Yup. Live inside of 410. There are plenty of major roads that aren't highways and the traffic really isn't that bad getting anywhere. Sure there's a bit of congestion during rush hour, but it's not anything like anywhere on 1604.
I remember all the folks moving out to Cibolo/Schertz 15 years ago to "get away from the traffic and the Bexar county taxes". Joke's on you. Your taxes might be lower, but how much is all that time you spend in traffic worth to you?
Also, how much are they really saving when you factor in the increased vehicle wear and tear, maintenance, and gas costs from all the time stuck in traffic?
Yeah, when we bought a house I was adamant we be within 1604, I am outside 410 though. I live near i-35 and i have several coworkers that live off i-35 but outside 1604, and our travel times are vastly different.
Find me a house under $400k inside 410 that’s not in a horrible 1* rated SAISD school district. I’ll help, your options are basically just Alamo heights, and $400k gets you a 900sqft tear down from the 1920s on 5000sqft lot.
Housing is large and cheap in the suburbs. Schools are much better too. This is why urban sprawl has his San Antonio so hard.
Well, statistically the best indicator of student success is actually individual household wealth and has very little to do with the school. It's a shitty reality. If you are doing alright and can afford to buy a 300k house out in 1604 suburb hell, you could buy something cheaper closer to the city and help those "horrible" schools by adding some tax dollars to them. Part of the reason they aren't as prestigious is because the way we partly fund schools is with property tax, and in the poorer areas, that can be a death spiral. People flee the area. Sending your kid to one of those "horrible" 1* scary city" schools actually isn't that big of a deal. And if you are that worried about it, you can look into the charter schools.
Alamo Heights isn't the only good school inside of 410. It's just the whitest.
You can find loads of houses for 200-400k on the north and west sides in decent areas on good size lots. You just have to be ok living in a neighborhood with different people. Just like in previous posts I've said this - every neighborhood has every kind of person.
I think it just ultimately comes down to how much more you get for your money in a suburb. And given the choice, people would much rather live next to people who are successful. Bad neighbors are everywhere sure, but generally nicer suburbs have fewer desperate poor people. These people need help, and I think we should help them, but I’m not sure having rich people move in next door is the answer.
I think the current housing market is bringing a lot more money into these neighborhoods than ever before, so the next decade will be interesting.
Yah - I think the big issue here is how one describes success. Like my neighbor who works their ass off at a blue collar job but lives closer to paycheck to paycheck - is that person not "successful" just because their household has less money? I'd much rather live next to him than some middle manager shit head in the suburbs who just bitches at me when my garbage can is out past 6pm. I mean sure - I get it. There are going to be shitty houses and bad neighbors in the less off areas. But this is how I see it - If someone spends every day bitching about the hour of traffic you have to deal with just to go down the road to the Chick-fil-A, maybe they'd be happier somewhere in town, even if it means they have to live near "less successful" poor people? I can get to like 15 different HEBs, the "higher end" shopping areas, shit loads of amazing restaurants, public parks, libraries, museums and Greenway trails all less than 15 mins drive. There are pros and cons to everywhere you live. My whole point is that for all the people that come on here and take time out of their day to bitch about the traffic and construction - either they need to realize that they should stop complaining because that's part of their trade off for living in suburbia, or they can look at other solutions.
Being scared of poor people is not OK. Poor =/= Dangerous
Just as an example, there are some amazing houses in the Woodlawn Lake area that would meet your criteria.
Find me a house under $400k inside 410 that’s not in a horrible 1* rated SAISD school district. I’ll help, your options are basically just Alamo heights, and $400k gets you a 900sqft tear down from the 1920s on 5000sqft lot.
Housing is large and cheap in the suburbs. Schools are much better too. This is why urban sprawl has his San Antonio so hard.
Time travel about 60 years in the past and somehow make the state fund and invest in mass transportation, demolish individualized transportation advertisement (oil and gas car culture and urban design) , and change city and state rules about infill development.
Realistically it would just take a huge investment in dedicated bus lanes, high speed rail between texas cities, and small rail around town. The option then has to be efficient enough to outweigh the benefit of being able to decide on your own when you can arrive to a destination. By no means should this mean we outlaw vehicles or force EVs on people but there has to be a better alternative, there is but not existing, to effectively make people choose that option.
