Texas to take over Broadway Street from City of San Antonio

These two articles feature a battle over Broadway Street in San Antonio epitomizes the growing disconnect we have in Texas (and many states) between state officials and those elected and charged with representing cities and local voices, and on a more specific note, the disconnect between traffic count obsessed DOTs and transportation engineers and the priorities we should have for local street design. It's too juicy to pass up, so I'm going to record an episode for our podcast to dig into more details and implications, but here's a quick overview of what's happened. 

In 2013, TxDOT agreed to turn SL 368 (commonly referred to as Broadway) over to the City as part of a statewide program to reduce the DOT's road maintenance liabilities because they finally started to realize they didn't have sufficient money to maintain their full inventory. San Antonio and other cities jumped at the opportunity to take control of key corridors going through their downtowns, and in 2017 citizens approved a bond to invest $42 million to convert the corridor from a 7-lane stroad to a 4-lane complete street featuring bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and streetscape enhancements. Private businesses have invested millions in development along the corridor, and city improvements have started on the end closest to downtown. Projects like this are absolutely what's needed to improve the fiscal health, equity, and environmental resilience of our communities.

Everything was moving along as planned until last week, when the Texas Transportation Commission came out of nowhere and voted to keep Broadway Street a part of the state highway system, effectively halting the City's plans. The TTC expressed concerns that reducing the lanes would limit the operation of the state's highway system and cited Gov. Abbott's 2015 Clear Lanes Initiative focused on reducing congestion throughout the state. In the hearing, TTC Chair Bruce Bugg told the City both sides should listen and compromise, but then bluntly said TTC was taking direct action to "set the record straight" that they are not willing to negotiate the lane count.

So here we are with a city trying to do the right thing for its citizens, local businesses, and overall fiscal health and a DOT that continues to obsess over reducing congestion by adding lanes. And oh by the way, those maintenance liabilities that TxDOT didn't have money to cover back in 2013 have only increased. Somehow, some way, we've got to stop this cycle. Keep an eye on our podcast feed in the next week or two for more thoughts from me on this one. –Kevin

Talking Headways

Talking Headways is one of my favorite podcasts, and as I work through all the archived episodes, I find golden nuggets like this one that are worth sharing. In this episode, the hosts interview the author of “What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World", Sara Hendren. (Spoiler alert: this book will be on my bookshelf in approximately one week, and you can get it here.)

In this episode - which you can read the summary article about, or the full episode transcript, if you prefer reading to listening - the conversation is one that I think anyone involved in community building must hear. There are a few critical points that should serve as a robust challenge to the way we perform our work each day. Who should we, not are we, designing for? Why do we design for the way young bodies perform, knowing that they all will age and experience difficulty? Why should there be a separate category of "assistive technology", as opposed to all technology being assistive? Why do we spend so much time trying to overcome barriers in design that we have ourselves created to begin with? It's a great listen or read that I highly recommend. –AJ

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