Contact Information
Local Alliances Manager

Call!
Office 512 451 2634
Fax 512 451 3578

E-mail!
Info@JustTransportation.Org

Location/Mail
1000 Brazos St., Suite 201
Austin, TX 78701

Activities
If you are a resident of San Antonio or Bexar/Comal/Guadupe Counties and want to improve your mobility choices, contact us!

The goal organize a viable, self-sustaining, citizen advocate group that can take an active role in the decision-making process.

We want to get people working together for improvements and to elevate the conversation beyond confrontation.

The San Antonio Area Just Transportation Alliance (SAJTA) is currently recruiting citizen advocates and a steering committee for orientation and training.

Everyone is a transportation expert. It‘s knowing how to "achieve the changes and improvements" needed that does not come naturally for most people. We will work with you to develop the skills needed to become a change agent in your community.

Now, it is your turn to create the future. If you nurture it and help it to grow, it will be a success.

News

Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration Acknowledge, Cite Concerns Raised by San Antonio Just Transportation Alliance during the Triennial Review of the San Antonio Metropolitan Planning Organization
Required by federal law to review and evaluate the metropolitan transportation planning processes used by metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) once every three years, staff from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) convened a three day review of the San Antonio MPO, an event kicked off by a public hearing in early spring.

The stakes of these reviews is rather high as legally failing such a review can lead to an MPO no longer receiving its federal funds to plan and program transportation projects within the community in which they are located. (To-date, no MPO in the US has ever been deemed to be in "noncompliance" significant enough to halt funding.) More realistically, MPOs have been given "conditional approval" with federal evaluators requiring specified improvements and changes made within time-specific deadlines or deemed "in compliance" with areas of improvement outlined to which they must demonstrate that they have appropriately responded in their next triennial review.

With the prospect of presenting to the evaluators their concerns about the MPO’s investment patterns, the San Antonio Just Transportation Alliance proactively took the lead on preparing the community for participating by providing training, support, and recruitment of citizens to participate in the public hearing, attending the three days of review, and submitting extensive comments to the FHWA and FTA staff post-review. Their effort were astonishingly successful as they injected a significant "human element" into what is otherwise a rather insulated, dry process.

With a mere six individuals testifying at the previous triennial review public hearing in 2000, the 2003 review featured testimony from 23 individuals presenting key information for consideration by the evaluation team, as well as the attendance of 65 citizens from San Antonio-Bexar County. Nearly three-quarters of those providing testimony identified themselves as members of the San Antonio Just Transportation Alliance. Signaling, again, that this would not be the traditional triennial review hearing, the San Antonio Just Transportation Alliance supplemented the strength of their collective testimony by providing a 3-D element:

Projecting digital pictures of key intersections that were not accessible, pedestrian projects initially scheduled for investment, but cancelled when the MPO ran out of money because of cost overruns associated with road construction projects, and/or other infrastructure deficits. Even the federal evaluators were impressed, writing in their final report that the "public hearing was exceptionally well-attended by individuals and various stakeholders groups" and that they "received many public comments regarding lack of adequate levels of funding for bicycles and pedestrian projects from concerned citizens."

Having pressed- and pressed hard- members of the San Antonio Just Transportation Alliance were able to attend each day of the Triennial Review process, a discussion centered on the MPO’s specific compliance with federal transportation regulations. Denied an advance copy of the notebook assembled by the MPO for use during the Review, JTA advocates were able to obtain a copy surreptitiously from a participant in the Review.

On 18 April, the San Antonio Just Transportation Alliance submitted more than 30 pages of public comment to the FHWA-FTA evaluation team. On 11 August, the FTA-FHWA jointly "recertified" the San Antonio MPO, an outcome the Alliance anticipated. However, to its surprise, nearly each and every "Area of Improvement" identified by the evaluators were, if you will, straight out of the Alliance’s collective testimony and public comments!!!

