San Antonio’s Bike-Share Expansion Project: A New Way to Explore the Community

Sunset over San Antonio Mission National Historical Park © NPS

Story by Kendra Barat

San Antonio, the seventh largest city in the United States, like many other urban areas grapples with numerous environmental and human health challenges. As a predominantly car-centric city, the city and the National Park Service saw an opportunity to pursue healthy lifestyles through active transportation routes to better access important historic, cultural and natural destinations without a car.

Finding a Solution

The San Antonio Missions National Historical Park experienced challenges regarding transportation and urban development. Four geographically separate but historically and culturally linked mission sites were difficult to navigate without a personal vehicle.

In 2009, the city of San Antonio received a substantial grant from the United States Department of Energy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create a more energy efficient and healthy urban environment. Part of this grant money went toward establishing Texas’ first citywide bike-share program that quickly became a success. The city created a policy to ensure safe utilization of the bikes along with a full public education and marketing campaign.

Representatives of the National Park Service, the city of San Antonio, and San Antonio Bike Share gather at Mission San Juan to celebrate the extension of the San Antonio Bike Share system. © NPS

At the same time, Krista Sherwood, a project specialist of the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program recognized an opportunity to connect this key urban destination with its downtown and surrounding community and to provide “an alternate means for visitors to access these national park sites."

In 2011, Sherwood proposed an idea to Julia Murphy, a sustainable transportation program manager for the city, as well as the executive director of the San Antonio Bike Share, JD Simpson. To increase visitors’ access to active transportation opportunities and a new bicycle and pedestrian route, Sherwood suggested that new bike-share stations be installed alongside a developing trail project called the Mission Reach. This is a segment of the San Antonio River Walk that runs parallel to the San Antonio River and ultimately connects all four National Park Service mission sites. With a letter of support from the National Park Service, the city of San Antonio applied for and received funding from the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit in Parks Program, a grant program administered through the Federal Transit Administration to enhance transportation access to national parks and public lands.

William Flowers, a Transportation Scholar with the National Park Foundation rides a Bicycle down the Mission Reach in San Antonio. © NPS

Where Urban Meets Nature

The bike-share expansion project team solidified and consisted of Sherwood, Murphy and Simpson. Their work began to focus on strategically aligning the placement of the new stations with the multi-million dollar river ecosystem restoration and development project including the Mission Reach extension.

“The timing was just perfect to vastly improve pedestrian and bicycle access to the missions,” said Sherwood. “The National Park Service, San Antonio Bike Share and the city of San Antonio shared the same goal of encouraging more people to utilize an active transportation option along the San Antonio River.”

According to Simpson, there has been a marked increase of active transportation in the city as a direct result of the installation of 12 new bike-share stations along the Mission Reach.

“We're very excited to give people an enjoyable way and easy way for them to see the natural beauty of the trail system and the
Missions,” said Simpson.

The new stations yielded almost immediate success. According to a San Antonio Bike Share comprehensive usage report, beginning from project completion in 2013 through June 2018, the Mission
Reach bike-share stations have become the most used of the entire city bike-share network.

Making a Difference

When asked about the National Park Service involvement in the project, both Murphy and Simpson expressed excitement and gratitude.

"The collaboration could not have been better, and it was absolutely critical to the project,” Simpson said. “Working with the National Park Service – Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program allowed us to expand the bike-share system in our community in a very unique way that hadn’t been done before. We were connecting cultural assets together with an alternative transportation system that seemed very appropriate to the application"

From left to right: William Flowers (National Park Foundation), Krista Sherwood (National Park Service), Julia Murphy, (City of San Antonio) and JD Simpson (San Antonio Bike Share) pose with B-Cycles at Mission San Jose. © NPS

From start to finish, this project took approximately a year and a half to complete. As with any project there were challenges and obstacles to overcome including meeting deadlines and grant funding administrative requirements, coordinating with various jurisdictions including private and public land ownership, and last minute schedule changes to the river restoration efforts.

"It is amazing that we accomplished it so fast," Sherwood said.

Now, city visitors and local residents alike are able to enjoy not only the beauty of the river but also the culture and history that the San Antonio Missions have to offer, regardless of their personal vehicle status.

From their humble beginnings in 2011 with just 13 stations, today the San Antonio Bike Share system has 65 station locations throughout the city.

Murphy described this expansion project as the “highlight of my working career.”