Walkable only if you drive

Walk Score ranks Texas cities in the top 25 for the best public transportation;How did that happen?

I noticed Walk Score’s first transit system ranking for cities and it gave me pause. As much as I love Austin and Texas, I was shocked that the city and state could ever get anything remotely close to a top ranked “Public Transit Score.” To be fair, Walk Score also looks at "Walkability," ranking cities as most walkable to...well, not.

Out of a possible score of 100 (with New York ranking number 1 with 81 transit points and an overall walkability score of 85) Austin scored 33 transit points and 47 points in walkability, while Houston got 36 transit and 50 in walkability, Dallas got 39 transit and 47 in walkability and San Antonio got 35 in transit and 41 in walkability. San Antonio’s downtown was regarded as walkable because of...er, the Riverwalk?

These are people who have clearly never lived in Texas. Walk Score, bless its heart, is based in Seattle, the 6^th most walkable large city with a walk score of 74. (Seattle boasts the 7^th ranked public transit score with 43). Yay.

You should know that while I have adopted Austin as home, I grew up in New York. I came to Texas briefly in the 1990s, moving to Houston to become a newspaper reporter. I learned how to drive in Houston when I was 22 — a fact that amused my colleagues, who’d been learning how to drive on tractors and such what-not since they were preteens.

Meanwhile, like most of my young New York friends, I was surprised everyone in Texas wasn’t a country-trained equestrian. I never went so far as to ask, “So, you mean you didn’t ride horses to school?” — but I thought it. But I digress.

I guess to up our walkability scores down here in Texas, we’ll need to keep driving ourselves to places where we can get out and walk around.

For my reporting work, I needed to get around quickly and reliably. It became clear that in Walk Score’s top scoring city, New York, I had been spoiled with public transportation that could get you to any part of the city in under an hour regularly. Our friends at Walk Score suggest that Houston is “somewhat walkable.” What a nice way to put it.

The Lone Star State and the Empire State have a lot in common — the big swagger, the pretty buildings, the unique culture. There is no comparing the swift, easy-to-understand public transportation in New York to the eccentric scheduling and routes of public transportation in this state. (Transit Gods, please make it so that I can get a ride from CultureMap readers if my car ever breaks for good, since I probably will be barred from Texas buses and light rail for this. Thank you.)

In Houston, as in Austin later, I could never find a bus when I needed one. Maybe that’s how Houston earned a transit score of 36. I can laugh about this now, but much to the chagrin of my city editor at the time, I tried walking what would have been the equivalent of a 10-minute car drive from my efficiency apartment in the Medical Center to a press conference at MD Anderson.

Since there was no telling when a bus was going to arrive and the schedule posted at one of the few bus stops in my area was outdated and faded by the sun, I put on my proverbial big girl boots and soldiered my way on foot toward the building in question. It was the end of June and I was so horribly mistaken.

By the time I arrived, the people I was supposed to be interviewing seemed relieved I was still in an area where doctors were working, since I was sweating through my shirt and looked close to passing out from dehydration. Somewhat walkable? Right — at night, when you don’t have to be anywhere in particular and it’s December.

I learned my lesson. After I got a car, I only took the bus a handful of times in Houston. I never took public transportation in Seattle, though sometimes I noticed it from my car window.

When I lived in the Bay Area, I was exposed to the beauty that is public transportation on the Left Coast. It ranked second in walkability from Walk Score behind New York, and its transit score was 80. Aside from the slightly funky cloth seats on its trains, the fact that the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) goes everywhere (except for Marin) and BART stops running around 1 a.m., it was pretty great. Like everything else, it wasn’t particularly cost effective, but that’s Northern California for you.

Even if Austin has increasingly earned its "Silicon Hills" comparisons to the Silicon Valley, Capital Metro is a far cry from BART. Maybe that’s how it earned a transit score of 33 as the 21^st city on a list of 25 Top Cities. I knew things were bad — a ten minute drive from my house in East Austin to downtown requires at least one bus transfer — to go West, you have to go North, then wait for at least 20 minutes between buses — but for Austin to trail San Antonio, Dallas and Houston in walkability and transit? It makes my brain hurt.