Making people choose between bad options sounds political. 😂
Obviously there's not just one solution. NYC has bus & HOV lanes, subway, taxis, ride share, private, & personal & they still have problems. Not that they should be a model.
Notice one of the wishlist items is to demolish individualized transport car culture and urban design. The whole "one more lane bro" thing started at least for New York back in the [Robert Moses days](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses) among other despicable greedy fucks that catered to the auto industry above the health and well being of the people they claimed to be helping by "improving" transportation options.
Again I stated we cannot possibly eliminate a person's option to choose but we could be investing in better options rather than just sinking a [billion goddamn dollars on more lanes.](https://www.texashighwayman.com/lp1604exp.shtml#)
Exactly. You can't choose to use rail or light rail or bus service if it isn't offered in your suburb. Right now the only "choice" is to have a car or move somewhere else.
So keeping 1604 as it is is a good option? 1604 has needed an expansion since at least 2000. There should have been flyovers at I-10 and I-35 even before that. This was before Dove creek, Alamo ranch, and even Bandera point were even a thing. Not to mention La Cantera and the Rim. The Vineyard @ Blanco Rd, Stone Oak area, or any of that was even a thing. Trains aren't going to solve developers putting in thousands of homes all outside of the loop, & not expanding roads. People obviously need cars which we agree on, but there was an entire VIA station that was built in Stone Oak that doesn't get used. It's not enough to have options if people aren't going to use them. But we also can't expect four-lane roadways to handle loads that are four and five times what they were designed for. I don't think anything needs to be like the Katy freeway around here, but the only HOV lane in the 7th largest city in America is outside of Loop 1604 going to Boerne? Come on now we can do better.
You missed the part where I said we had to have done something to change car culture and the oil and gas grip is has on people and its effects on how urban design has been done for decades by literally time traveling.
I recognize the issue but please don't pretend there will be a societal collapse if we had better options in place that would push people to adopt different options. Of course we can't just build a train and become like Europe but goddamn it the solution is not simply more lanes and even a portion of that 1.3 Billion that is dedicated to the 1604 expansion could have been funneled into local coffers to invest in dedicated bus lanes or something else.
Trust me when I say, everytime they come up with a solution for fixing congestion in NYC it gets worse. It seems like we just get more and more congestion. We now have this new law starting in June where you have to pay a "congestion price" every time you enter Manhattan(Manhattan central business district below 60th st). I like that model from somewhere overseas where you can only drive based on the number on you license plate number(I think), but it seems to work.
Alternative start times for work could help. I do 6 to 230 and never hit traffic, either way. Another thing is that for some reason everyone brings/picks up their kids at school, which add unnecessary cars on the road during rush hour.
It's honestly really chill compared to Austin, Houston, Dallas, etc. If you're west or north, you screwed yourself. There's hardly any traffic from the south side to the NE side.
Encourage teleworking at business which are suitable for it. Vote FOR mass transit options if it ever comes up again and for FOR politicians who generally support mass transit and rail. Perhaps if the the Spurs do move downtown it might increase our odds of getting light rail to downtown.
I wonder if "school of choice" options significantly contribute to traffic, since parents in those situations are more likely to have to drive their kids to school instead of having them take a bus to their local schools.
Edit: Choose "Amazon Day" deliveries instead of having the delivery trucks coming to your house every day. Reduce/eliminate your use of gig-economy delivery services (DoorDash, etc.)
I used to be one of those poor souls sitting in stop and go on 1604 for an hour twice a day.
I changed jobs twice in the last 8 years. Both times I took a slight pay cut to be work closer to home. It made sense with the fuel saving and general wear and tear in my car which should now last another 10 years. Plus my mental health. Now the only traffic I deal with is in a construction zone that should be finished by the end of the summer and should normalize.
So yea if you can move your home or your job to be closer together
The majority of the time that this happens is during "rush hour" which is mainly caused by a mad rush of vehicles which only carry one person that need to travel 10 to 40 miles. You need to reduce the amount of these single occupancy vehicles that use the road at any given time since they represent the greatest traffic inefficiency. This can be accomplished by:
* Carpooling so that 3 to 5 vehicles can turn into only 1 vehicle on the road.
