SAN ANTONIO | City and Metro Transportation Thread

[kingkirbythe....]

The Great Springs Project Aims to Build a 100-Mile Hike-and-Bike Trail From Austin to San Antonio

https://www.texasmonthly.com/travel/...-trail-system/

The nonprofit effort will cost hundreds of millions and preserve 50,000 acres over the fragile Edwards Aquifer. Can it be done?

[kingkirbythe....]

Plans for rapid bus line on San Pedro ‘a game changer’ for San Antonio. Will there be an east-west route?

https://www.expressnews.com/politics...e-17072744.php

An east-west rapid transit route is a priority for VIA as soon as the agency has the funding, Arndt said. The idea is for such a line to follow Commerce and Houston streets. The transit agency moved forward with the north-south line first in part because San Pedro has fewer engineering challenges since it’s a wider street.

McKee-Rodriguez also wants to talk about putting more money toward VIA in the future. San Antonio’s transit system lags far behind Austin, Dallas and Houston in funding, as the city hasn’t dedicated the full 1-cent-per-dollar sales tax allowable for it. VIA has instead received the 5/8 cent sales tax.

[kingkirbythe....]

San Antonio cyclist’s death prompts closer look at ‘tricky intersection’ along Salado Creek Greenway

https://www.expressnews.com/news/loc...k-17069498.php

Craig Gulledge, a brawny, bearded cyclist and spirited competitor in the San Antonio Highland Games, was pedaling home on the Salado Creek Greenway less than an hour before the popular hike-and-bike trail officially closed at dusk.

But he never made it. Gulledge, 53, died while trying to cross an unusual and hazardous intersection where the trail meets a one-lane commercial access road by the entrance of the Los Patios retail and dining complex. His death is one of three local bicycle fatalities reported in March.

...

Crossing from the south, as Gulledge was, the concrete bridge of the main westbound Loop 410 access road blocks the view of any oncoming cars, unless the viewer is right by the road. From the north, cyclists typically have to look back over their left shoulder to see if a car is coming.

The board is working with city parks, public works and transportation officials to improve safety throughout the Howard W. Peak Greenway Trails System, which currently covers half of the planned 180 miles of trails encircling San Antonio. But the March 17 fatality has brought attention to a location the panel’s chairman, avid cyclist Greg Hammer, recently called a “tricky intersection.”

...

This year, there already have been three reported bicycle fatalities — all in March.

On March 13, a cyclist died in a crash in the 2900 block of S.W. Loop 410. A few days after Gulledge’s death, a third cyclist was fatally struck by an alleged drunken driver in the 300 block of Basse, near the Alamo Quarry Market, on March 22.

[JACKinBeantown]

Unfortunately, many drivers do not slow down for cyclists and even view cyclists as annoying and in their way. Car culture has many problems that need to be addressed.

Here's a crossing near me that has gotten safer in recent years with the addition of the traffic lights. Even in Boston, where cyclists are more respected, people sometimes blow through in the cars.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4043...7i16384!8i8192

[kingkirbythe....]

To prevent traffic fatalities, we must rethink road design

https://sanantonioreport.org/roadway...ic-fatalities/

San Antonio’s traffic fatalities need some serious attention.

Roughly 4,480 people were killed on Texas roads in 2021, making it the second deadliest year on record. Speeding, alcohol and distracted driving are just some of the causes of increasing fatality rates in Bexar County.

The Federal Highway Administration designates San Antonio as a “Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Focus City” because it has one of the highest pedestrian fatality rates in the United States. The traffic fatality rate was 9.76 fatalities per 100,000 population in 2019, with pedestrians making up more than a quarter of fatalities.

This comes at a time when traffic fatalities are reaching new highs across the country. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has stated, “The status quo is unacceptable,” and that “zero is the only acceptable number of deaths and serious injuries on our roadways.“ Likewise, Congress has introduced House Resolution 565 expressing the desire to “reduce traffic fatalities to zero by 2050.”

While the loss of life is always a tragedy, this is also an economic issue. According to a 2011 study by the American Automobile Association, the economic cost of accidents is over three times that of traffic congestion. In San Antonio, the study estimated the cost of traffic accidents to be nearly seven times the costs of congestion, or $4.3 billion per year in 2009.

In 2019, the Texas Transportation Commission adopted a goal of a 50% reduction in fatalities on Texas roads by 2035, reaching zero fatalities by 2050. Locally, the City of San Antonio and the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Association have active Vision Zero efforts but apparently without any target dates for reaching the goal.

One important area for change is roadway design. For decades, the roadways were designed to permit more motor vehicles to travel faster. Clearly, a new design philosophy is needed to make roads safer, particularly for other roadway users like pedestrians and cyclists.

[kingkirbythe....]

