Some individual neighborhoods score much higher for walkability than San Antonio overall. With an official Walk Score of just 34 out of a “walker’s paradise” of 100, San Antonio is behind places like Austin, El Paso and even Dallas, and far behind top-placers New York City, Chicago and Portland. When it comes to cycling, San Antonio scores a 45. That is the San Antonio which no one takes you to visit and is unremarkable in every way.” “There is another San Antonio outside of that area, which is identical to the mess that is occurring in most other cities,” Duany said.
For San Antonio, it’s not enough to point to the River Walk and its “wonderful downtown” for walkability, he said. Instead of adding lanes that encourage more traffic, Duany argued that cities should develop more walkability through dense mixed-use planning and by designing short blocks and narrow lanes for both vehicles and pedestrians to use. “Because regardless of the number of lanes that are built, there are never enough lanes,” said Duany, presenting his thoughts on the concept of new urbanism and walkability to a San Antonio group of planners and designers more than 30 years ago. But when it comes to using their own two feet with a destination in mind, getting from place to place on foot is difficult in many parts of the city.ĭesigning a city for vehicles to ferry people to those places results not only in unsafe and undesirable pedestrian conditions across the city but also an ever-expanding need for more roads, highways and parking lots, according to architect and urban planner Andrés Duany. Perhaps as evidence, San Antonio residents regularly take to the extensive trail system for recreational walking. Opinion polls show people want to walk when they can, and the desire for walkable neighborhoods is high.
Less walking has an impact on people’s health and the environment, but it’s also bad news for attracting business and economic development in a sprawling and fast-growing city built more for cars than the human beings who live here.
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