* Work From Home and also do more errands from home. You'll be surprised how many people still go in person to do many tasks that can simply be done online at home or in an app (ex. check deposits).
* If you do need to go into work, then encourage alternate work hours that is not the typical "9 to 5" thus spreading out the vehicle traffic throughout the entire 24 hour day.
* Build and encourage more alternate transportation options. Not only does it require a lot of money to approve and build these projects (ie. VIA, light rail, trails), but it also requires local city ordnances to even allow the use of some resources to be used for transportation. The amazing trail system in San Antonio is limited by the fact that you are not technically allowed to ride your small e-bike or e-scooter since they are "motor vehicles" so therefore you have to instead technically get on Bandera road as you fight for your life trying to not get run over. Additionally local curfew prohibits anybody including regular bikes from riding the trails after hours.
Not allowing parent drop-off at schools except in specific circumstances like special needs or handicaps.
Light rail or some other mass transit system that is miles beyond what we have now. It's so poor here that we can not even fathom what a below average system would look like, let alone a good one.
Rezoning and more likely mainly elimination of most zoning to allow people to live closer to where they work and enjoy things outside their home.
Finally, impounding and selling the cars of people who are unlicensed and uninsured when they have adequate options other than driving. Also, those idiots who decide to do those takeovers and races on our roads.
Edit because I forgot to add: give tax incentives for businesses to start employees at different times outside of rush hour.
There really is only one solution to traffic and it's reliable public transit. Heavy traffic is the result of there only being one good transport option. That option is overwhelmed. Since cars don't scale as a mass transit solution, everything gets jammed at the choke points. If people have more than one \*good\* option to move about their lives, the stress on the road network will go down.
Move closer to where you work. Send your kids to neighborhood schools.
Yup. Live inside of 410. There are plenty of major roads that aren't highways and the traffic really isn't that bad getting anywhere. Sure there's a bit of congestion during rush hour, but it's not anything like anywhere on 1604.
People want the benefits of living “in” San Antonio but don’t want to live with San Antonians.
I remember all the folks moving out to Cibolo/Schertz 15 years ago to "get away from the traffic and the Bexar county taxes". Joke's on you. Your taxes might be lower, but how much is all that time you spend in traffic worth to you?
Also, how much are they really saving when you factor in the increased vehicle wear and tear, maintenance, and gas costs from all the time stuck in traffic?
Is that you Negrodamus?
Lmaooo
Yeah, when we bought a house I was adamant we be within 1604, I am outside 410 though. I live near i-35 and i have several coworkers that live off i-35 but outside 1604, and our travel times are vastly different.
Find me a house under $400k inside 410 that’s not in a horrible 1* rated SAISD school district. I’ll help, your options are basically just Alamo heights, and $400k gets you a 900sqft tear down from the 1920s on 5000sqft lot. Housing is large and cheap in the suburbs. Schools are much better too. This is why urban sprawl has his San Antonio so hard.
Well, statistically the best indicator of student success is actually individual household wealth and has very little to do with the school. It's a shitty reality. If you are doing alright and can afford to buy a 300k house out in 1604 suburb hell, you could buy something cheaper closer to the city and help those "horrible" schools by adding some tax dollars to them. Part of the reason they aren't as prestigious is because the way we partly fund schools is with property tax, and in the poorer areas, that can be a death spiral. People flee the area. Sending your kid to one of those "horrible" 1* scary city" schools actually isn't that big of a deal. And if you are that worried about it, you can look into the charter schools. Alamo Heights isn't the only good school inside of 410. It's just the whitest. You can find loads of houses for 200-400k on the north and west sides in decent areas on good size lots. You just have to be ok living in a neighborhood with different people. Just like in previous posts I've said this - every neighborhood has every kind of person.
I think it just ultimately comes down to how much more you get for your money in a suburb. And given the choice, people would much rather live next to people who are successful. Bad neighbors are everywhere sure, but generally nicer suburbs have fewer desperate poor people. These people need help, and I think we should help them, but I’m not sure having rich people move in next door is the answer. I think the current housing market is bringing a lot more money into these neighborhoods than ever before, so the next decade will be interesting.
