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San Antonio City Council approves a new bike network plan

Bikers
Scanpix Sweden
/
Reuters
Bikers on the trail.

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The San Antonio City Council approved the city’s new Bike Network Plan on Thursday.

The plan is a framework for how the city wants to improve the bike and pedestrian system throughout San Antonio over the next 20 years.

It proposes many different intersection and bike lane design options for different streets, including slip lanes, fully protected intersections for bike lanes, and bike-and-vehicle roads.

Harley Hubbard, the bike network plan manager, added more details: "This is an update to the 2011 bike master plan that the city of San Antonio had, and the purpose of the bite network plan is to just make a safer and more connected network for cyclists throughout our city,” she said.

The Bike Network Plan has an estimated long-term cost of up to $1.2 billion, assuming the city is able to receive federal grants to support the project.

San Antonio Transportation Director Catherine Hernandez explained how implementation for different parts of the plan can take place: “It occurs during the normal development process as new properties are developed and platted, right of way for streets and bike facilities is planned for and streets and bike lanes are constructed. Implementation also occurs during our normal street maintenance process through the city street I MP program. Implementation also occurs during our bond planning process.”

“We did three phases of community engagement," Hubbard explained. "The first phase was focused on what riding a bike is like in San Antonio today. The second phase focused on what would make people feel safer, so how they would like to see that ride improved, and then the third phase was really just making sure we got it right.”

She added that planners spoke to thousands of San Antonio residents "through outreach, through roundtables, through stakeholder groups, to really make sure that this was the plan built for the people that would be benefiting from it."

The bike plan has been years in the planning, and while new funding wasn’t part of what was voted on, Hubbard said there are many projects that already are: “The city actually has a lot of money for bike facilities. It's just not labeled bike facilities. It's labeled roadway projects."

While some may not see bike lanes and other amenities as important, Hubbard noted that 200,000 San Antonians don't have a car, and many residents want to make bike riding more viable and safe, both for work and for play.

Learn more about the city's plan here.

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Jack Morgan can be reached at jack@tpr.org and on Twitter at @JackMorganii