SAN ANTONIO – A sprawling plan to nearly triple San Antonio’s current bike infrastructure has a green light.
However, following the roadmap to fully build out the 1,740-mile network of bike lanes and trails in the area could cost billions of dollars over the next 25 years.
The City Council voted 10-0 Thursday — with one abstention — to approve the new Bike Network Plan (BNP). The plan is an update to the city’s 2011 Bike Master Plan (BNP), which has been two years in the making.
The BNP laid out a web of projects that would allow cyclists to make their way to grocery stores, schools and employment centers.
There are already 604 miles worth of bike lanes and trails in the San Antonio area, including the Greenway Trail System, but they aren’t always connected.
The new plan is broken into three parts: a “primary” network that city staff say is the minimum needed to achieve connectivity, a “neighborhood” network through areas with slower streets and a “visionary” network with trickier projects.
Every project is ranked based on the cost and feasibility of getting it done. They can range from simple, painted lanes to separate, off-road tracks shared with pedestrians.
The cost to do it all over the next 25 years is estimated to run between $3 billion and $8 billion. Of that, $540 million to $1.44 billion would be local funding.
“I mean, we know we’re not going to get everything on there, but there’s a lot of really good meat (and) potatoes in that plan," cycling activist Bryan Martin told KSAT after the vote.
The plan passed the council with no discussion beforehand except to create an advisory commission to oversee the plan’s execution. Afterward, most council members cheered the new plan.
Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1), who represents the downtown area, said making streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians would mean changes for drivers.
"Progress is painful, but if we truly want to be a multimodal community that believes in complete streets, that is going to require us to be leaders in the change conversation," Kaur said. “It’s going to require us to have conversations with neighborhoods that are used to parking on streets to saying, ‘What is our priority here, and how can we make sure that we are pushing that priority forward?’"
Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) abstained from voting on the plan, which he called “too big” and “too broad,” while stating there wasn’t enough detail.
He was also worried about losing traffic lanes.
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