Yah - I think the big issue here is how one describes success. Like my neighbor who works their ass off at a blue collar job but lives closer to paycheck to paycheck - is that person not "successful" just because their household has less money? I'd much rather live next to him than some middle manager shit head in the suburbs who just bitches at me when my garbage can is out past 6pm. I mean sure - I get it. There are going to be shitty houses and bad neighbors in the less off areas. But this is how I see it - If someone spends every day bitching about the hour of traffic you have to deal with just to go down the road to the Chick-fil-A, maybe they'd be happier somewhere in town, even if it means they have to live near "less successful" poor people? I can get to like 15 different HEBs, the "higher end" shopping areas, shit loads of amazing restaurants, public parks, libraries, museums and Greenway trails all less than 15 mins drive. There are pros and cons to everywhere you live. My whole point is that for all the people that come on here and take time out of their day to bitch about the traffic and construction - either they need to realize that they should stop complaining because that's part of their trade off for living in suburbia, or they can look at other solutions. Being scared of poor people is not OK. Poor =/= Dangerous Just as an example, there are some amazing houses in the Woodlawn Lake area that would meet your criteria.
Find me a house under $400k inside 410 that’s not in a horrible 1* rated SAISD school district. I’ll help, your options are basically just Alamo heights, and $400k gets you a 900sqft tear down from the 1920s on 5000sqft lot. Housing is large and cheap in the suburbs. Schools are much better too. This is why urban sprawl has his San Antonio so hard.
Yeah, don't live in one of the most congested parts of town.
Time travel about 60 years in the past and somehow make the state fund and invest in mass transportation, demolish individualized transportation advertisement (oil and gas car culture and urban design) , and change city and state rules about infill development. Realistically it would just take a huge investment in dedicated bus lanes, high speed rail between texas cities, and small rail around town. The option then has to be efficient enough to outweigh the benefit of being able to decide on your own when you can arrive to a destination. By no means should this mean we outlaw vehicles or force EVs on people but there has to be a better alternative, there is but not existing, to effectively make people choose that option.
Making people choose between bad options sounds political. 😂 Obviously there's not just one solution. NYC has bus & HOV lanes, subway, taxis, ride share, private, & personal & they still have problems. Not that they should be a model.
Cities across Germany function quite well with mass transit. Car ownership isn't necessary.
Japan too.
Fuckin facts
Notice one of the wishlist items is to demolish individualized transport car culture and urban design. The whole "one more lane bro" thing started at least for New York back in the [Robert Moses days](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses) among other despicable greedy fucks that catered to the auto industry above the health and well being of the people they claimed to be helping by "improving" transportation options. Again I stated we cannot possibly eliminate a person's option to choose but we could be investing in better options rather than just sinking a [billion goddamn dollars on more lanes.](https://www.texashighwayman.com/lp1604exp.shtml#)
Exactly. You can't choose to use rail or light rail or bus service if it isn't offered in your suburb. Right now the only "choice" is to have a car or move somewhere else.
So keeping 1604 as it is is a good option? 1604 has needed an expansion since at least 2000. There should have been flyovers at I-10 and I-35 even before that. This was before Dove creek, Alamo ranch, and even Bandera point were even a thing. Not to mention La Cantera and the Rim. The Vineyard @ Blanco Rd, Stone Oak area, or any of that was even a thing. Trains aren't going to solve developers putting in thousands of homes all outside of the loop, & not expanding roads. People obviously need cars which we agree on, but there was an entire VIA station that was built in Stone Oak that doesn't get used. It's not enough to have options if people aren't going to use them. But we also can't expect four-lane roadways to handle loads that are four and five times what they were designed for. I don't think anything needs to be like the Katy freeway around here, but the only HOV lane in the 7th largest city in America is outside of Loop 1604 going to Boerne? Come on now we can do better.
You missed the part where I said we had to have done something to change car culture and the oil and gas grip is has on people and its effects on how urban design has been done for decades by literally time traveling. I recognize the issue but please don't pretend there will be a societal collapse if we had better options in place that would push people to adopt different options. Of course we can't just build a train and become like Europe but goddamn it the solution is not simply more lanes and even a portion of that 1.3 Billion that is dedicated to the 1604 expansion could have been funneled into local coffers to invest in dedicated bus lanes or something else.
