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I never drive much other than to/from work and the occasional shopping trip. Usually grocery shopping.

The problem with public transportation is creating a system that people would use. When you're in a country the size of Ohio and have a population of 150 million or more, it's relatively simple to come up with a layout that will work for the vast majority of the people who live there. But when you live as spread out as we do in the United States, that becomes a bit more problematic. You can do it, but it costs more and many politicians aren't willing to stand up and go for the more expensive solution that will be used and instead propose a less expensive solution that just plain sucks. Supporting light rail doesn't mean supporting any plan to create a light rail system. Throwing money away to create and maintain a system that won't be used is worse than doing nothing. Case in point, the light rail proposal we had here in San Antonio eight years ago.

I strongly support light rail, but voted against the proposal we had on the ballot in 2000. And here's why. San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the country by population, with about 1.3 million people living here. But our population density is only 2800 people per square mile, and our city covers 408 square miles. Compare that to London with 12,000 per square mile in 600 square miles, Tokyo with 15,000 per square mile in 844 square miles, or New York City with 27,000 per square mile in 308 square miles. It really doesn't feel like we live in a huge city because of how spread out we are, unless you're driving between 7AM-9AM or 4PM-6PM Mon-Fri

Here is what San Antonio's highway system looks like. And this is the light rail proposal we had. The major roads in the city that have a lot of traffic on them would lose one street lane in each direction. A rail system would be built on that space to transfer people from the north and west sides of the city to downtown and back. Those rail lines would only connect in the city center. There would also be a rail line paralleling the major highways into and out of town: Interstate 10, Interstate 35 (and 37), State Highway 90, and State Highway 281.

Sounds good on paper, doesn't it? Those are the major arteries of city traffic, after all. But it was a stupid, stupid, stupid idea because that's not how most traffic flows in this city. There are two circular highways in San Antonio that you can see on that map. One is Interstate 410, a spur of Interstate 10. The other, which is further out, is FM 1604 (farm to market road, for those not familiar with the term FM). The north and west sides of our city go all the way to 1604 and beyond. The east and south sides of our city only go to 410 or just past it. There's more traffic on 410 and 1604 on the north and west sides of the city than on the straight highways combined, but there was no light rail proposed along those roads. Anyone who lives between the major highways has to get to them somehow to move further into or out of the city, and taking 410 or 1604 to get to the one we need is what a huge number of people do. Plus, with the way the city has grown, a significant number of people only travel along those two loops to get to their destination. They live east and work west, or vice versa. There aren't a huge number of businesses in downtown with people who work there living outside of 410. That was true in 1980 when State Highway 90 on the west and Intersate 10 on the east were what split the city into north/south halves, but we've mostly grown to the north and west since then. 410 cuts through the effective center of the city now, and is THE most traveled highway in town. It was just expanded to five lanes each direction along the north and west sides and is still more congested with to/from work traffic than 10, 35 or 281. And those three highways are four or usually three lanes each way instead of five.

What they should have proposed is a circular loop of rail elevated over or paralleling 410 along its entire route, along with an arc elevated above or alongside the heavily traveled part of 1604 on the north and west sides. Then straight rail lines between the 410 loop and 1604 arc along heavily traveled roads like 10, 35, 281 and the major streets in town that continue into downtown, along with lines into downtown from the southern side of the city along the highways and major roads there. Then change bus routes to radiate out from train stops to nearby areas.

That last part is key. Did I mention that they were going to keep the EXACT SAME bus routes we have now after the creation of a rail system? Stupid. Beyond stupid. Our existing bus routes are already idiotic because they also don't follow the real traffic patterns in the city, and most buses are 1/4 full if that. People stay away from riding the bus because it just doesn't go where it needs to go in the way it needs to go. Even with the high price of gas now, the number of people riding the bus here hasn't gone up as much as it has in other cities due to our senseless bus routes.

Right now my round trip is 26 miles to get to work and back. If they made the system that they should make, I could drive 2 miles to 1604 and park at a train station there. Take the train west along 1604 to 281, change to a train down 281 to 410, and then hop a bus for the short jaunt 2 miles northwest of the highway intersection to where I work. FOUR miles of driving in my car every day I work instead of 26. That's the kind of trip most folks take. A short drive to a major thoroughfare. A long drive along the major thoroughfare. Another short drive off the major thoroughfare to the destination.

If the rail system as I described it existed, I'd use it a lot. Thousands of others would use it, taking their cars off the highways and reducing congestion incredibly. And not just for work. I could use that system to get to every single place in town where my wife and I have ever gone shopping in the past 15 years. We could visit all of the major tourist attractions, all the movie theaters, the Spurs arena, the dome and convention center downtown, the state community colleges, the two state universities... all for a four mile round trip drive from my house. I wouldn't even need to use a bus for anything other than work, a couple of shopping locations, and one community college. The other stuff is right along the major roads and therefore right along the rail stops.

Unless that's the kind of proposal the city makes, I'm not voting for it. Anything less is the equivalent of building a bridge to nowhere. You can't just put rail lines along the major roads in a city and call it done. You still need a car or bus to get to the rail line. And more importantly, you still need a way of getting from the final train stop to whatever destination you're looking for. Without that last leg of the journey being a part of the public transit system, everything that goes before it is irrelevent. In a dense urban area like New York or Tokyo or London, you can put a train or bus stop literally a quarter of a mile from every potential destination. In a sprawling city like mine, you can't. Who cares if I can go all but two miles of the trip from my house to work on efficient public transit if those last two miles take 45 minutes and at least one bus change? That's about the same amount of time as it would take to walk, but walking is not an option when six months out of the year the temperature is anywhere from 90 to 105 degrees. Or a day when we have torrential rains and 40+ mph winds. I have to carry a notebook computer and sometimes real computers (plural!) to and from work on a regular basis. I could still do that on a train or bus.

My fear is that we'll get the same idiotic proposal from the city later this year or next year as we got in 2000, people will vote for it because of the high cost of gas and hoping that anything new will be better, and then when it's built hardly anyone will use it because it doesn't follow the real traffic pattern of most people in the city. That's been the case for light rail systems in most cities where one is built. Politics rules the decition making process, rather than practicalities.