Opinion

A transportation plan that embraces technology, trackless transit in dedicated lanes

San Antonio’s projected growth — a million more people by 2040 — poses transportation challenges for which a nonprofit group formed by Mayor Ron Nirenberg proposes solutions that focus on easier mobility. San Antonio’s projected growth — a million more people by 2040 — poses transportation challenges for which a nonprofit group formed by Mayor Ron Nirenberg proposes solutions that focus on easier mobility. Photo: Edward A. Ornelas /San Antonio Express-News Photo: Edward A. Ornelas /San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close A transportation plan that embraces technology, trackless transit in dedicated lanes 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

In a modern city like San Antonio, transportation in its many forms is more essential than ever to connect the moving parts of our daily lives. As San Antonio’s children grow up and have children of their own, our community expands. New residents and their vehicles are being added to our region more quickly than at any other time in our history. And, as we welcome 100 new people each day, our ability to move freely across the metropolitan area will become more challenging and have wide-ranging effects on everything from business productivity and efficient use of time to equitable access to work and schools, and safety on our roadways.

We must use transportation to get to work, for shopping trips, schools and training, medical needs, recreation and personal travel. This means our transportation options are critical to our finances, our careers, our health, our family well-being, and our opportunities to advance in life. We are at a defining moment in time, a crossroads of opportunity to determine our future mobility. The choices we make today to improve our transportation system will be felt for generations to come.

This spring Mayor Ron Nirenberg and County Judge Nelson Wolff formed ConnectSA, a non-profit group, with this challenge about choices in mind. They tasked us, its co-chairs, with assessing how different modes of transportation in San Antonio can be integrated, moving more people to where they need to go in the most efficient, innovative and least costly ways possible.

We did not have to start from scratch. Over the last several years, many organizations have produced excellent templates for multimodal growth. Working closely with SA Tomorrow, VIA Metropolitan Transit, the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, San Antonio Mobility Coalition, and other resources, we began to make choices.

The first choice was to rule out light rail and toll roads in any ConnnectSA framework. There are many reasons for this choice, including that our voters have indicated clearly that rail is not the answer for San Antonio. And as it turns out, the instinct of the voters may have given San Antonio an opportunity: We can leapfrog past expensive, infrastructure-intensive rail into some more modern approaches to rapid transit.

The second choice we had to make was to embrace “mobility” to include every contemporary or near-future mode of transportation. It includes cars, buses, cabs, shuttles, van pools, and commercial trucks. Transportation also means taxi cabs, Uber, Lyft, and other ride-share networks, motorcycles, bicycles, dockless scooters and autonomous vehicles. And in a time when mixed-use, live-work-play villages within a city are a major new form of urban design, another facet of transportation is “walkability” through upgraded sidewalks.

On December 19, the Tri-Chairs presented initial recommendations in a draft document to the Mayor and County Judge. This document, our “framework presentation,” integrated a new mobility plan for San Antonio with three areas of focus: Smart Initiatives, Improving Transportation Flow, and Expanding Transportation Network Choices.

The framework covers the next 21 years, proposing different projects for distinct phases allowing residents to see how the entire mobility system could grow in scale over time.

For us, the most exciting part of our framework has to be the first six years, 2019 to 2025, where we made a conscious effort to avoid the “IH-35-effect”—which is that feeling a Texan gets that something good is being built but it may never quite be completed. Large-scale transportation projects are important, but they take many years to finish. We want citizens of San Antonio and Bexar County to quickly realize the benefits of many ConnectSA initiatives.

Thus, we have proposed “25 by 25” as a series of projects that will be implemented or underway in six years. Safety is always of urgent concern. Forty miles of right-of-way with real protective barriers for bikes, scooters, and any form of micro-transit are in the plan. By 2025, we propose that 200 miles of sidewalks be built near schools, transportation hubs, and areas where wheelchair mobility is essential.

Leveraging technology to integrate various modes of mobility is a trend among successful cities. Collaborating with the private sector, we should be able to have one app that, for example, lets you hail a Lyft, utilize VIA, then ride a scooter or another vehicle. Another example of tech-assisted mobility would be an app identifying open parking spaces downtown.

The fact is that technology is changing at such a pace that San Antonio may benefit in bypassing the once fashionable in-city rail fad. There are smarter, cheaper, and better ways to keep our city connected. Trackless transit vehicles moving in protected, dedicated lanes with signal prioritization and pre-board fare collection provide the same efficiencies as some rail systems with more flexibility.

We propose the first Advanced Rapid Transit (ART) corridor run from 1604 on the northside, south to the airport, along San Pedro, through downtown, ending at 410 South along the Mission Trail. A true north-to-south corridor with train station-like platforms, at a fraction of the cost of light rail. We look forward to sharing examples of Advanced Rapid Transit from other cities.

An east-to-west corridor is proposed for 2025, along Commerce to Houston. In all, seven ART spokes are contemplated across the city by 2040, providing much more equitable coverage than we could ever afford by building tracks.

The ConnectSA framework is extensive but we believe it is necessary, practical and affordable. Funding it includes a mix of current available dollars, possibly reallocating existing sales tax obligations that are set to expire, then leveraging state, federal and public/private partnership funds. There are ideas for new revenue that have been adopted by voters in other cities and counties across Texas that we would ask residents to consider as options over the coming months.

But let’s be clear, none of what has been laid out here is set in stone. ConnectSA will serve as a forum for testing old assumptions and listening for good ideas while encouraging smart collaboration between traditional providers and breakthrough innovators. ConnectSA will engage dozens of member volunteers who will seek to generate thousands of conversations about how and why we should create a comprehensive and future-oriented transportation system. We have committed to town halls in every city council district and every county commissioner precinct, workshops with community groups and neighborhood associations, and feedback sessions with the larger employers and educational institutions whose employees and students use the mobiity system every day. We will explore new ways to accept and integrate online feedback.

We believe transportation is a collaborative aspect of sustaining a city — just like promoting a strong economy, providing public safety, supporting an airport, assessing water and power supplies, or providing for schools. And we believe most people in San Antonio regard an efficient and safe transportation system as a public good in the public interest. The plan we submit in early summer will reflect citizen edits and input. Ultimately, together, we will improve our regional transportation future and ensure that every resident is connected to a mobility choice that opens the way to opportunity.

Henry Cisneros, Hope Andrade and Jane Macon are co-chairs of ConnectSA. Cisneros is a former mayor of San Antonio and former HUD secretary. Andrade is former Texas secretary of state and current VIA Board chair. Macon is a local attorney and a former city attorney, and was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve on the Selective Service Appeal Board.