At a VIA Metropolitan Transit committee meeting last week, the discussion turned to the transit agency’s intention to survey people about transportation options as it develops Vision 2040, its long-range plan.
The meeting came three days after San Antonio voters overwhelmingly approved a measure that requires a public vote before a streetcar or light-rail project could be built. A VIA trustee sheepishly asked if the survey would include questions about light rail and streetcar.
“Rail is a four-letter word we’re using,” Jeffrey Arndt, VIA’s CEO and president, responded.
The joke drew good-natured laughs from VIA staff and trustees. It also spoke to the tension underlying any discussion of streetcar or light-rail projects right now: urban rail is politically unpopular, but most local officials acknowledge that it needs to at the least be considered as part of the future of a growing San Antonio, the largest city in the country without it.
The question now, with the election creating a significant new obstacle for proponents of any rail project, is whether building one is ever going to be possible.
“I don’t know that we’re going to get one in the future,” said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who had been a major streetcar backer.
If voters are going to approve a rail project, local leaders said, officials will need to develop a proposal that draws public engagement and support throughout the planning process, which critics argue was not done with VIA’s now-shelved downtown streetcar plan. Otherwise, officials said, the chill that has been put on urban rail development will last.
“Sometimes you have to go through several votes,” Mayor Ivy Taylor said about the chances of a future rail project being approved, likening it to the council-pay amendment that passed this month after previous failed attempts.
“It took us several votes to get to a point where we had a positive outcome, so I think it’s worth the dialogue and debate, and I think it brings us together as a stronger community to get everyone on board with a potential rail project,” Taylor said.
Former state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, who is facing Taylor in a mayoral runoff election June 13, said that she has heard from residents that they may not support a light-rail or streetcar project right now, but that they recognize all options need to be considered in the future.
“I don’t believe at this point that there’s a groundswell of support to bring back some sort of a streetcar option or rail,” she said. “But what we do know is that for this to go forward … it has to be supported by the majority of people who live in San Antonio … and they’ve got to see that it helps them in their neighborhoods.”
Rough going
It’s been a rough year for urban rail. Opposition to VIA’s downtown streetcar sprouted quickly last year, and the project became entangled in other city and county political fights. Then, in July, Taylor and Wolff announced that the city and county were pulling their support for the project, effectively scuttling it.
“We did pull the plug on (streetcar) because we could not get public support for it, and maybe sometime in the future something may come back, but I don’t see it right now,” Wolff said last week.
This month, the City Charter amendment that bans the city from contributing money to a streetcar or light-rail project or allowing such a project to use city streets without voter approval breezed through the election, winning about two-thirds of the vote.
Voters against the measure were centered in a handful of precincts downtown and north of downtown — areas close to the planned streetcar route — but proponents drew votes throughout the city, according to an analysis of the results. (The amendment also lost in several precincts outside of Loop 410, but very few people voted on it there.)
The opponents, who think that the amendment has tied the city’s hands, point out that the city green-lights major projects regularly and that expensive highway projects are authorized at the state level, all without public approval. Toll lanes that could be built in San Antonio in the next few years also do not require voter approval.
“It’s unfair, quite frankly, to have to put every future rail project to a vote,” said Pat DiGiovanni, CEO and president of Centro San Antonio, which opposed the rail amendment. “We’re picking and choosing.”
Separately, the Lone Star Regional Rail Project, which would link the Austin area to San Antonio, continues to work through the federal environmental clearance process. That project will not be affected by the charter amendment because it is commuter rail — not light rail or streetcar — and would run on existing rail lines inside the San Antonio limits, said Joe Black, rail manager for the Lone Star Rail District.
Who benefits?
It’s not that an urban rail system can’t get popular support. Voters in Houston approved an expansion of its light-rail system in 2003, for example, and voters in the Dallas and Austin areas also have backed rail measures.
But voters in San Antonio blocked a light-rail system in 2000. More recently, Austin voters in November shunned a $1 billion measure that combined road spending with funding for a light-rail starter line. San Antonio’s charter amendment prohibits the city from trying to bundle a rail project with road funding on a ballot measure.
Former Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, a key supporter of that city’s plan, said a problem with rail proposals is that people do not always understand how rail — especially a starter line that only runs in part of the city — will help them.
“You have to assure everyone that they’ll benefit from it, even though the first phase may not actually touch their lives,” Leffingwell said. “It’s a bridge to a future that will benefit them.”
He added: “It’s very difficult to get the message across.”
Jeff Judson, who helped rally opposition to the streetcar and get the rail amendment on San Antonio’s ballot, said he thought VIA and rail proponents are blinded by their excitement for urban rail and should focus on cheaper, less disruptive options, like bus rapid transit. But he said the public would vote for a rail project if the planning process was honest and transparent, and that “we're going to hold VIA’s feet to the fire to remain honest” on any future rail proposals.
“They are never going to give up,” Judson said about VIA’s desire for urban rail.
San Antonio Councilman Ron Nirenberg, chair of the Comprehensive Planning Committee, said a problem with the streetcar was that people did not see the benefit for themselves, even though it could have been a possible starter line for a larger system.
“It did not speak to the transportation needs felt across the community,” he said.
District 8’s Nirenberg and District 10 Councilman Mike Gallagher opposed the streetcar but have said that they could support a larger light-rail system targeted at clearing road congestion and that would run along major transit corridors.
“That’s where our efforts ought to be concentrated,” Gallagher said.
Of course, the more expansive the system, the more expensive it would be, probably making it more difficult to win public approval.
Part of planning
Both VIA and the city are working on long-range plans that will guide their development through 2040 — a 25-year period during which Bexar County’s population is expected to grow by more than 1 million people.
“You can’t drive your way out of that,” said Terry Bellamy, assistant director of the city’s Transportation and Capital Improvements Department.
The city’s planning process — known as SA Tomorrow — includes three growth-related plans: a comprehensive plan and one focused each on multi-modal transportation and sustainability. In addition to developing its own multi-modal transportation plan, VIA is involved in the city’s efforts.
Still in the early phases, the plans have not homed in on particular types of projects. VIA will start surveying people soon about different modes of transportation, and the city has a live survey about transportation and quality-of-life issues that can be taken through June 1 at www.SATomorrow.com/survey.
Bellamy said the results of the charter amendment election do not have an impact on the city’s planning process. He said he has heard from residents that they are open to different ways of getting around — whether it is bus rapid transit or urban rail — but that they need to be about as fast as driving would be.
“It’s all about speed, location and trying to service those key employment centers,” he said.
VIA intends to expand bus rapid transit and its network of park-and-ride lots. As for urban rail, Arndt said in an interview that the public input being sought through the city, VIA’s planning efforts and the public engagement that will be included in any future rail planning process could help build support for it.
“The next rail project will emerge from an organic public process,” he said. “At that point, it won’t be VIA’s plan, it will be the community’s plan.”
Staff writer John Tedesco contributed to this report.
djoseph@express-news.net
Twitter: @DrewQJoseph
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