefully change.

So other than Bandera Rd. and Fred Rd., where would be some other smart places to do starter lines? Maybe start in Southtown and run along S Alamo up to Broadway, where it could connect with the River North trolley? What about a line running along Military that connects Lackland and South Park Mall with Brooks City-Base?

I think there needs to be lines that connect large business areas or medical areas with downtown.

Red line: Downtown to the Medical Center (maybe up to La Cantera/The Rim)
Green line: Downtown to Westover Hills
Purple line: Downtown to the airport (then maybe to Stone Oak)
Silver line: Downtown to arena district
Orange line: Downtown to Brooks City Base
Blue line: Downtown to Port San Antonio and ending at Toyota or A&M-SA

6 lines that would virtually connect downtown with all the major suburban areas.

Also, a long shot here, but:

Plum line: downtown to New Braunfels (while connecting with Windcrest/Rackspace and Schertz/Cibolo).

downtown with Toyota with Port San Antonio and downtown

Well of course, that's what it would eventually become, I'm just thinking more along the lines of starter stuff that hits the right demographics (in other words, people who already don't own cars or who will soon be seriously looking at other alternatives).

From what I've read, it was the complexity of the 2000 proposal that was at least partially responsible for causing people to reject it. To many I'm sure it seemed way too ambitious, and since the funding battles over the new Spurs arena were fresh on people's minds, likely the thought that first popped into their heads was "we just dodged a bullet with the arena being funded with hotel taxes, and now they're trying to get us on light rail!" I dunno, maybe I have my timelines screwed up, but given that the price of gas was a lot cheaper back then, it's not surprising that people would reject the original plan as too ambitious and an unnecessary expense. And since we all know it sometimes takes SAians a little longer to catch on to these things (as evidenced by some of the reader comments in that article about monorails), that's why I was thinking merely in terms of starter stuff that could serve southsiders as well as Blue Star and areas that might be more inclined to take LRT everyday.

My problem with any proposal, that is not a starter line one, is that the NE side is always neglected. The NE side was not included in the 2000 proposal, and if it's not included in this one, if it is promoted as a full system, then I can't with conscience approve a light rail for San Antonio.

There's no doubt that the northeast side will be considered now, it'd have to. You have Rackspace moving into Windsor Park and the Windcrest Village development just south of that. Also, Schertz/Cibolo was only 20,000-21,000 in 2000. Today it's an area of 60,000-65,000 people. Cibolo is growing by over 2,000 people a year.

Oh no, you misunderstood my post. Everything I have posted is the "build out" of light rail in SA for the foreseeable future. I agree, start small and grow from there. It was my fault for not elaborating more on what I had thought out.

Here is the 1999 proposal map. I think this time around it will pass. Once it passes and is built San Antonio will be even larger with even more commuting problems. So I think it is a must. San Antonio will probably have around 3 million plus people in 15 years.


http://www.lightrail.com/maps/sanant...antoniomap.gif

That's a good plan.

As I keep saying, it's too late; commuter rail precludes anything like this from ever happening in Austin (takes up the right-of-way the primary line in from the burbs needed and is incompatible with LRT trains).

LRT can get up to 55-65 pretty easily - so, yes, you can use it for interurban service. Doesn't matter - the ASA rail service will have to be DMU or even worse, FRA-compliant, because there's nobody with a few billion dollars handy to build UP a new freight corridor and convince them to move to it.

As an engineer by training, I don't believe in the words never ever :)

This isn't the first time I've seen this, but it is the first time I've actually looked at it and studied the lines.

I really like it. The blue line connects the airport with downtown and Brooks City-Base

The red line connects downtown with the arena district, medical center, UTSA, La Cantera.

The green line connects downtown with Broadway Corridor, Fort Sam, Port San Antonio and if expanded on could end at Highway 16 and Watson/Toyota.

All that needs to be done is add two lines. One connect the Westover Hills and Sea World with downtown and another connecting Windcrest, Schertz and Cibolo with downtown. Basically a far west side line and a northeast side/far north east side line.

Then you could honestly get to any major area of SA via rail.

This sort of thinking is really problematic for the creation of good civic amenities. It's awfully myopic when people only support proposals that are immediately beneficial to their neighborhood ("I'll only support a park if it's in MY neighborhood). Light-rail/mass tran can't really be intergrated into suburban living arrangements, and we shouldn't extend much effort and money trying to do so.

If people from the NE side (or most any far-flung suburban area) want urbanism, there's plenty of great neighborhoods in SA where they can find it.

Further, most people understand that if riders have to get in their cars to get to the sites (a la "park-and-ride" systems), they won't use mass tran in numbers that are required to make the system feasible.

