SAN ANTONIO | City and Metro Transportation Thread

[Restless One]

Originally Posted by forward looking

No, I never entered such a thing. I only wrote that if this tunnel thing goes through it probably will make an above ground mess because removing six million cubic yards of earthen spoils out of a hole in the ground will create a mess.. "Depending on the method of completion". Only after you entered something here the likes of "at least the tunnel will not make a mess on the streets since it will be underground".
Also explained why, in my opinion road projects take so long. Only after you wept about the length of time it takes to complete some projects. My such a fuss was raised.
"A mess in the streets above will surely be created by a tunnel was all I entered ."

Even taking into account weather delays on street construction though ; the laissez-faire attitude of the state in holding "feet to the fire" of large contractors concerning the the delays upon completion dates of road projects
is intolerable. Yes, we did agree here. These contractors are probably getting extensions. Over and over. If you think this topic unimportant, well, I am sure there are more than a few motorists around here whom would disagree with you about untimeliness.
Never once did I say that San Antonio was large. Au contraire, written was
"I love the smallness of it". This was addressed as to you as -"It is all about relativity". In other words, what one has experienced.

As I've been saying, yes SA is huge geographically, but small in population. I never meant to say that SA is equal to Chicago in population, or traffic. I would think even a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 would have got that, but I apparently gave you too much credit.

Now, I'm done with this.

[Spoiler]

I've been to Barcelona, and it is unsurpassingly beautiful. But San Antonio already has its version of tapas bars, and women. It just needs the infill, and the transit, and maybe only one massive art nouveau cathedral.

[forward looking]

Yes, I agree with Mark Twain, not you- "Never debate with with stupid people they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience." When one must use obscenities....one has run out of options. Signs of Desperation.
One cannot debate quietly or reasonably with a fool.

It does not matter how "Huge" you believe San Antonio is, one can breeze right through a great portion of the City due to the fact there are only two million people residing here. You were way to hung up on statistics in the geographical size of San Antonio to understand this at first. Apparently lacking in Real World experience. Because it also never occurred to you that 6 million cubic yards of earthen spoils removed out of a hole in the ground might cause traffic delays. Amazing.
This was the original point I made in only differing with you here. The unsightly mess and delays made depends on the methods used in disposing of earthen spoils once out of the ground indeed, if this does come to pass here. There will probably be several holes in the ground, if not more. Who knows, the mess could be minimum, it all depends. Smaller bores make for less spoils, at one time.

Oh-oh. SO. Next I heard you facetiously, sourly, enter all about traffic delays on the northeast side. Apple to Oranges.
So I shall repeat...I have breezed completely across town in twenty minutes.
This above, is another reason I love San Antonio. The smallness of it. This does not mean that I do not avoid traffic snarls, but these can happen anywhere, even in far smaller cities, than San Antonio.

Originally Posted by Restless One

As I've been saying, yes SA is huge geographically, but small in population. I never meant to say that SA is equal to Chicago in population, or traffic. I would think even a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 would have got that, but I apparently gave you too much credit.

Now, I'm done with this.

[Keep-SA-Lame]

Barcelona is a cool city, but if we're talking urban area comparisons, I think it's better if we look at cities with a similar metro area population size. Brussels is almost exactly the same population as San Antonio, believe it or not (depends on how you count though, but close enough).





These two polygons are almost the exact same size, about 35 square miles. In Brussels, that covers the entirety of the urban area of the city, plus some of the inner suburbs. And, most relevant to this discussion, contains most of its grade separated metro system and commuter rail stations. In San Antonio, 35 square miles barely covers the city's historic pre-1920s boundaries.

So that's something to keep in mind whether we're talking about the Muskmobile to the airport or a light rail line to the Medical Center, the distances we're talking about here are kind of insane. One of those lines would be like twice the length as the longest line on the Brussels metro, for context. Build both an airport line and a STMC line, and that would already be longer than the entire four line Brussels metro.

IMO it would be better to concentrate our transit resources within that 35 square mile boundary. Instead of one long line connecting distant points, you could have two or three shorter lines within the footprint of the urban core. Not only would you then have a network as opposed to one long corridor (thereby increasing the usefulness of the system, assuming decent service frequency), but you would also be focusing resources into the part of the city that was originally built as a walking/streetcar city. You're sailing into a headwind if you're trying to run a useful transit service on Marbach or Bitters or whatever.