Editorial: Digging deep, but still can’t see benefit of tunnel

https://www.expressnews.com/opinion/...e-17083865.php

We’re surprised officials haven’t buried the Boring Co.’s proposed tunnel from the San Antonio International Airport to downtown as the project seems likely to wind up at a dead end.

Given the myriad concerns — cost, utility, viability, environmental, point — we’re left wondering just why Bexar County and Alamo Regional Mobility Authority officials are spinning their wheels over a project that appears to be as unpopular as it is unnecessary.

In moderate traffic, it takes all of 15 minutes to travel the 10 miles from the San Antonio airport to the Convention Center downtown. In heavy traffic, such a trip might take 20 to 40 minutes.

That is just one concern about the tunnel concept — it is a transit solution for a nonexistent problem. But the more salient concern is this is a transit project that, at best, will only tangentially serve the community. Take the sparkle of Elon Musk and Tesla out of the equation, and this is an underground toll road mostly for tourists and conventioneers.

[kingkirbythe....]

Alamo Heights’ Broadway renovations get the fast track while San Antonio talks stall

https://sanantonioreport.org/alamo-h...roadway-txdot/

The Texas Department of Transportation is working with the City of Alamo Heights on a $27 million plan to turn Broadway into a pedestrian-friendly corridor — and holding it up as an example of how San Antonio might proceed with its own derailed plans to overhaul their portion of road.

Both cities originally envisioned grand transformations for Broadway, including reducing lanes to create space for bikes and pedestrians. Those plans were put on hold earlier this year when TxDOT abruptly informed city leaders it was no longer allowing lane reductions on major thoroughfares and moved to reclaim a 2.2-mile section of the road it once sought to turn over to the City of San Antonio.

This month the two cities are forging ahead on very different paths.

On Monday members of the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, a group that oversees state and federal transportation funding, voted to remove the term “road diet” from the plan for Alamo Heights’ 0.7-mile stretch of Broadway between Austin Highway and Burr Road. The move came after Alamo Heights’ city council approved a resolution vowing not to reduce the number of lanes earlier this month.


Huh. I wonder why.

[kingkirbythe....]

Commentary: Boring Co. tunnel a threat to historic springs

https://www.expressnews.com/opinion/...s-17144985.php

The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, or RMA, entered into discussions with the Boring Co. in March to build a tunnel between the San Antonio International Airport and downtown, creating an underground pathway that can run Teslas between the two locations.

The RMA cited cost as the reason for its decision to pursue this project over a competing proposal, but it has ignored the potential impacts on the Edwards Aquifer.

The project ignores the local geology between the airport and downtown, which is well known to local geoscientists as an active part of our aquifer system with dozens of identified caves, or karst features, including San Antonio Springs (also known as the Blue Hole) and San Pedro Springs. One of the concerns is that the project will run extremely close to San Antonio Springs and potentially impact that historic and important geological feature.

The proposed tunnel-boring machine would use a combination of fluids and cements to create the tunnel. Limestone in our area has a network of pathways that connect to groundwater. In times when aquifer levels are low, water from Olmos Creek will run into San Antonio Springs during a good rain, making it a significant recharge feature. With San Pedro Springs and other documented features in the area, it is likely that a tunnel on the proposed route, or anywhere between Harry Wurzbach Road and Blanco Road north of downtown, will intersect one or more features that also connect to the Edwards Aquifer. This project could potentially cement shut features that transport water to the spring, keeping this historic feature from flowing again. The plan also raises concerns about whether wells in the area might be impacted or how it might affect our 1.5 million downstream aquifer neighbors.

[kingkirbythe....]

Hole to Nowhere: Why the wheels are likely to come off of Elon Musk's San Antonio tunnel scheme

https://www.sacurrent.com/news/hole-...cheme-28801558

As the Boring Co.'s $247 million bid undergoes a feasibility evaluation, it's worth considering whether Musk's latest pie-in-the-sky venture has any prospect of working.

[jaga185]

SA leaders not ready to veer from city’s Broadway plan

Alamo Heights has reached a compromise with the State of Texas on improvements to its portion of Broadway Street, but the City of San Antonio isn’t budging from its vision for its longer stretch of the urban roadway.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg and other top city officials have vowed to stay the course with a complete remake of Broadway, which was approved by voters five years ago. Centro San Antonio CEO Matt Brown believes there is an opportunity to develop a world-class boulevard that could inspire more significant midtown redevelopment.

What Texas transportation officials want and what they will apparently get from Alamo Heights is a commitment to keep all existing lanes along Broadway — or what the state refers to as Loop 368.

What San Antonio officials are pursuing is a complete-street plan that accommodates vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists, requiring a reduction of lanes.

“We still believe it is an important project,” San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. “Our position hasn’t changed.”