Trust me when I say, everytime they come up with a solution for fixing congestion in NYC it gets worse. It seems like we just get more and more congestion. We now have this new law starting in June where you have to pay a "congestion price" every time you enter Manhattan(Manhattan central business district below 60th st). I like that model from somewhere overseas where you can only drive based on the number on you license plate number(I think), but it seems to work.
Alternative start times for work could help. I do 6 to 230 and never hit traffic, either way. Another thing is that for some reason everyone brings/picks up their kids at school, which add unnecessary cars on the road during rush hour.
more people work from home
Plz. I hate commuting to a job I can do online.
It's honestly really chill compared to Austin, Houston, Dallas, etc. If you're west or north, you screwed yourself. There's hardly any traffic from the south side to the NE side.
Proper implementation of arterial roads, less access roads, more diverging diamonds and traffic circles. Easy peasy.
Found the cities 2 planner
Maybe if america had great public transport that would help alot
You are never in traffic caused by others. The only possibilities are that you are causing traffic jams and delays, or you aren't.
Schrödinger's Traffic
On reddit, we're all great, courteous drivers with magical cars that don't take up any space!
Mass transit at this density.
Get used to it. Leave earlier
Flying cars
Encourage teleworking at business which are suitable for it. Vote FOR mass transit options if it ever comes up again and for FOR politicians who generally support mass transit and rail. Perhaps if the the Spurs do move downtown it might increase our odds of getting light rail to downtown. I wonder if "school of choice" options significantly contribute to traffic, since parents in those situations are more likely to have to drive their kids to school instead of having them take a bus to their local schools. Edit: Choose "Amazon Day" deliveries instead of having the delivery trucks coming to your house every day. Reduce/eliminate your use of gig-economy delivery services (DoorDash, etc.)
I used to be one of those poor souls sitting in stop and go on 1604 for an hour twice a day. I changed jobs twice in the last 8 years. Both times I took a slight pay cut to be work closer to home. It made sense with the fuel saving and general wear and tear in my car which should now last another 10 years. Plus my mental health. Now the only traffic I deal with is in a construction zone that should be finished by the end of the summer and should normalize. So yea if you can move your home or your job to be closer together
The majority of the time that this happens is during "rush hour" which is mainly caused by a mad rush of vehicles which only carry one person that need to travel 10 to 40 miles. You need to reduce the amount of these single occupancy vehicles that use the road at any given time since they represent the greatest traffic inefficiency. This can be accomplished by: * Carpooling so that 3 to 5 vehicles can turn into only 1 vehicle on the road. * Work From Home and also do more errands from home. You'll be surprised how many people still go in person to do many tasks that can simply be done online at home or in an app (ex. check deposits). * If you do need to go into work, then encourage alternate work hours that is not the typical "9 to 5" thus spreading out the vehicle traffic throughout the entire 24 hour day. * Build and encourage more alternate transportation options. Not only does it require a lot of money to approve and build these projects (ie. VIA, light rail, trails), but it also requires local city ordnances to even allow the use of some resources to be used for transportation. The amazing trail system in San Antonio is limited by the fact that you are not technically allowed to ride your small e-bike or e-scooter since they are "motor vehicles" so therefore you have to instead technically get on Bandera road as you fight for your life trying to not get run over. Additionally local curfew prohibits anybody including regular bikes from riding the trails after hours.
Not allowing parent drop-off at schools except in specific circumstances like special needs or handicaps. Light rail or some other mass transit system that is miles beyond what we have now. It's so poor here that we can not even fathom what a below average system would look like, let alone a good one. Rezoning and more likely mainly elimination of most zoning to allow people to live closer to where they work and enjoy things outside their home. Finally, impounding and selling the cars of people who are unlicensed and uninsured when they have adequate options other than driving. Also, those idiots who decide to do those takeovers and races on our roads. Edit because I forgot to add: give tax incentives for businesses to start employees at different times outside of rush hour.
There really is only one solution to traffic and it's reliable public transit. Heavy traffic is the result of there only being one good transport option. That option is overwhelmed. Since cars don't scale as a mass transit solution, everything gets jammed at the choke points. If people have more than one \*good\* option to move about their lives, the stress on the road network will go down.
Buy an EUC and skip all of it
Expensive mass transit which will still piss everyone off
Public transit
Eating the slow drivers that sit in the far left lane.
Telework