Free Research Proposal On How To Improve The Traffic Problem In San Antonio

. Traffic crises can cause extremely impactful environmental and economic issues for cities. Cities begin to struggle when an increasing need for transportation changes the effectiveness of existing systems. A multifaceted approach to traffic problems, utilizing both public transportation and newer models of transportation sharing can not only benefit cities, but also encourage economic growth. San Antonio is one of the cities that requires immediate action. Transportation changes are needed if San Antonio is going to continue to be able to grow and expand for both its citizens and its commerce.
San Antonio is currently dealing with traffic jams that cause financial and productive time loss. Many areas of their commerce is being affected, as well as negative impact on local travel to work. There are many ways to reduce congestion that can be enacted on both a short and long term basis. San Antonio has many options they could use to have a positive impact on their current system.
A well-designed mass transit system can promote the economic development of cities. Lewis Mumford, an urban theorist, pointed out that transportation is an essential means for economic competitiveness and cultural trade. (qtd. in Famoso and Lanzafame). The Daily Beast, an American news reporting website, stated that “Anthony Downs, writer of Stuck in Traffic, has identified four reasons for America’s congestion problemfirst, most of us work during the same hours of the day; second, the country’s economic success has allowed households to buy multiple cars; third, there are more people now than when most roadways were conceived; fourth, more cars means more accidents which means more delays” (“America’s 75 Worst Commutes”). With San Antonio being the second biggest city in Texas, and the seventh largest city in the United States; the high population is represented in heavy traffic problems.
TRIP, a Washington, DC based national transportation research organization, has published a statistic that mention 100 transportation challenges in America. According to the report of TRIP, five out of the top 50 traffic challenges are located in San Antonio. The main roadways in San Antonio are I-410, US 281, Loop 1604etc. Following this report you can view the top traffic challenges in San Antonio to include I-35, Loop 1605, US 281 and I-410 these main roads. These roadways play important roles to connecting the airport, downtown, and border; however, they are always congested. Additionally, The Daily Beast pointed out that the worst speed in bottleneck is 13.9 mph when traffic is congested in Loop 410 and weekly hours of congestion is up to 71 hours. These reports show that traffic in San Antonio is crowded to a toxic level at specific times and this issue needs to be addressed. This report supports that the problems with congestion and public transportation has a current negative impact San Antonio environment and economic culture. .
San Antonio has tried to provide some short term solutions, but they do not seem to be impacting the problem. VIA, San Antonio’s main transit system, was created to give a mass solution in an attempt to create a driving alternative. One of the main problems with VIA is that arrival times are not accurate. Comparing the transit system in Japan to that in America, Roger Chesley argues that the mass transit system in Japan is more integrated, cleaner, and always on time. Even though VIA transit provides a service that allows passengers to check the exact times of the bus by text or APP, there are often wait times when the bus is delayed. In addition, there is only one kinds of mass transit system in San Antonio, making transship inconvenient and causing people to need more time to reach their destinations. This in turn creates the problem of people who the public transportation system was attempting to reach choosing instead to drive .
In order to solve San Antonio’s traffic problems, the problem should be divided into two aspects. One would focus on publishing policies and the other one would be developing coordinate mass transit systems. Using these two methods will solve the traffic congestion problems, encourage people to take the mass transit system and reduce the air pollution.
Car sharing (a kind of car rental, with people not having to own but still having the benefits of a car), bike sharing (like a bicycle rental system), and car-pooling (employees from same company share using the same vehicle) can be modes used to help to improve urban transit systems. Among them, car sharing had become more and more common in the past few years. This kind of service is already working in more than a dozen cities in Canada. These cities include Quebec City, Toronto, and Halifax. Elliot Martin and Susan Shaheen, professors of the University of California, discussed the impact of car sharing on the public transit of North America. They feel that car sharing should be supported and stated, “Overall, car-sharing systems offer an energy-friendly transportation alternative that results in reduced driving and vehicle ownership. This reduction was driven by a minority of members (~30%) that made a shift to a new travel lifestyle, which was characterized by increased walking, bicycling, carpooling, and public transit use.” This result explains how car-sharing systems helps to reduce the numbers of cars driving, and also how it would apply to decreasing the problem of too many vehicles in San Antonio.
Developing coordinate mass transit systems could also contribute to solving. the traffic congestion problem . Light rail transit (LRT) system and bus rapid transit (BRT) system have been good methods to solving the problem in many big cities. Though LRT and BRT systems use different technologies; they get to the same destinations, and provide a good transit service. Lo Rosa Hsu, a professor at Taoyuan Innovation Institute of Technology, talks about LRT being operated by electrically propelled vehicles and BRT using the bus vehicles by restricted lane and signal.
In the United States, LRT had been used in many big cities. Current light-rail projects are used in Seattle, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Oceanside, California. Brett Hansen, associate editor of Civil Engineering Magazine, said that, “ this illustrates how this convenient travel alternative can reduce traffic congestion.” Hansen points out that light-rail transit could be used to transfer points to people who are from other transportation systems. “In Charlotte light-rail is being used in conjunction with other forms of mass transit to encourage growth around particular transit station,” he said. This means light rail can provide a higher coordination with other transit system like bus, bike and cars. A written study, written by Laurent Denant-Boemont and Gordon Mills, made a similar arguement that if residents have coordination of the transportation service, the required service quality will improve due to light rail going places where buses can not go to. Additionally, Hansen indicated that the light-rail system helps the cities to encourage development around transit centers and make economic growth sustainable.
BRT has also been regarded as a key to improving mobility and solving congestion. Yuanqing Wang et al. stated that, “ in North America, BRT volumes per hour have equaled or surpassed those of light rail and can be as high as those of subways/metros.” Colfax, a country in Washington State, shows a good example, bringing about great development in economic and vitality with their BRT system. “With BRT, you get a bus service that acts like a train — fast, convenient, and attractive,” says Will Toor, director of transportation programs.
Though these two systems provide an efficient and effective service, it is hard to make a selection between LRT and BRT. Hsu argued that although the capital cost of the LRT is higher than BRT on average due to rails, vehicles, and electrification, the operative cost is less than BRT because of passengers’ capacity. However, these two systems can provide the same comparable service and solve the urban traffic congestions.