Brown said the plan envisioned by San Antonio will improve quality of life and connectivity along what he calls the “most important corridor in the city.”

It’s also about economic opportunities, he insists.

“The massive private investment that's already gone in and is teed up to go in is a major benefit to the city,” Brown said. He added creating a new avenue could provide a “huge brand lift" that helps attract more investment.

City Manager Erik Walsh said San Antonio has worked with state officials and other stakeholders for six years on a plan to create greater multimodal access. San Antonio voters endorsed the plan in 2017, freeing up more than $40 million in municipal bond money to fund the improvements.

Some construction work along Broadway has already begun. Planning and engineering work for the next phase was in motion when the Texas Transportation Commission and Texas Department of Transportation raised concerns about lane reductions.

“We look forward to continue working with officials from the City of Alamo Heights and officials from the City of San Antonio as the important work on Broadway moves forward,” Texas Transportation Commission Chairman J. Bruce Bugg Jr. said.

Walsh said the city’s goal is to “fully realize the Broadway project that voters approved in 2017,” adding that studies have shown the city’s complete-street plan would improve mobility.

“We don’t think it’s a good idea to abandon ship, to just repave Broadway and call it a day,” Brown said. “That would be a massive, missed opportunity.”

Said Nirenberg, “We plan to honor the will of the voters.”

[JACKinBeantown]

Originally Posted by kingkirbythe....

The Great Springs Project Aims to Build a 100-Mile Hike-and-Bike Trail From Austin to San Antonio

https://www.texasmonthly.com/travel/...-trail-system/

The nonprofit effort will cost hundreds of millions and preserve 50,000 acres over the fragile Edwards Aquifer. Can it be done?

I hope this works!

[kingkirbythe....]

Concerned about caves, critters; Groups oppose Elon Musk firm’s proposed tunnel project

https://www.expressnews.com/business...l-17151195.php

Two nonprofits whose missions are to identify and preserve Texas caves oppose plans by The Boring Company — the tunneling firm backed by billionaire Elon Musk — to build an underground transportation loop between San Antonio International Airport and downtown.

In an April 18 letter to the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, the Texas Cave Management Association and the Texas Speleological Survey said they have “major concerns” about the potential project. They’re worried that tunneling northeast of downtown could damage the area’s caves and karst topography, home to springs and endangered animals.

“Out of the million and one places to build a tunnel, they had to pick the worst,” TCMA President Jim Kennedy said in an interview. “There’s a whole bunch of places you could put a tunnel around San Antonio without going through this specific area. There’s all kind of red flags.”

[kingkirbythe....]

Environmental groups warn Boring Co.'s proposed San Antonio tunnel could jeopardize at-risk species

https://www.sacurrent.com/news/envir...ecies-28849571

Two environmental groups sent a letter last month warning that a tunnel project proposed by Elon Musk's Boring Co. to connect San Antonio International Airport and downtown could jeopardize endangered species, the Express-News reports.

In a letter to the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which is reviewing the project, the Texas Cave Management Association (TCMA) and the Texas Speleological Survey (TSS) said tunneling in the sensitive north of downtown could destroy habitats endangered wildlife, the daily reports.

Although the exact route of the Boring Co.'s tunnel has yet to be determined, Alamo RMA Chairman Michael Lynd Jr. has stated that the project would likely run alongside U.S. Highway 281.

In correspondence with the Alamo RMA, the groups said 11 cave entrances on either side of the highway make up a vast network of underground springs that feed into the Edwards Aquifer and provide a home to two endangered species of spiders, according to the Express-News. Tunneling, the groups caution, could destroy the spiders' natural habitat.

Additionally, the daily reports, the organizations expressed concern that boring through the Austin Chalk could disrupt underground water flows in the area.

The TCMA and TSS aren't alone in raising concerns about the Boring Co.'s project. Evelynn Mitchell, a professor of environmental science at St. Mary's University, this month told the Current that the project could pollute the city's water supply and stop spring water from feeding into the underground waterways altogether.

[kingkirbythe....]

San Antonio’s major thoroughfare plan is 40 years old. A city official wants an update.

https://sanantonioreport.org/san-ant...oughfare-plan/

The new Chevy Caprice was holding the top spot in U.S. car sales and U.S. Highway 281 had just been expanded on the North Side between the airport and Loop 1604 when city leaders adopted San Antonio’s first major thoroughfare plan.

The plan became the roadmap, literally and figuratively, showing the locations and types of roadways needed to meet the region’s projected growth. But the 1978 guide for all things involving the development of streets, access, public rights-of-way and corridors hardly applies to the San Antonio of today.

It’s past time for a new one, said Tomika Monterville, director of the city’s Transportation Department, briefing members of the City Council’s Transportation and Mobility Committee in April.

