On Tuesday April 9th we met with Transportation & Capital Improvements (TCI) officials:
Razi Housinni – Interim Director/City Engineer; Peter Zanoni – Deputy City Manager; Arthur Reinhardt – Interim Deputy Director; Richard Grochowski – Broadway project manager; David McBeth – City Engineer, St. Marys and Fredericksburg projects; Bianca Thorpe – Programs Manager.
Agenda
-Tito Bradshaw Memorial Bikeway on East Houston Street
-Bike Lanes on St. Mary’s, Broadway, Fredericksburg, Cincinnati
-Restriction of cars parked in bike lanes
-Bike SA Master Plan update
-Bike Parking
They agreed to look at restricting cars parked in the bike lanes we provide them with. We sent them this: According to a Bike SA poll, cyclists have identified the following streets to remove car parking, because really, you can’t count these as bike lanes, they are actually car parking lanes. Mission Rd, Cincinnati Ave, Ashby, St Marys, Austin St, Woodlawn, S Presa, Grayson, Dover Ridge, N Vandiver, Les Harrison.
According to the complete streets ordinance: “All new construction and full reconstruction of city roadways will be planned, designed, constructed, and maintained to maximize the benefits to all users.”
All of the bike projects you are seeking federal funding for are in the most wealthy neighborhoods, yet the highest concentration of cyclists and cyclist crashes are in the downtown area where there is little safe bike infrastructure. Why were those projects prioritized?
Bianca said she would update us on when we can expect to see the bike crash map after she meets with UTSA.
Meeting Notes
Tito Bradshaw Memorial
Restriction of cars parked in bike lane
Bike SA Master Plan Update
St. Mary’s Street Bike Lanes
Quotes from Arthur Reinhardt:
“We want our streets to be as complete as possible. We are also looking at parallel corridors.”
“We want a destination—a shared use. We’ve had some challenges with pedestrian safety. When we start to move those elements, we run into problems.”
“Vision Zero guides us and focuses a lot on pedestrian safety. We have to get better engineering.”
“For two-thirds of the Broadway project, we feel we can fit bike facilities. We want to have a great street, sidewalks, shade, and promote other modes of transit, but one of the challenges is the southern section. It’s the rock we’re under right now. We’re looking at Avenue B farther south. We want to convert Avenue B to one-way traffic and repurpose half the street to have a nice protected bike lane.”
The following topics were also raised:
Safe-hit flag posts
Cycle tracks
Adding bike lanes at the time new sidewalks are installed
Integrated sidewalks/bike lanes/shared spaces
Installing binding laws requiring a certain number of bike lanes to be installed per year (www.saspeakup.com.)
Armadillo shells in buffer lanes
Current bike projects:
A cycle track on Hamilton Wolfe Road, an east-west running corridor located on the city’s NW side in the Medical Center.
A bike facility project added on Abe Lincoln Road.
A bike facility project on Lockhill-Selma where there’s about a mile gap running from I-10 to Salado Creek
A bike facility project at the Five Points neighborhood intersection at Fredericksburg Road, where a VIA bus station is located. TCI would like to connect this area to Cincinnati Avenue.
Janel requested an update to the citywide bike routes and crash maps that UTSA was working on for Vision Zero.