And ditto for the bus system. I was looking at VIA data the other day, and it's really bad for suburban lines. The bottom 30 performing lines, almost all in the distant suburbs outside that 35 square mile zone, average less than a dozen boardings a day. The very worst average less than 4. Nuke those lines immediately and double frequency on all the inner city routes.

Edit: Of course this far from a SA specific problem. Phoenix's light rail line is almost 35 miles long! Dart's system length is 93 miles. These are unsurprisingly, even by American standards, pretty unsuccessful systems in terms of ridership.

[Spoiler]

Originally Posted by Keep-SA-Lame

Barcelona is a cool city, but if we're talking urban area comparisons, I think it's better if we look at cities with a similar metro area population size. Brussels is almost exactly the same population as San Antonio, believe it or not (depends on how you count though, but close enough).

These two polygons are almost the exact same size, about 35 square miles. In Brussels, that covers the entirety of the urban area of the city, plus some of the inner suburbs. And, most relevant to this discussion, contains most of its grade separated metro system and commuter rail stations. In San Antonio, 35 square miles barely covers the city's historic pre-1920s boundaries.

So that's something to keep in mind whether we're talking about the Muskmobile to the airport or a light rail line to the Medical Center, the distances we're talking about here are kind of insane. One of those lines would be like twice the length as the longest line on the Brussels metro, for context. Build both an airport line and a STMC line, and that would already be longer than the entire four line Brussels metro.

IMO it would be better to concentrate our transit resources within that 35 square mile boundary. Instead of one long line connecting distant points, you could have two or three shorter lines within the footprint of the urban core. Not only would you then have a network as opposed to one long corridor (thereby increasing the usefulness of the system, assuming decent service frequency), but you would also be focusing resources into the part of the city that was originally built as a walking/streetcar city. You're sailing into a headwind if you're trying to run a useful transit service on Marbach or Bitters or whatever.

And ditto for the bus system. I was looking at VIA data the other day, and it's really bad for suburban lines. The bottom 30 performing lines, almost all in the distant suburbs outside that 35 square mile zone, average less than a dozen boardings a day. The very worst average less than 4. Nuke those lines immediately and double frequency on all the inner city routes.

Edit: Of course this far from a SA specific problem. Phoenix's light rail line is almost 35 miles long! Dart's system length is 93 miles. These are unsurprisingly, even by American standards, pretty unsuccessful systems in terms of ridership.

I think you're right. I have long thought San Antonio should have a completely different transit approach for the old city than for the sprawl. People would end up living and working either in car-centric or transit-centric parts of town, depending on their wants/needs, and everyone would be happy!

[SproutingTowers]

Today I drove on North 1604 from I-35 to I-10 to see TxDOT construction. Will eventually be a massive multi lane highway with managed lanes. I like using these lanes in Austin and Houston but they should also be saving room for rail. Sadly this probably will lead to more urban sprawl.

[forward looking]

Yes, Keeping San Antonio Lame, but these will not be our resources we
(might) be using to build the rail, did you know? It will be the Rich Guy's resources that will be spent building this rail tunnel. If you could sway Musk
to your kind of thinking....I don't know about this guy as his attention might go toward something else pretty soon.

[Rynetwo]

Originally Posted by forward looking

Yes, Keeping San Antonio Lame, but these will not be our resources we
(might) be using to build the rail, did you know? It will be the Rich Guy's resources that will be spent building this rail tunnel. If you could sway Musk
to your kind of thinking....I don't know about this guy as his attention might go toward something else pretty soon.

While some on the forum don't like this project other Texas cities are moving forward with various projects from his company. The mayor keeps citing this multimodal approach, but the city has been basically stuck for 15 years on that.

[forward looking]

Yes Sprouting Towers, the highway there south from the Bush International airport towards I -10 to the Katy Freeway is supposed to be the widest highway in the world with around 30 or 40 lanes of freeway. I was astonished to look across so much pavement the first time I drove it, I must admit.

I, like you, drove through the 1604 North roadwork late one night at 2 A.M. after arriving on a twice delayed flight, at the S.A. Airport. I drove through where they were working a night shift even out there. Around the clock all over in the near dark. Chipping down at the solid rock toward the depth they must reach to achieve their desired grade for this new highway.

I wonder if we won't have some super highway like this one in Houston, between S.A. and Austin someday? The ultimate urban sprawl between? All electric or hydrogen powered autos? I only wish I might live long enough to see something like this Sprout up. Probably not.

