SAN ANTONIO – Cycling around San Antonio can be a pain in the butt, and not just because of all the miles on a bike seat.
Like many Texas cities, San Antonio was built for cars, and cyclists on its busy streets can feel it. Based on accessibility to different areas, the group People For Bikes gave San Antonio’s bike network a score of 14 out of 100 points.
After more than two years of development, the city council is expected to vote on Jan. 30, 2025, on a new Bike Network Plan (BNP), which lays out a vision for a network of safe, bikeable streets that cyclists can follow to get across San Antonio.
“I want go to the Quarry. Well, how about a nice way to get there that’s not going to kill me down Basse (Road), you know?” biking activist Bryan Martin, who served on a working group for the plan, said. “So, that’s what really the Bike Network Plan is is, ‘How do we fill in those gaps?’”
Completing the entire BNP could take between $3-8 billion over 25 years, including $540 million to $1.44 billion in local match funds, according to a draft implementation plan.
A presentation to a council committee on Wednesday laid out possible designs ranging from shared streets with speed humps to painted bike lanes to completely separate paths off to the side for bicyclists and pedestrians.
A spokesman for the city’s transportation department told KSAT that not every leg of the proposed network will require a project.
The city already has a bike plan, but it is now 13 years old.
Harley Hubbard, the city’s project manager for the new BNP, says best practices and cities themselves change.
“A large portion of the 2011 plan was actually implemented,” Hubbard said. “More than 40% of Tier One projects got some construction started on them, so it really isn’t to undo that plan. It is an update to that plan.”
Hubbard compared the city’s online map showing the recommended BNP to a “spaghetti bowl” — a very brightly-colored spaghetti bowl.
There is very little green on the city’s map, which shows the existing bike facilities such as bike lanes or greenway trails.
The pink lines for the “primary network” on the map are the most important, Hubbard said, showing the “bare minimum” to connect people to key destinations like schools, grocery stores and employment centers.
The yellow lines show the “visionary network,” which also helps connectivity but could include trickier projects.
The teal lines for the “neighborhood network” include areas where there are already slow-speed streets to use instead of major roads.
The map also ranks projects into four tiers, depending on their need and feasibility.
Though he’s a fan of the plan, Martin said he has concerns about seeing the city following through on it.
“I think, you know, for a lot of folks in the cycling community, our fear is that we’ve seen this before,” Martin told the city council’s Transportation & Infrastructure Committee on Tuesday. “And we had a bike master plan that sat on a shelf for 11 years and not implemented. So we really, really applaud the city on making these things. But we don’t want to be placated. We want these things built.”
Hubbard told KSAT that the implementation plan includes policy changes and construction work that’s “relatively low-hanging fruit” to get some quick wins and get momentum. The city has also dedicated money for bike facilities.
“So having those things lined up and showing really how far those dollars will go will really help us get this implemented quickly,” she said.