May 14, 2003 San Antonio Transportation Alliance Hosts Pedestrian Audit, Experience Termed "Paradigm-Shifting"

The following article was publisehd by Transportation Alliance.

San Antonio Transportation Alliance Hosts Pedestrian Audit, Experience Termed "Paradigm-Shifting"

On 14 May, the San Antonio Transportation Alliance hosted a pedestrian audit at Rosario’s in the historic King William neighborhood with approximately 40 persons in attendance. With representatives from the City of San Antonio, the San Antonio Police Department’s bike patrol, nearby Bonham Elementary, neighborhood businesses, the Bonham Elementary Parents Group, VIA, San Antonio Independent Living Services (SAILS), the San Antonio Express-News, the San Antonio-Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization, AACOG, and others, Pedestrian Audit leader Gonzalo Camacho led a workshop-style event that included a slide show of pedestrian amenities that other cities have used to make their own neighborhoods more walkable, a group walk-about in the King William Neighborhood, and the mapping of needed pedestrian investments in the King William neighborhood on large aerial maps.

For many participants, the walkabout in the neighborhood was one of the most insightful experiences of the audit. Walking less than a half a mile from the front door of Rosario’s through a neighborhood in which the City recently invested funds to rehabilitate sidewalks, the group assessed the design of the intersection that provides the main crosswalk to Bonham Elementary School.

Even with the "walk" sign lit and the group in the midst of making their way across a clearly painted crosswalk, a motorist zoomed through the crosswalk, nearly striking two participants.

At the conclusion of the walkabout, a participant in a motorized scooter was required to navigate several high curbs in order to cross to the block on which Rosario’s is located. Without curb cuts or an alternative, other participants literally braced the scooter while one of the participating San Antonio Police Department members stopped the two-way traffic until she was safely across the roadway.

With the participant safely across the street and quipping "San Antonio would be an easy city to navigate if there was a police officer to follow and stop the traffic," the example to members of the City’s staff, VIA, and others was not lost. Having nearly witnessed two pedestrian fatalities and watched another participant struggle with the absence of curb cuts, a long-term transportation professional who participated identified the audit as triggering a significant "paradigm shift" in the way he saw the community and in the way he would approach his profession. Not bad for a thirty-minute "stroll!"

Having documented the audit in his San Antonio Express-News story, reporter Patrick Driscoll ended his article by quoting Jim Isaman who summed up the experience by succinctly saying: "For a lot of people, including professionals, there is a lot to learn. Just about anyone can design a highway or roadway, but few can integrate a roadway into a community when they don’t pay attention to pedestrians." Kudos to the San Antonio Transportation Alliance and particularly, to Jim Isaman and Rosario’s for an excellent event!