Bexar County commissioners on Tuesday approved a measure that will transfer $100 million in sales tax revenue to help fund the VIA Rapid Silver Line to connect the Far West and East sides through the heart of downtown.
The sales taxes were collected within the Advanced Transportation District and will be used to land a matching federal grant to build the bus line.
The line, from General McMullen Drive on the West Side to the Frost Bank Center on the East Side, will travel down Commerce and Houston Streets through downtown.
It should open in 2028 and is expected to help boost economic growth in two regions of the city that need it most, VIA and some county officials have said.
But Commissioner Grant Moody was not a supporter of the line because he said there are plenty of open seats on the VIA buses that run now.
"We have capacity," he said. "Why don't we increase utilization before we make additional investments, right?"
But VIA President and CEO Jeffrey Arndt said those open seats are caused by the current one-hour wait for most city buses to pass by. He said the rapid line will boost ridership because it will pass by every 10 minutes.
"There is capacity in our bus lines primarily because when you run once an hour it's difficult to generate the demand," Arndt said. "When you run every ten minutes, the demand definitely will be there. And as I said, we ran every ten minutes on routes pre-COVID and we saw that capacity used up at a rate of 22 to 25%"
The bus line will also move people faster with pre-pay fares, simpler wheelchair access, and bus friendly traffic lights and lanes.
A north-south rapid bus line is also planned to eventually open and is named the Green Line.