Originally Posted by SproutingTowers

Today I drove on North 1604 from I-35 to I-10 to see TxDOT construction. Will eventually be a massive multi lane highway with managed lanes. I like using these lanes in Austin and Houston but they should also be saving room for rail. Sadly this probably will lead to more urban sprawl.

[Spoiler]

Originally Posted by Rynetwo

other Texas cities are moving forward with various projects from his company.

Yeah, a 300 foot pedestrian tunnel in Kyle.

[forward looking]

I would imagine so but on the other hand perhaps not, Cousin; From Boston.
Many times boring is the cheapest way to go.
There would be many obstacles encountered in the construction of an above ground rail, not the least of which would be traffic delays. One would have to route around, up or under thousands of utility lines already underground. Fiber optic, steam, storm, sanitary, telephone, ,gas, electrical etc.,etc, during the construction of an above ground rail- though above ground is the best option. This method above is exacting and time consuming work though. Many utility lines are not even located on, nor located where, City Documented Underground Prints predict they will be encountered. So. These underground lines will either be struck or located... very tentatively.. Some antiquated service lines might be abandoned and others might have no city record at all of their very existence. All this anticipation for the raising of spread footings of the heavy load bearing pillars an above ground rail requires.
Don't even fracture a fiber optic line. It makes one hell of a mess. I recall one instance where a fiber optic line outside the Atlanta Airport was severed with an Excavator. The air traffic is very busy overhead of course.
Well this move severed the Air traffic control tower off all communication with the airplanes roaming around the air over Atlanta. Also it is very, prohibitively, unbelievably, expensive to repair Fiber Optic. Insurance has to pay, and will even affect future bonding rates for the company.
Underground there are no obstacles except for the Aquifer. Don't mess with mother nature I say. Humans are the most invasive species of all.

Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown

Wouldn't it be so much easier to build an above ground system?

[Keep-SA-Lame]

I don't think we've discussed this yet, but a pretty major Amtrak expansion will likely be rolling out in Texas over the next few years, and SA stands to be a fairly major beneficiary:

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/texas-trains-to-San-Antonio-17500197.php

https://www.texasrailadvocates.org/post/...le-passenger-rail-corridors-in-the-state

https://www.amtrakconnectsus.com/maps/san-antonio-houston/

https://www.amtrakconnectsus.com/maps/san-antonio-austin-fort-worth/

There's multiple (potentially competing?) proposals here, both from TxDoT and Amtrak. It's unclear what's already funded from ye olde infrastructure bill, what TxDoT is asking the TX Legislature to give as matching funds to Amtrak projects, and what's unfunded pie in the sky. But here's what's on the table at least:

-On the I35 corridor, at least one new daily roundtrip to Dallas, with a new stop in New Braunfels (finally) and Arlington. The TxDOT letter asks for "new train sets" (plural) on the Sunset Limited (I10) and Texas Eagle (I35 corridor). On the Texas Eagle, based on the current schedule one train equals one daiy round trip, for reference.

-On the Sunset Limited (I10), Amtrak is envisioning 3 daily round trips, with new stops in Seguin, Flatonia and Rosenburg. As with the Texas Eagle, the TxDOT letter doesn't specify frequency, only that it wants more trains. And hopefully someone will find some pennies somewhere to throw at that embarrassing Houston station.

-Finally, TxDOT asks for a mysterious new line to the "Rio Grande Valley", neither specifying route, frequency or destination. This proposal comes only from TxDOT, so there's no details available from Amtrak, all we have to go on is what was in the TxDOT memo. Some media reports make it sound like they're counting Laredo as the RGV (which to me is definitely not the Valley but whatever), but it could be that there are both SA-Laredo and SA-Harlingen routes on the table. This route(s) is intriguing because it connects SA with populous regions that currently have no direct air service to San Antonio. So, there is potentially a market here for rail travel (there's certainly a 🞵🞵🞵🞵 load of buses currently between SA and these cities). On the other hand, it could be argued that you'd be better taking these trains and increasing frequency between the big cities (probably the correct take).


Anyway, I'm sure we all agree that none of this is anywhere near adequate rail service for such a populous and prosperous region of the world. As excited as I am about this, what we're aspiring to here is still embarrassing. The best of these routes would be roughly equivalent to the Piedmont service in North Carolina, which I've taken before and found useful. But it's not exactly super successful either, not as good as say New England's Downeaster or some of Amtrak's northern California routes. Which in turn are pitiful compared to passenger rail in basically any European country. I'm still greatly lamenting the untimely death of Lone Star Rail (and now the apparent move to hospice of Texas Central).

