Transportation workshop had little to do with transportation

A mere five days ago, I began an article about transportation in general and tonight’s "Council Workshop & Kick-Off Meeting" for the proposed city Master Transportation Plan 2040 specifically with these words: "When people in Texas talk about transportation, what they really mean is how easy or difficult it’s going to be to hop in the family sedan, minivan, what-have-you and drive to wherever it is you’re wanting to go."

I had no idea how prophetic those words were. Tonight’s transportation workshop had nothing to do with transportation, let alone what the city’s transportation landscape might look like a quarter of a century hence and everything to do with road construction and how the people of Kyle would like those roads to look like in 10 years, if not sooner.

Now the meeting’s facilitators did briefly touch on such subjects as "complete streets" and integrating bike lanes into neighborhood thoroughfares, but nary a word was spoken by others in attendance of those subjects let alone others such as ride sharing, walkable communities, pedestrian clusters, or dedicated jogging/biking paths, such as one that would connect Gregg-Clarke Park, Steeplechase Park and Lake Kyle. There were two overriding themes to the meeting "Fix the road I travel all the time" and "Make it easier for me to get to I-35." (This second demand also made me realize that all this talk about a regional rail project linking south San Antonio to Round Rock should cease immediately — such a project is doomed from the start.)

One other subject came up repeatedly and that was the idea of connecting Highway 150 to Kohler’s Crossing which makes sense for the development of Kyle along that corridor but is simply never going to happen because it doesn’t fit with the overall area transportation plan which envisions 150 being not just the connector from U.S. 290 to I-35 but the facilitator to I-10 and on to Houston. Which is exactly why talks are in the works to construct a Godzilla-like truck stop at I-35 and Yarrington.

But the bulk of the conversation seemed to center on ways to better connect Old Stagecoach Road to the southbound service road of I-35 on the south side of town and more east-west transit ways paralleling Kohlers on the north side. On the east side of 35, the talk was about getting the existing roads in better shape, particularly the three roads on that side that are part of the city’s bond project.

If these highway construction ideas actually became the blueprint for Kyle’s transportation plan, the result would be a greater number of congested streets than we have now, a transportation inhibitor.

The way the meeting was structured was that after an introduction from those who will actually be preparing the draft of the transportation plan they intend to present to the council in December and a Q&A session that forecast things to come (all the questions were about roads), the group divided into five work groups who made marks on maps of the city and its surrounding areas to signify what was important to them. When that exercise was complete, the facilitators briefly described to everyone present what was drawn on the five maps. Surprise! Most of the maps contained the same notations.

The results of the meeting were not lost on Mayor Todd Webster,

"There was a lot of difference of opinion on what we should be doing with our roads," the mayor told me as the meeting broke up. "It did tend to focus more on roads than alternate modes of transportation, but that’s what happens when you look at maps."

But the mayor was somewhat forgiving of the process and saw a lot more conflicting ideas than I noticed.

"It’s just the beginning," he said. "There’s a lot of work to be done between now and the finished product to really get a sense of what the community wants. There really was a lot of different opinions there. It’s going to take a lot of effort to reconcile those differences of opinion.

"And I think rightly there’s a lot of people who are frustrated with the progress of the bond roads. And it’s natural they would be frustrated. It’s clear people still don’t know what’s going on with all that. There was a whole conversation in there about one of those roads and it’s literally in the process of getting built. It’s understandable that people are frustrated.

"I also heard concerns about congestion as well as concerns about maintaining the character of this particular area. Sometimes all those things don’t actually meet up and so you had competing interests represented in that room."

So, yes, in Kyle, as in most places in Texas, when you’re talking transportation, you don’t really mean transportation, you mean roads. And right now that road looks very long indeed.