Can County Commissioners keep up with Urban Planning Research?

In the recent article “Can Transportation Planning Keep up with Growth?” covering the Transportation Summit covered by Greater San Marcos Partnership and the SM Chamber of Commerce, the main issue talked about is how to handle “the more people on the road, the more the thoroughfares need to evolve to support the additional drivers.” This needs to be rephrased to the more drivers on the road, the more roads need to evolve. San Marcos and surrounding counties need better solutions than recreating the problem of induced demand from cars. More lanes will inevitably bring more drivers. What San Marcos needs is reliable transportation, it will be cheaper in the long run.

If Commissioner Conley said most of the residents of this four-county region are staying within its boundaries for all their daily needs then people move in a predictable pattern, this is more evidence for reliable mass transportation across the four counties instead of a costly and inevitable widening of FM 110.

Another quote from the article- if there is an “importance of planning for growth before it occurs” as West explains, and as Commissioner Shell said there should be more collaboration between Hays, Guadalupe, Comal, and Caldwell County -but for solutions that can actually keep up with the growth.

In general, the Transportation Summit has such a narrow focus on development that they believe that every problem can be solved with car infrastructure. However, in a state where there are rapid increases in costs of living, car ownership costs, drunk driving, and senior motorists, while decreasing general quality of life then maybe the solution is to build new opportunities for people using the existing road, train, and rail infrastructure while making investments in buses, bike lanes, and trains.”

Anna Huntington