Still, after living in Austin for seven years, it now makes total sense. I am not proud of the fact that I have taken the bus in this town only four or five times, but apparently I am still in the minority, since only an estimated 2.7 percent of Austinites use public transportation here. I would love to be one of the people who saves the equivalent of $10,000 a year by hopping on a bus. (If I knew how to ride a bike, I might do that instead.)

When I was working full-time and going to graduate school part-time, I thought I might be able to save some time by parking at work downtown and taking the bus to the University of Texas and back to my car. Unfortunately, that ended up being more of a hassle than a convenience: Adding the bus, with its wonky schedule and weird travel patterns, also added about an hour and a half to my travel.

Now we’ve got light rail. Yay! Too bad it doesn’t go where I need it to go, among other issues. Sounds like light rail in Houston has its own challenges — shocking! I guess to up our walkability scores down here in Texas, we’ll need to keep driving ourselves to places where we can get out and walk around.

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San Antonio leads Texas on ending horse-drawn carriage rides by 2030

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Horses will no longer pull carriages on the streets of downtown San Antonio.

San Antonio has pulled off something that the rest of Texas has yet to do, but it didn't come without some contentious conversations. City Council has unanimously voted (with one abstention) to phase out the use of horse-drawn carriages over the next five years. That means by January 1, 2030, there will be none on the streets at all; instead, there will be electric carriages.

These plans have been in the making since 2022 — if not always at the same level of intensity — when District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 3 Councilmember Phyllis Viagran wrote up some concerns about the horses' wellbeing. A special session at the end of October 2024 hinted to San Antonians that the end for this practice was neigh — sorry, nigh — and the final vote was made on December 12. In addition to accepting the plan, it extended its timeframe by two years.

The initial proposal included worries about the horses' exposure to traffic and pollution, as well how their presence might exacerbate those issues for the environment at large by slowing traffic. It also raised concerns about the effects of standing or walking on hard surfaces for too long, or spending time in extreme weather.

At the December 12 meeting, San Antonians gave impassioned speeches about animal welfare — both to call attention to the need for better conditions and to defend the reputations and jobs of current horse drivers — but it wasn't the first time the council heard from the public about the issue.

In a prior city survey, 50,476 respondents weighed in. Of those respondents, 51.98 percent said they liked the idea to "Transition horse-drawn carriages to electric carriages and pedicabs and ban horse drawn carriages completely." There were alternative solutions listed, but respondents were less drawn to them.

A cultural divide emerged in the data and continued in the December meeting: some people avoided the carriages because they worried about the treatment of the horses, while others enjoyed them because of their historical echoes and living legacy. Many speakers in favor of the plan used this to form their argument, raising questions about history versus progress.

More tangible objections to the plan hinged on the businesses — specifically five companies — and jobs that would be lost, which was the main factor behind extending the adjustment period.

Discussions about the particulars of the electric vehicles are still to come, as confirmed in the discussion near the end of the meeting. Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez addressed concerns about what would happen to the horses, mentioning the Brady Hunter Foundation as a future partner in finding them rescue homes.

Some council members also brought up rhetorical questions about animal exploitation by groups like Sea World, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, military and police forces, and even various groups in the Fiesta parade, although these did not come with a formal motion to pick the issues up.

This decision could have a ripple effect on other Texas cities. Dallas has recently considered a similar ban, but it appears to have stalled; Austin's attempts at a ban have been unsuccessful, but according to the Austin-American Statesman, only one operator is permitted to bring horses downtown. She declines to do so because the long hours are unfair to her and the horses. Houston does have horse-drawn carriages, and there seems to be little conversation about banning them.

Cities like Chicago and Salt Lake City have led the charge in the United States with some of the most prominent successful bans. Other cities around the world with bans include Brussels and Guadalajara, which both switched to electric models. Bans that have been around for years, like Guadalajara's and Prague's, still aren't out of the woods — people are still pushing back on the decision, so it sounds like San Antonio still has much work cut out for it.

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