While there’s still a long way to go, the city is considerably more bike friendly. Facebook / San Antonio Bikes Credit: Facebook / San Antonio Bikes
City Council on Thursday unanimously passed a multi-billion dollar plan to build 1,890 miles of bike lanes along some of San Antonio’s busiest thoroughfares.

The Bike Network Plan (BNP) will cost an estimated $3 billion to $8 billion over the next 25 years, according to city officials. Of that, only $540 million to $1.44 billion is projected to come from local tax dollars.

It’s unclear how the remainder will be funded, although municipalities frequently draw on state and federal money to cover transportation projects.

District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte abstained from the vote, arguing that the plan was too vague, too broad and lacked concrete details.

Indeed, the BNP, as approved, isn’t so much a concrete plan as a set of guidelines for future infrastructure projects that could include bike lanes and other infrastructure.

San Antonio currently has more than 600 miles of bike lanes. However, those existing projects, including the Greenway Trail system, aren’t interconnected, and cyclists complain they frequently bypass end destinations such as grocery stores, schools and employment centers.

BNP advocates want the new city guidelines to change that, but it’s still unclear how that would work.

An interactive map on the city’s website shows that major thoroughfares including Cesar Chavez Boulevard, Bulverde Road, Vance Jackson Road, McCullough Avenue and Military Drive could become part of the project. However, the site doesn’t offer concrete details how that might happen.

The BMP includes proposals on how the expanded network of bike infrastructure could be carried out, including replacing vehicle lanes with bike lanes and reducing speed limits to make streets more bike friendly.

It remains to be seen how eager drivers in San Antonio, one of the nation’s most car-dependent cities, will be to adapt to such changes.

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This article appears in Jan 22 – Feb 4, 2025.

Michael Karlis is a Staff Writer at the San Antonio Current. He is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., whose work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Orlando...