“Our major thoroughfare plan is not a living document,” she said. “It was a place and a point in time, and we need to update it so that we can guide the future of the city and not be here 40 years later and people saying, ‘What do you think they were thinking in 2022?’”

The major thoroughfare plan, one component of the city’s long-range planning document called the SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan, is used to guide development and mobility. But because it was written in the 1970s, it’s no longer useful or valid in some cases.

[JACKinBeantown]

Originally Posted by kingkirbythe....

San Antonio’s major thoroughfare plan is 40 years old. A city official wants an update.

https://sanantonioreport.org/san-ant...oughfare-plan/

The new Chevy Caprice was holding the top spot in U.S. car sales and U.S. Highway 281 had just been expanded on the North Side between the airport and Loop 1604 when city leaders adopted San Antonio’s first major thoroughfare plan.

The plan became the roadmap, literally and figuratively, showing the locations and types of roadways needed to meet the region’s projected growth. But the 1978 guide for all things involving the development of streets, access, public rights-of-way and corridors hardly applies to the San Antonio of today.

It’s past time for a new one, said Tomika Monterville, director of the city’s Transportation Department, briefing members of the City Council’s Transportation and Mobility Committee in April.

“Our major thoroughfare plan is not a living document,” she said. “It was a place and a point in time, and we need to update it so that we can guide the future of the city and not be here 40 years later and people saying, ‘What do you think they were thinking in 2022?’”

The major thoroughfare plan, one component of the city’s long-range planning document called the SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan, is used to guide development and mobility. But because it was written in the 1970s, it’s no longer useful or valid in some cases.

And it should include a strong emphasis on the inclusion of mass transit alongside/above/below each major artery. It seems it would be so much easier to build a monorail or other form of elevated transit system than digging a 10-mile tunnel in the same vicinity as the Edward's Aquifer and aforementioned cave systems. (Elon Musk is a business/engineering genius, but he's also the modern day P.T. Barnum, so his words should be taken with a big grain of salt.)

[forward looking]

Musk and his engineering team simply did not know of the environmental sensitivity of the Edwards Recharge Zone of North San Antonio, and that was where a train tunnel route made the most sense? I mean all of us here already knew, right?
I doubt it would have mattered.

Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown

And it should include a strong emphasis on the inclusion of mass transit alongside/above/below each major artery. It seems it would be so much easier to build a monorail or other form of elevated transit system than digging a 10-mile tunnel in the same vicinity as the Edward's Aquifer and aforementioned cave systems. (Elon Musk is a business/engineering genius, but he's also the modern day P.T. Barnum, so his words should be taken with a big grain of salt.)

[JACKinBeantown]

Originally Posted by forward looking

Musk and his engineering team simply did not know of the environmental sensitivity of the Edwards Recharge Zone of North San Antonio, and that was where a train tunnel route made the most sense? I mean all of us here already knew, right?
I doubt it would have mattered.

Hence the modern day P.T. Barnum comparison. He says grandiose things to get attention. Sometimes he makes things work, when it's a matter of figuring out the engineering or business model (such as Tesla). But this is different. It's a matter of doing research or simply talking to the locals who know such things (as you said). Anyway, enough about him. More about positive efforts to bring about intelligent and thoughtful transportation designs and implementations that work with the current and future needs of the city and region.

[Rynetwo]

Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown

Hence the modern day P.T. Barnum comparison. He says grandiose things to get attention. Sometimes he makes things work, when it's a matter of figuring out the engineering or business model (such as Tesla). But this is different. It's a matter of doing research or simply talking to the locals who know such things (as you said). Anyway, enough about him. More about positive efforts to bring about intelligent and thoughtful transportation designs and implementations that work with the current and future needs of the city and region.

It worked in Las Vegas and the city thought it could work here so who is really to blame? Our local leaders greenlit the study.

In March, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority unanimously approved a feasibility study for a proposal from billionaire Elon Musk's Boring Co. to build subterranean "public transit" from the San Antonio International Airport to downtown.

https://www.sacurrent.com/news/hole-...cheme-28801558

[Spoiler]

Originally Posted by Rynetwo

It worked in Las Vegas and the city thought it could work here so who is really to blame? Our local leaders greenlit the study.

What worked in Las Vegas? They have a .8 mile tunnel that goes from the convention center to the... convention center.

[JACKinBeantown]

Originally Posted by Rynetwo

It worked in Las Vegas and the city thought it could work here so who is really to blame? Our local leaders greenlit the study.





https://www.sacurrent.com/news/hole-...cheme-28801558

I can't speak to their motivations, but in general people get swept away by a good sales pitch and hype. Elon Musk is really good at those things. Anyway, if the tunnel is out, what's in?