But with multiple trains a day on these routes, it will at least make the current system work better. And SA will be a hub of sorts for Texas passenger rail, with up to four regional rail lines plus the current long distance services to New Orleans/Los Angeles/Chicago. Maybe this will light a fire under the local authorities to finally move SA's Amtrak station to Centro Plaza. Apart from tying in better to the transit network and the old I&GN station being a much nicer waiting room, Sunset Station is too small for a network of this size. We'd be increasing from a current max of 4 daily arrivals/departures to 16ish will require more than the two current available platforms at Sunset Station. Portland OR has the same number of trains and has up to five platforms available, though I believe they only use four.

[LSP]

Found this neat article.

https://www.expressnews.com/projects/2022/san-antonio-buildings-faq/

[AwesomeSAView]

Originally Posted by LSP

Found this neat article.

https://www.expressnews.com/projects/2022/san-antonio-buildings-faq/

EXCELLENT article and Q&A!!!!!


Maybe this will bring some understanding and knowing.

[JACKinBeantown]

Originally Posted by LSP

Found this neat article.

https://www.expressnews.com/projects/2022/san-antonio-buildings-faq/

Thanks, but it has a paywall.

[theOGalexd]

Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown

Thanks, but it has a paywall.

I'm not seeing one on desktop.


A lot of the "answers" in this article seem off to me. Is downtown SA being compared to New York? Houston and Dallas?

"Tall buildings are often driven by big corporations needing offices and a vigorous economy. San Antonio has had neither," McGlone wrote.

We've had several F500 companies over the years (USAA, Valero, Tesoro, iHeart, AT&T, maybe others I'm forgetting) and none of them built skyscrapers downtown. Suburban campuses are a huge factor in this, as well as all the random office towers along 410/I-10/281. The USAA HQ is 600k sqft bigger than the Sears Tower... imagine if that was a skyscraper.

"San Antonio, despite its population, is a relatively low-income city. In 2018, the median income for low-income households was a little over $49,000"

Miami and SA metro are about the same, hasn't stopped them from building skyscrapers. Not like SA doesn't have plenty of wealth either.

Rick Lewis, a professor of architecture at UTSA. "What I find that makes San Antonio architecturally unique or distinctive here in the 21st Century is the fact that it can be among the U.S.'s top 10 most populated metropolitan areas and not feel or look like the other nine architecturally in a general sense,"

We're not even a top 10 metro... we're 24th lol. Kinda crazy that a UTSA professor can't even Google that. Sometimes I'm not sure if the "7th biggest city" title does us a lot of favors.

"According to downtown developers, the sites available for development downtown are often small and oddly sized, with archaeological work required because of how old San Antonio is."

Along the riverwalk maybe? I can't imagine all the empty square shaped surface lots having a lot of hoops to jump through.

"Old mindsets of how the world works and a healthy lack of imagination have stifled downtown growth," McGlone wrote.

This is probably true.

The lack of residences creates a self-sustaining cycle because developers often look for comparisons in nearby buildings to see demand for housing in an area.

Let's hope the Floodgate and 300 Main knock it out of the park then. As long as the economy doesn't completely go down the toilet, it seems like these (and the Arts tower) will be a catalyst.

[aggie2008]

It doesn't look like San Antonio made the list of FY2024 grants but cool to see both the NS and EW lines documented. The NS line is obviously further along and has a "Medium-High" rating.

https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/gran...-investment-grants-program-and-expedited (search for San Antonio)

This is from the NS plan (bolding mine) wondering if not getting the grant in FY2024 delays the planned start date?
"Project Development History, Status and Next Steps: VIA selected the locally preferred alternative (LPA) in October 2018. The LPA was adopted in the fiscally constrained long-range transportation plan in September 2020. The project entered New Starts Project Development in August 2021. VIA anticipates NEPA completion with receipt of a Categorical Exclusion in July 2022, receipt of a construction grant in 2024, and the start of revenue service in 2027."