We should focus on mass tran in SA's urban neighborhoods within 5-7 miles of downtown (and maybe try and get a line out to the Medical Center, because of the number of jobs concentrated in that area), with the knowledge that mass tran will only really work in areas where high-density development can occur (and where the market will support that development).

Traffic on 35 is, many times, stacked from New Braunfels to 1604. Six lanes is not enough, rail would defiantly help.

I wonder what the timeline is.

And stacked again from San Marcos all the way to Dallas. Probably can just say it is stacked from SA to Dallas during daylight hours most of the time.

Well, if VIA loses the BRT plans, the first LRT line would be open in 4 years.

SA needs this....hope everything works out!

Which line?

According to the big map that was posted it is the RED Line.

So the entire red line in just four years?

I'm pretty sure VIA's BRT proposal only covered Fred Rd. between STMC and DT, right? If so, that sounds feasible in four years, depending on how well it's sold to the public and how soon funding can get approved.

VIA has a site for BRT.

www.viabrt.com

It looks like it's a work in progress.

I do like the look of the bus.

http://www.viabrt.com/images/bus.jpg

those buses are sweet :yes:

They look exactly like light rail trains. Just on wheels.

I wouldn't mind the LRT trains looking like that. It is in keeping with VIA's vibrant logo.

I wonder if you will see them downtown? or just a express type bus?

OK, fine. It would take giving up on commuter rail, tearing up its track and stations, and starting over. Never ever ever. That better?

I'm thinking maybe VIA either stopped working on the BRT website or took down whatever was on there. Leading me to believe they may be ditching the BRT and going to LRT.

Maybe. That may be why the website is like that right now. Get excited :haha: .

Why do you have a laughing smiley?

Also, I'm hearing that there is strong talk of adding an HOV lane to some of the freeways.

I updated the 2000 LRT proposal map.

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/6505/lrtom8.png

This excites me!

I have plenty of drawn and mapped ideas for light rail in San Antonio, but given the realization that there are professionals who have been working on this behind the scenes for years, I'm going to keep these plans to myself.

They don't need any more fantasy maps muddling up the discussion

KENS 5 reported that a study would be conducted in May to see how many passagers would use commuter rail between San Antonio and Austin. Did anyone catch the whole story?

Here is the link to the video on MySA.http://www2.mysanantonio.com/multime...m?videos=51690

^ Yes, Amtrak is looking to provide a commuter rail service between the two cities. There would be 6 trips a day. The train(s) would run on Union Pacific's line. The quote below by Jdawgboy mentions it. The link includes a letter from Amtrak and TxDot on PDF file.

What can we, as a community, do to promote this?

^^^ yeah I made a comment about that earlier in a post I think we can come up with some great ways we can promote this idea. Like taking advantage of this energy crisis that is on everyones minds as well as the whole "green" mind set we are all on nowadays

Community specific flyers, in english and spanish.

Things like:
"Trip to the airport:

-45 minutes in traffic
-$15 per night for parking
-15 minutes waiting for your shuttle
-A headache and a half

OR

-20 minutes by train
-$1.50 each way
-No hassle, no fuss.

Take VIA Rail today."

Another way is to equate gas with the tax cost, should it be paid by sales tax or similar. Take the average gas usage of inner-loop drivers per year, apply it to a $4 gas threshhold, and give a flat monthly pass rate in comparison.

For example, supposing $1.50 fares equating to a 35-40$ pass, you could easily say that riding rail all month is a savings over driving to work. This would easily work in the San Pedro and Broadway corridors. You could go further and compare those savings against average tax contribution under the plan.

Flyers like that passed out and delivered would work, I'm so certain. I'd even kick in money toward copies if it came to it and the design was good enough.

Back in December I went with my sister and her boyfriend to San Antonio to visit the Riverwalk. And downtown was an absolute madhouse. We crawled only one block in 30 minutes. It took us an hour to find a place to park in downtown. Traffic on I-35 was slow too just north of downtown. It would have been extremely convenient if we could have just taken the train. Also if there was more regular rail service to San Antonio, I'm pretty sure I'd be going more often! I'd love it if they'd allow bicycles on the train. Oh god, that would be perfect. :haha:

Actually traffic is very bad downtown during the Christmas season in SA. But outside of Christmas and Fiesta and final four...the traffic downtown is good.

The traffic is very bad on IH35 from downtown to new braunfels..heck...to austin..

1604 is also very bad...and so is 281 from 1604 northwards...

They are working on all the freeways...but not much is going to be done to IH 35.

San Antonio is actually screwed in the freeways, untill they start and finish the toll roads....and the loop 410 expansion.