Among those areas identified as "Areas for Improvement" were (1) the improvement of the coordination and implementation of projects meeting the requirements of ADA, while advancing the speed with which the MPO completed pedestrian projects; (2) the expansion of public involvement procedures to include those traditionally disadvantaged users of public transportation with public input from these stakeholders clearly used to prioritize transportation funding decisions; (3) the evaluation of and re-design of the MPO’s website for ADA-accessibility purposes; (4) the development of improved financial summary tables as part of its planning that more clearly account for cost overruns and underruns; and (5) that the MPO was strongly encouraged to include more proactively the input of VIA, particularly to include projections of future transit capital, operations, maintenance needs, and funding as part of its planning. While these recommendations don’t exactly slide off the tongue, they captured the essence- if not the "big picture" structurally- of the deficits in the area’s transportation planning and investment.

Many thanks to Clint Rogers of San Antonio ACORN for his proactive involvement in this process and special recognition to both Jim Isaman and Allen Townsend of the San Antonio Just Transportation Alliance who not only worked studiously to organize participation in the public hearing, took and presented the photographs that graphically illustrated the impact of the MPO’s decisions, sat through the three days of review, but also signed off on the comments presented to the FTA-FHWA evaluators!

San Antonio Transportation Alliance Hosts Pedestrian Audit, Experience Termed "Paradigm-Shifting"
On 14 May, the San Antonio Transportation Alliance hosted a pedestrian audit at Rosario’s in the historic King William neighborhood with approximately 40 persons in attendance. With representatives from the City of San Antonio, the San Antonio Police Department’s bike patrol, nearby Bonham Elementary, neighborhood businesses, the Bonham Elementary Parents Group, VIA, San Antonio Independent Living Services (SAILS), the San Antonio Express-News, the San Antonio-Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization, AACOG, and others, Pedestrian Audit leader Gonzalo Camacho led a workshop-style event that included a slide show of pedestrian amenities that other cities have used to make their own neighborhoods more walkable, a group walk-about in the King William Neighborhood, and the mapping of needed pedestrian investments in the King William neighborhood on large aerial maps.

For many participants, the walkabout in the neighborhood was one of the most insightful experiences of the audit. Walking less than a half a mile from the front door of Rosario’s through a neighborhood in which the City recently invested funds to rehabilitate sidewalks, the group assessed the design of the intersection that provides the main crosswalk to Bonham Elementary School.

Even with the "walk" sign lit and the group in the midst of making their way across a clearly painted crosswalk, a motorist zoomed through the crosswalk, nearly striking two participants.

At the conclusion of the walkabout, a participant in a motorized scooter was required to navigate several high curbs in order to cross to the block on which Rosario’s is located. Without curb cuts or an alternative, other participants literally braced the scooter while one of the participating San Antonio Police Department members stopped the two-way traffic until she was safely across the roadway.

With the participant safely across the street and quipping "San Antonio would be an easy city to navigate if there was a police officer to follow and stop the traffic," the example to members of the City’s staff, VIA, and others was not lost. Having nearly witnessed two pedestrian fatalities and watched another participant struggle with the absence of curb cuts, a long-term transportation professional who participated identified the audit as triggering a significant "paradigm shift" in the way he saw the community and in the way he would approach his profession. Not bad for a thirty-minute "stroll!"

Having documented the audit in his San Antonio Express-News story, reporter Patrick Driscoll ended his article by quoting Jim Isaman who summed up the experience by succinctly saying: "For a lot of people, including professionals, there is a lot to learn. Just about anyone can design a highway or roadway, but few can integrate a roadway into a community when they don’t pay attention to pedestrians." Kudos to the San Antonio Transportation Alliance and particularly, to Jim Isaman and Rosario’s for an excellent event!

San Antonio City Council adopts smart growth tool kit
In an effort to streamline developer approval processes and to achieve the City’s Smart Growth objectives, the San Antonio City Council recently approved a smart growth incentive tool kit that gives developers a quick "scorecard" guide to determine whether or not their project will be eligible for economic incentives, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Jury Still Out as VIA Introduces Its New Comprehensive Service Plan with Initial Reviews Decidedly Mixed
On 4 August, VIA launched the service changes passed by the Board in December 2002, some of which were the subject of strong opposition by the San Antonio Just Transportation Alliance. While VIA restored nine routes and made modifications to their original route changes, significant concerns remained about the impact of the new service on the community and the extent to which riders were aware of the changes.

Initial assessments following the first week of these changes were decidedly mixed with some customers having lost their services altogether and others experiencing significantly more frequent service. The San Antonio Transportation Alliance will continue to monitor the impacts of these changes.