[Keep-SA-Lame]

Originally Posted by aggie2008

It doesn't look like San Antonio made the list of FY2024 grants but cool to see both the NS and EW lines documented. The NS line is obviously further along and has a "Medium-High" rating.

https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/gran...-investment-grants-program-and-expedited (search for San Antonio)

This is from the NS plan (bolding mine) wondering if not getting the grant in FY2024 delays the planned start date?
"Project Development History, Status and Next Steps: VIA selected the locally preferred alternative (LPA) in October 2018. The LPA was adopted in the fiscally constrained long-range transportation plan in September 2020. The project entered New Starts Project Development in August 2021. VIA anticipates NEPA completion with receipt of a Categorical Exclusion in July 2022, receipt of a construction grant in 2024, and the start of revenue service in 2027."

Nice, thanks for sharing this. This project hasn't received nearly enough attention on this forum, imo. I mean yeah it's not a 🞵🞵🞵🞵 train but it's going to be a really useful piece of infrastructure, and probably one of the best BRT systems in the country when built out.

Interesting that the E/W corridor will go on E Houston instead of E Commerce, I guess that means it won't have a dedicated lane on that stretch.

Also, from the N/S line:

During weekdays, service is planned to operate every 10 minutes for most of the day and every 20 to 30 minutes during early morning and late-night hours. On weekends, service is planned to operate every 15 minutes for most of the day and every 30 minutes during early morning andlate-night hours. The service is planned to operate from 4:00 AM to 1:00 AM during weekdays and weekends

Incredible. If the whole bus system worked like this I would be so happy, but I'll take what I can get I guess. Right now it basically shuts down at 10 pm (I do not count the late night "lineup" system, it's so soooo bad). It's also incredible how inexpensive this project is, relatively speaking. $320m in capital costs and only $12m a year to operate. What's that buy us in highways, like 75% of one new flyover highway interchange? Like 1/10th of a 6th avenue subway station? Apples to oranges comparisons I know but it's still interesting to think about.

[Rynetwo]

Originally Posted by theOGalexd

I'm not seeing one on desktop.


A lot of the "answers" in this article seem off to me. Is downtown SA being compared to New York? Houston and Dallas?

"Tall buildings are often driven by big corporations needing offices and a vigorous economy. San Antonio has had neither," McGlone wrote.

We've had several F500 companies over the years (USAA, Valero, Tesoro, iHeart, AT&T, maybe others I'm forgetting) and none of them built skyscrapers downtown. Suburban campuses are a huge factor in this, as well as all the random office towers along 410/I-10/281. The USAA HQ is 600k sqft bigger than the Sears Tower... imagine if that was a skyscraper.

"San Antonio, despite its population, is a relatively low-income city. In 2018, the median income for low-income households was a little over $49,000"

Miami and SA metro are about the same, hasn't stopped them from building skyscrapers. Not like SA doesn't have plenty of wealth either.

Rick Lewis, a professor of architecture at UTSA. "What I find that makes San Antonio architecturally unique or distinctive here in the 21st Century is the fact that it can be among the U.S.'s top 10 most populated metropolitan areas and not feel or look like the other nine architecturally in a general sense,"

We're not even a top 10 metro... we're 24th lol. Kinda crazy that a UTSA professor can't even Google that. Sometimes I'm not sure if the "7th biggest city" title does us a lot of favors.

"According to downtown developers, the sites available for development downtown are often small and oddly sized, with archaeological work required because of how old San Antonio is."

Along the riverwalk maybe? I can't imagine all the empty square shaped surface lots having a lot of hoops to jump through.

"Old mindsets of how the world works and a healthy lack of imagination have stifled downtown growth," McGlone wrote.

This is probably true.

The lack of residences creates a self-sustaining cycle because developers often look for comparisons in nearby buildings to see demand for housing in an area.

Let's hope the Floodgate and 300 Main knock it out of the park then. As long as the economy doesn't completely go down the toilet, it seems like these (and the Arts tower) will be a catalyst.

I agree.

First off, not knowing the metro ranking is embarrassing. Second, is anyone going to address the amount of hotels and how they can buy very expensive land to build on when the lot size is tiny. (Canopy & Courtyard)

[aggie2008]

@Keep-SA-Lame Totally agree! If this can get built out to actual BRT standards with increased frequency and extended hours it would be amazing! 10 minute frequency is pretty amazing. Hoping the plans don't get watered down too much. It really needs lane separation, traffic light priority and off board fare collection to make it work. I understand the need to skip dedicated center running lanes in some portions of routes, just hope that doesn't mean they give up on off board fare sales as that really slows buses down.