San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
EASIER COMMUTE
VIA opens user-friendly Park & Ride in Stone Oak
VIA Metropolitan Transit opened its largest Park & Ride yet in the booming Stone Oak area on the far North Side on Saturday, creating a new mass transit option for an increasingly congested stretch of U.S. 281.
“You have to figure out other ways to move people. It’s not just about moving cars,” Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff said at a news conference Saturday. “Mass transit is the way to do that.”
People will be able to park their vehicles in one of the $17.3 million facility’s 400 spaces and get on buses headed downtown or to the Medical Center area on the Northwest Side — two of San Antonio’s biggest employment centers — VIA President and CEO Jef-
frey Arndt said at the news conference.
“We are all about sustainable growth in our region, access to opportunity for everyone in our region,” Arndt said.
The facility is the first of its kind for VIA. It started construction in fall 2016, according to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
It includes an airconditioned waiting area with a customer information center, phone-charging stations, vending machines and bathrooms. CPS Energy has provided charging stations for electric cars.
By connecting three of San Antonio’s busiest population centers, the facility will ease traffic and link residents to job opportunities, health care and culture, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said at the news conference.
“We all know that growth can’t be stopped. In fact, growth is the byproduct of the success we have,” he said.
Nirenberg pointed out that the city and the region are among the fastest-growing communities in the nation. The influx of residents puts 100 new cars on San Antonio’s roads every day, and 1 million new residents are expected to move to the city by 2040, he said.
The facility is part of $550 million worth of investments made to U.S. 281, using money from the city, county, state and the federal government, Wolff said. The highway is currently being broadened to make way for carpool lanes.
San Antonio recently decided, for the first time, to allocate $10 million annually from its general fund to help VIA increase its route fre- quency. The agency receives a 1/2-cent sales tax to provide its services, while the systems for other major Texas cities, including Austin, Dallas and Houston, get a full cent of sales tax.
At Saturday’s news conference, Arndt joked that he refers to Nirenberg as the “$10 million man.”
In May, VIA began making service changes to reduce passenger wait times on several routes and make buses more frequent, including for routes on San Pedro Avenue, East Houston Street and West Commerce Street.