San Antonio Green Line

[fritos56]

They want everyone to switch to electric cars, but maybe we need to build up the infastructure first. My dad grew up in Milwaukee. Recall him talking about how you could take the interurban all the way down to Gary, Indiana. There were trains. You could either to Chicago. They ned to fix the roads and other things first due to all the traffice.

[malcorub16]

Originally Posted by WVNomad

..a very fine city, but it is not Washington D.C., Chicago, NYC, Boston, etc. It doesn't strike me as having the population (or more particularly the population density) or a major, centralized (downtown) business hub to justify light rail.

One of San Antonio's major business sectors is tourism and conventions, and in a sense the airport - downtown are the business hubs for this important part of the economy.

More comparable cities to SA that have had light rail for years would be Denver, San Diego and Salt Lake City. Several stretches of the San Diego trolley run along existing thoroughfares and are elevated to avoid taking up lanes on existing streets.

Originally Posted by elnina

The 12-mile line will run from the area around the San Antonio International Airport, along San Pedro Avenue, through downtown and south to Steves Avenue near Mission Concepcion.
?

That sounds a little longer than 12 miles

[badback7127]

I don't believe VIA can build this project without major disruption to traffic and to all the neighborhoods along this line. Hardly anyone rides VIA now. It will be another boondoggle that will be built for the tourists to have a ride from the airport to downtown. Locals will be few in number who ride it. It will cause major traffic jams becuse of the elimination of vehicular lanes. I'm sure the head of VIA will have to resign.

[elnina]

Maybe students and business people will use it rather than hire a ride.
San Pedro isn't particularly busy street, so I don't think there will be any traffic havoc.
Many other US cities have this system, so why not San Antonio?
More info, map and rendering:

https://sanantonioreport.org/via-adv...e-airport-bus/

https://communityimpact.com/san-anto...n-san-antonio/

[WVNomad]

Originally Posted by badback7127

I don't believe VIA can build this project without major disruption to traffic and to all the neighborhoods along this line. Hardly anyone rides VIA now. It will be another boondoggle that will be built for the tourists to have a ride from the airport to downtown. Locals will be few in number who ride it. It will cause major traffic jams becuse of the elimination of vehicular lanes. I'm sure the head of VIA will have to resign.

I can’t comment on if this effort will be a major disruption to traffic (even if it is though, I’m not certain that would be a reason to kill the project….it’s not terribly unusual for major public works projects to be temporarily challenging to those using the roads). I also don’t know for certain if the proposed Green Line route maximizes the potential to reduce congestion in the roadway by maximizing ridership relative to other route options. I also don’t know if VIA is certain to bungle the implementation. All of the issues you mentioned are certainly legitimate points to consider, however those points would be the same regardless of the transportation type, e.g. dedicated bus lanes, light rail, etc.

My thought is, that if one is going to expand public transit, and if this they want to focus on the airport to the downtown corridor, then using dedicated bus lanes seems like the most cost effective solution. As I said before, I’d love to see light rail, but as mentioned in the article posted by Elnina, it’s way more expensive than a dedicated bus lane solution.

[hschulz3]

I think a dedicated bus line is a fine, relatively low-cost compromise. The amount of ridership it gets will probably be a strong indicator of whether there is sufficient demand for a light rail. I am skeptical, but who knows. I do not think the downtown work/office demand really supports it, but an airport to downtown line for tourists/conventioners may have some legs.

[Azure110]

Originally Posted by hschulz3

I think a dedicated bus line is a fine, relatively low-cost compromise. The amount of ridership it gets will probably be a strong indicator of whether there is sufficient demand for a light rail. I am skeptical, but who knows. I do not think the downtown work/office demand really supports it, but an airport to downtown line for tourists/conventioners may have some legs.

If covid never happened, the downtown/office demand probably would have been much stronger. A lot of people still continue to WFH.

WFH culture is stronger than ever now as a lot of people like to "work" at home these days.

[malcorub16]

Originally Posted by elnina

Maybe students and business people will use it rather than hire a ride.
San Pedro isn't particularly busy street, so I don't think there will be any traffic havoc.
[/url]

Looks like:

North of DTSA- Runs along San Pedro Ave.
Thru DTSA - Runs along St Mary's St.
South of DTSA- Runs along Roosevelt Ave. and stops somewhere near Mission San Jose.

Originally I was assuming it went all the way to Brooks Transit Center but that doesn't look to be the case. I still don't get how the flyer touts 11.7 miles if it just seems like more. The Spanish flyer mistakenly says 1.7 miles. Guess Via forgot to proof read it.

[WVNomad]

Originally Posted by Azure110

WFH culture is stronger than ever now as a lot of people like to "work" at home these days.

I gather you don’t approve.

[Azure110]

Originally Posted by WVNomad

I gather you don’t approve.

I didn't have much of an opinion on it until some people at my job, including myself have been experiencing issues dealing with problems that arise from people that work from home both at the company I work for and contractors or clients.

The main issues are that emails not being responded to quickly enough or in some cases not at all. Not always available to take a phone call. Sometimes they will say they are "not at home at the moment"...wtf

We just recently had to fix an issue caused by a WFH employee that will probably cost us over million once fixed. The root cause was that she ignored a chain of emails addressed to her specifically over a course of two months so there was some missed opportunities to fix the problem early on with minimal impact to the company. It boggles my mind she is still employed and still a WFH employee at that but at least she was removed from the project so we don't have to wait for her input or decisions.