FIESTA 2018 Find out how to get our Fiesta Medal at

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1 Volume 12, Number 3 Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization W e Pl a n to Ke e p Y o u M o vin g! Spotlight on Mobility WHAT'S INSIDE: Letter from the Chair Stone Oak Park & Ride Projects Considered for Inclusion in MPO Short Range Plan 22nd Annual Walk & Roll Rally FIESTA 2018 Find out how to get our Fiesta Medal at This year s Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization Fiesta Medal tackles the issue of distracted driving and the importance of staying aware of your surroundings when behind the wheel. In 2017, 25,404 crashes in our region listed "distracted driving" or "cell phone use" as one of the contributing factors for the crash. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, in 2016, distracted drivers caused more than 450 deaths, 3,000 injuries and 109,000 crashes statewide. Texting while driving is one of the more concerning distractions as a loss of focus, even lasting only 1 second, could result in tragedy. Sending or reading a text can take your eyes off the road for up to 5 seconds. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, at 55 mph, that s like driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed. During the month of April 2018, the Alamo Area MPO will be conducting safety talks on distracted driving at community events. This year s Fiesta medal will be given out as an educational reminder to Drive with Care [and] Stay Aware to participants for listening to the presentation and pledging to drive free from distractions.

2 A Letter from The Chairman I was fortunate enough to attend the annual SA to DC trip to Washington D.C. back in February and I m thrilled to report the trip was a great success. SA to DC, an annual trip organized by the San Antonioarea chambers of commerce, is an opportunity to get in front of members of Congress on issues that are important to San Antonio. This year s trip lined up with the President s State of the Union Address in which the President outlined an aggressive infrastructure bill. It was the optimal time to be preaching transportation issues in our nation s capital. The 2018 delegation was led by Leo Gomez, President and CEO of Brooks, and included representatives from VIA, Bexar County, the City of San Antonio, as well as other private partners. Our biggest take away was that in order to take advantage of the President s proposed infrastructure bill, Texas will need to reconsider recent policy decisions that make it harder to enter into public-private partnerships. Furthermore, we need to be open to innovative solutions that make it possible to keep the current 80% federal and 20% local funding structure we have today. One of these innovative ideas includes the future possibility of autonomous vehicle lanes on IH-35. I had the opportunity to discuss this concept with representatives from the Department of Transportation and they confirmed that this is exactly the type of innovative project that would be eligible to receive the proposed funding. I look forward to continuing the discussion on innovative transportation solutions as we begin our long-range planning process later this year. Additionally, I am excited to partner with our neighbors to the north to take advantage of every opportunity available to improve the connection between San Antonio and Austin. Sincerely, Kevin Wolff Chair, Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization Bexar County Commissioner, Precinct 3 2

3 Stone Oak Park & Ride New routes promise greater frequency and more connectivity VIA Metropolitan Transit is set to open the Stone Oak Park & Ride at the southwest corner of Stone Oak Parkway and US 281 later this year. This new passenger facility is the result of regional long-range transportation planning and coordination and will include a direct connection ramp to high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes under construction by the Texas Department of Transportation on US 281. Park and ride service is important to our growing region, especially in the high-growth Stone Oak area. In order to reduce the growing pains of a booming population, it will be important to reduce vehicle miles traveled throughout the region. This is best accomplished by getting people out of their cars and onto public transportation or even sharing a trip with a co-worker on a highoccupancy vehicle lane. VIA Metropolitan Transit, the Texas Department of Transportation, and the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, among others, are working together to develop a transportation system that focuses on moving people and goods more efficiently. While this Park & Ride is only one part of a diverse multimodal system, it is an important step towards offering travel options in a part of the region that has been historically dominated by single occupancy vehicles. Once open, people will be able to park their cars and take Express Bus service into Downtown San Antonio. Once the HOV lanes on US 281 are completed, buses will travel in a lane dedicated to highoccupancy vehicles. While the initial length of this lane only goes to Loop 1604, the longterm goal is to take the HOV lanes all the way into Downtown San Antonio on US 281. Even without the HOV lanes, the park & ride will allow VIA to service the Stone Oak community. The new 7 Express Bus service route will go from the Stone Oak Park & Ride to Downtown San Antonio every 30 minutes and the new 503 route will provide crosstown service from the Stone Oak Park & Ride to the Medical Center using Huebner Road to the Medical Center Transit Center on Babcock. Keep an eye out for the opening of this facility and remember it is an important step in a new transportation future for our community! For additional information about these routes or services, please call VIA's customer information center at

