San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg laid out his plan to upgrade and expand the mass transit system in his city, which is expected to double in population over the next 20 years.
“This is not only creating great challenges with traffic, but challenges to have a job, to sustain a job, and even get your kids to school,” Nirenberg said Sept. 8 at The Austin Club. “Building a mass transit system, a transit system that gives people the option to travel outside of their car, is a priority for us.”
Nirenberg was recently elected and his primary campaign issue and promise was to improve the mass transit system.
For far too long, San Antonio leaders have been allergic to public transportation options that meet the daily needs of its residents. “We are ready for a mass transit system,” Nirenberg said. To start, the city is setting aside $10 million annually to improve bus transit to add to the mass transit system. The city hasn’t updated its transportation plans in over 20 years.
Nirenberg discussed San Antonio’s transportation dilemma with Evan Smith, CEO of The Texas Tribune as a part of its conversation series. “It is a priority for a number of reasons. One, from a traffic standpoint, we know what population growth and the increase of cars on our roads will do. From an equity standpoint, we are a city of 500 square miles, where quite often because of the kinds of development that has occurred over decades, we see the workforce having to travel 10–15 miles across town,” Nirenberg told Smith.
“San Antonio is a one-mode kind of town,” Nirenberg said about the current transit system. The city can no longer rely only on buses and cars for transportation. He said he sees a tangible sense of enthusiasm in San Antonio that he hasn’t seen in years. He has only been in office for 11 weeks. Making transportation a priority was one of his strongest campaign promises.
In the next 30 years, San Antonio will be the size of Chicago and bring more than 1.5 million people to the city. If the city doesn’t add a synchronized mass transit system, the average commute time will increase by 75 percent and another 1.5 million vehicles will clog the roadways. A commuter’s wait time would increase by 900 percent, said Nirenberg, if they continue to use the current transportation system.
“Many of the hardest-working people in our city are forced to travel to work using an underfunded and inefficient bus system and city leaders have had our transportation priorities wrong,” San Antonio Council Member Rey Saldana told the San Antonio Express News.
The goal is to reduce the rate residents are adding cars to the road, which, in turn, will reduce congestion.
The large price tag for this transportation project will be split between San Antonio taxpayers and the city’s budget. “It will require us to make a choice between whether we are willing to invest in the future of transportation to improve the quality of life and our economy going, or whether we want to mortgage our future on our children’s back by not investing and make it cost more for them.” Nirenberg said.
“We can’t afford not to do transportation right — modern transportation,” Nirenberg said. “We will actively work on this.”
The transportation issue will be very difficult to solve, Nirenberg said, and he doesn’t have all the solutions yet.
“When difficult decisions arise,” Nirenberg said, “that’s when leadership has to step up.”
