Alicia Wagner Calzada | 210SA Contributor Justin Martinez and Brittany Elliott ride their Vespas to work at Calaveras Tattoo on South St. Mary’s Street.

S.A. might not be as alt-commuter friendly as, say, Austin, but we’re making progress
 

Envision this: you toss the car keys on the counter as you leave your house for work. Why? Because you’ve chosen a cheaper, more environmentally friendly way to get to the office. You can:

A. Lace up your shoes and get walking.
B. Strap on your helmet and start pedaling.
C. Rev your scooter or motorcycle engine.
D. Get out your bus fare and climb aboard.
E. Say good morning to your carpool crew.

Welcome to your alternative commute. San Antonio has more commuting options than ever, and there also are increasingly important reasons to turn off the engine of your humdrum four-wheeled single occupant vehicle.
San Antonio might not yet be the proud owner of a shiny new light rail, but the city still has a few tricks up its sleeves that residents are putting to the test.

Take, for instance, VIA Metropolitan Transit ridership. In 2005, U.S. Census data showed about 3 percent of San Antonio’s workers commuted using public transportation. But bus usage is on the rise, says Andy Scheidt of VIA.

Ridership for the 2008 fiscal year is up more than 10 percent from the same time last year. The biggest jump came in July when ridership increased 20 percent from the previous July. Despite the pending bus fare increase from $1 to $1.10, expected to go into effect in January (as reported in the San Antonio Express-News), the cost of hopping a bus versus driving a car solo is still a lot less. (For a calculation of your driving costs, see the Commute Calculator.) VIA is encouraging new riders to commute by bus during its Try Transit Week and the Corporate Challenge, Oct. 5-11.

Also, earlier in the summer, some 12,000 people took part in the Walk & Roll Corporate Challenge and logged “smart miles” by bicycling, walking, carpooling, vanpooling and busing, says Annette Prosterman, Natural Resources Outreach Specialist for the Alamo Area Council of Governments. This month, about 100 people are enrolled in the Walk & Roll Personal Challenge with the goal of logging a total of 200,000 “smart miles.”
“The idea is that you would try to take a form of transportation to get wherever you want to go that does not involve your driving as a single individual in a vehicle,” Prosterman said.

San Antonio College students Felicia Hurd, 20, and Michiko Daniels, 34, both hitch a ride on the bus to class. Economy and practicality rule the day for these commuters, but they also enjoy the social element that communal transportation offers.

“You meet people all the time,” said Hurd, who sometimes spots her friends on the bus.

Daniels takes the bus because her husband uses their vehicle to commute to Lackland Air Force Base. She doesn’t mind because she likes discussing social issues with fellow bus-goers.

“I enjoy it because I get to talk to different types of people while I wait,” Daniels says.

Because some drivers aren’t completely ready to give up life behind the wheel, San Antonio has several carpooling options. In 2005, U.S. Census data showed about 12 percent of San Antonio’s work force commuted in a carpool.

Prosterman helps coordinate River Cities Rideshare as well as the Certified Auto Ride in an Emergency (CARE) program. River Cities Rideshare is a free program that helps about 1,300 people find carpool buddies in a 22 county area.

“It’s almost like an online dating service for people who want a carpooling partner and who don’t know who to carpool with,” he said.

Those who are afraid they’ll get stranded without a ride if they carpool can join the CARE program for an annual fee of $5. Regular carpoolers, vanpoolers or bus-riders get four taxi vouchers a year they can use for a ride up to 30 miles. Prosterman said the average cab ride in San Antonio costs about $36.

Residents such as Justin Martinez and his girlfriend Brittany Elliott are choosing scooters or motorcycles to boost their alt-commute status. Martinez, 35, and Elliott, 21, often take their scooters to work at Calaveras Tattoo on South St. Mary’s Street.

“Originally, I lived right around the shop, and I used to ride my bike, and then I moved a little further way,” Martinez said. “I got a new scooter, a brand-new Vespa ..... and then progressed to riding a motorcycle.”

Martinez owns a truck but said he rarely takes it to work because both gas and parking are expensive.

Martinez estimates he saves about $70 a week by leaving the truck at home. Elliott takes her Honda Civic to work at a psychology office in the morning to avoid getting sweaty and windblown. But in the afternoons, she ditches four-wheels for two and heads to Calaveras Tattoo on her 1974 Vespa Sprint 150.

While alternative commuting can be fun and cheap, it also has another feature that’s attractive to some. It’s relatively “green” in an area where air quality is barely meeting federal standards.

“It’s quite possible that when we’re tested again in 2010, we may not meet the federal standards for air quality,” Prosterman said of the San Antonio area.

Switching to the bus might help alleviate some pollution. VIA buses run on B5 Biodiesel, which is 5 percent biodiesel, and the streetcars run on propane, VIA’s Scheidt said.

“The more people on the bus, the fewer people on the road,” Scheidt said. “One full bus is up to 40 fewer cars on the road.”

Lydia Kelly, the bicycle-pedestrian transportation planner for the San Antonio-Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization, is working to increase emissions-free bicycle commuting in San Antonio. She’s a bike commuter herself, pedaling the 3 miles from her home to work on days when meetings don’t send her out of the office. Kelly chooses to live close to work so she has a bicycling-commuting option.

“I’m definitely an urban person,” Kelly said. “I don’t believe in living a lot of miles from where I work.”
Kelly said the planning organization hasn’t studied how many bicycle commuters are on San Antonio’s roads.

U.S. Census data from 2005 showed that San Antonio had about 670 bike commuters, while Austin had more than 4,600. More recently, Kelly points to anecdotal evidence of bicycle racks on city buses filling up as signifying an increase in bike commuting. But how far is a bike-appropriate commute?

“The general thought is that if a person’s commute is under 5 miles, most of the people who think about commuting on a bicycle won’t think twice about 5 miles,” Kelly said. “Once you get past 10 miles, people shy away from it.”

Alan Harmon, a 29-year-old project manager at Marmon Mok Architecture, has been a bike commuter for about four months. He finds he can cycle to work nearly as fast as he could drive.

“I live 3.4 miles away from the office,” said Harmon, who can make it to work in fewer than 20 minutes either in a car or on his bicycle. “So it’s kind of a no brainer.”

Harmon also switches up his routine with his other two-wheeled ride.

“I also own a motorcycle, so I would ride it to save on gas,” Harmon said. “I’ve always been somewhat conservative with gasoline. The other day I rode up on the motorcycle and I parked in the garage ..... and I was like, ‘Why didn’t I take my bicycle today?’.”

Passersby usually say, ‘Oh, I wish I could ride my bicycle to work.’ And I tell them, ‘Well, you can. All you have to do is start.’.”

Jennifer Lloyd | 210SA