4 Projects Considered for Inclusion in MPO Short Range Plan One of the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization s main responsibilities is to develop and maintain a Transportation Improvement Program (also known as a TIP, or short-range plan) for federally funded transportation projects and programs in the region. The TIP covers a time period of four years and must be updated every two years. This is a financially constrained plan, which means funding has been identified for the projects in the plan. In 2017, the MPO issued a call for new projects to be included in the TIP. Approximately $150 million in Surface Transportation Program Metropolitan Mobility (STP-MM) funds, or MPO funds, are available for this project call. Fortyeight transportation projects were submitted totaling about $403 million. A breakdown of the types of projects and the submitting agencies is shown below. MPO funds are the most flexible federal funding source and many types of projects are eligible: roadway projects that add travel lanes, operational projects that improve the function of a roadway without adding travel lanes, stand-alone bicycle and pedestrian projects, transit projects, planning studies and other types of projects. Because there is not enough funding available for every project, the MPO goes through a project selection process to decide which projects will receive funding and be added to the TIP. Factors include the project s technical score, the submitting agency s priority, the readiness of the project to go to construction, and public input. Throughout December and January, MPO staff compiled technical data (crash data, current and future congestion levels, as examples), and multiagency workgroups technically scored the projects. In February, the MPO held four public meetings as well as an online meeting to collect public feedback on the projects that were submitted. One meeting was held each in Bexar, Guadalupe, Comal, and Kendall Counties. The online public meeting could be accessed at org/yourmove and was held from Monday, February 19 th through Wednesday, February 28 th. Over 240 attended an in-person meeting and over 700 provided online comments as part of this process. Proposed Projects by Category Project Category Number of Projects Total/STP-MM Portion Percentage of Projects Added Capacity 12 $ ,495 34% Bicycle/Pedestrian 8 $38,374,809 10% Operational 24 $191,288,627 47% Other 4 $37,301,000 9% Total 48 $403,277, %

5 Participants were asked to select their top four transportation projects and provide written responses for each of their four projects answering: How will this transportation project benefit the region? What problems would this project address for you? The public input and all technical information was provided to the MPO s Technical Advisory Committee to develop a funding recommendation. The information was reviewed and a recommendation made by the MPO s Executive Committee. The MPO Transportation Policy Board is ultimately responsible for deciding which projects receive funding and are added to the TIP. The Policy Board will take action on project selection at its March meeting and action on the TIP at its April meeting. Meetings are held on the fourth Monday of each month at VIA Metropolitan Transit at 1021 San Pedro Avenue, San Antonio, TX All meetings are also livestreamed and available to view at To view the projects recommended for funding, visit yourmove. Ground-level ozone, something we refer to as smog, is the most common type of air pollution in the Alamo Area. The 2018 Ozone Season began in March and will last through November. These nine months are when ozone reaches its highest concentration as sunny days are long and hot. During last year s Ozone Season, our state air quality agency issued six Ozone Action Day warnings to Alamo Area residents. On these days, ozone levels were expected to be high enough to affect sensitive groups: People with lung disease, such as asthma Kids or older adults People planning to work or exercise outdoors The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) provide an Air Quality Forecast by . Visit to sign 5 up and be in the know this Ozone Season. + +

6 22ND Rally Annual Walking, biking, and riding transit offer superb benefits for you and your community. Using active forms of transportation to get around can improve your health, reduce air pollution, and help spur economic development. Each May, the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization holds a Walk & Roll Rally to kick off National Bike Month and promote the use of healthy, sustainable transportation modes. This year, the Walk & Roll Rally will take place on Friday, May 4, 2018, from 8:00 9:00 a.m. at Main Plaza in Downtown San Antonio, and you re invited! Join host Randy Beamer with News 4 San Antonio in celebrating active transportation with free food and fun activities. Last year s event included a hula hoop contest, Zumba class, and trivia contest. Plenty of folks took home great prizes like bike helmets and gift cards to local retailers and restaurants. While there, you can visit our vendor booths to get in the loop on upcoming plans and projects and gather information to help you start walking, biking, and riding transit. For more information on the Walk & Roll Rally and other events happening during National Bike Month, visit or contact Alex Carroll at carroll@alamoareampo.org. See you at the Rally! 65

7 STORY MAP Planned transportation improvements. Traffic crashes. Counts of vehicles, bicycles and trucks. Dollars of transportation funding. The Alamo Area MPO and our partners collect huge amounts of data that tell a piece of the story of our transportation system. The way we share that story of data keeps evolving. Esri Story Maps are the newest tool the MPO is using to talk about data and collect public input. Story Maps seamlessly combine geographic data on a map with the storytelling narrative of text, images, and multimedia content. Wendy Dodson, a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analyst at the MPO, discovered Story Maps at the Esri User Conference in July I am a visual learner, so I was really impressed with how Story Maps were used to illustrate information for all kinds of organizations, she recalls. I definitely wanted to see our MPO test it out. The Story Map slider tool lets users swipe back and forth to compare two maps and see data patterns or change over time. Here employment density estimates are shown for 2015 (left) and 2040 (right) in Comal and Guadalupe Counties. The recent Transportation Improvement Program public meetings provided the MPO the first opportunity to pilot the Story Map presentation style locally (read more on pg. 4). Wendy designed a Story Map for the Your Move online public meeting webpage. Each of the projects competing for funding in the MPO s short-range plan was identified on a map with more descriptive project information available for users to scroll through. With the Story Map Shortlist tool, users can click on the places to find out more about them. The images automatically update as users navigate around the map to show them what's highlighted in their current map extent. 7 The MPO is also using the Story Map concept to convey changing population, employment, land use and traffic volume data for a high growth focus area of our Regional Thoroughfare Planning Study. We are committed to people having a say in transportation decisions that affect their lives. In our effort to share information transparently and informatively to make that happen, keep an eye out for more uses of this innovative presentation style.

8 Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization We Plan to Keep You Moving! Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization 825 South Saint Mary s Street San Antonio, Texas Visit our website at us at: aampo@alamoareampo.org Like us on Facebook Follow us on UPCOMING MEETINGS MAY JUN. JUL. AUG Technical Advisory Committee First Friday at 1:30 p.m. TxDOT District Office, Building 2 Hearing Room at 4615 NW Loop 410, San Antonio, Texas Bicycle Mobility Advisory Committee Second Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. AAMPO Conference Room B 825 S. St. Mary's Street (78205) * Suscribe on YouTube Follow us on Pedestrian Mobility Advisory Committee Third Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. AAMPO Conference Room B 825 S. St. Mary's Street (78205) Transportation Policy Board Fourth Monday at 1:30 p.m. VIA Metro Center Community Room 1021 San Pedro (78212) 16* *The Bicycle and Pedestrian Mobility Advisory Committees will be holding a joint meeting on Wednesday, May 16, Please visit for more information. MPO Office 825 South Saint Mary s Street San Antonio, Texas (210) (210) Meeting dates, times, and locations may vary. Please confirm the meeting information with the agenda posted on our website or by calling us at (210) AAMPO meetings are accessible to persons with disabilities. To arrange for special assistance or an interpreter, please call (210) or TDD (Relay Texas) at least five working days in advance. Las reuniones son accesibles a personas con discapacidad. Si usted necesita asistencia especial o un intérprete, llame al (210) o al TDD (Relay Texas) con cinco días hábiles de anticipación.