Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai — who’s said relatively little about his plans for development and infrastructure since taking office more than a year ago — is setting the county up to make the most of the Biden administration’s aggressive transit spending.
Sakai said Wednesday that he’s preparing to chip in county money for a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) route that would run from North Gen. McMullen Drive on the West Side to the county-owned Frost Bank Center on the East Side. That project has already been recommended for federal funding, but lacks the required local match.
“From the West Side, Our Lady of the Lake University, to the East Side … I really see those two communities as both really in need of economic development,” Sakai told reporters about his thoughts on the project Wednesday.
At the same time, he’s also working with leaders in Austin to revive plans for a commuter rail between the two cities. Though that idea is far more complicated and long-range than the BRT route, he believes it could get a second look at a time of once-in-a-generation infrastructure spending.
Sakai and Travis County Judge Andy Brown were rejected in their first pitch, but want to have a plan ready that can compete for the $66 billion the Biden administration plans to spend on passenger rail.
“Rail has been tried here in Bexar County and failed … so I want to be methodical with how we proceed,” Sakai told reporters after the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce’s State of Business in Bexar County event.
But, he added, “I’m hopeful that the Biden administration’s money will continue and that there will be a continued interest at the federal level to finance rail as a true alternative to building more lanes of highway.”
A focus on moving people
Compared to other candidates who ran for the open county judge seat in 2022, Sakai approached the job without many plans for big-picture development.
Now a year and a half into the job, however, transit advocates say the former children’s court judge has embraced their cause as part of his efforts to lift up families.
“He recognizes the value that transit brings for economic development, for connectivity to jobs and to opportunities,” said Jon Gary Herrera, senior vice president for public engagement at VIA Metropolitan Transit.
At the same time, there’s unprecedented federal money to be had for such projects.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill included money for a variety of transportation needs, yielding “incredible activity that this region has not seen or experienced before,” Herrera said.
The Biden administration has already committed hundreds of millions of dollars to fund one BRT route, which is considered a cheaper alternative to rail, from the San Antonio International Airport to Brooks City Base.
That money comes from a different bucket than passenger rail, and marked San Antonio’s first U.S. Department of Transportation grant in more than a decade.
Now, the county’s money could help VIA Metropolitan Transit take advantage of even more federal dollars that the administration has said it wants to spend here.
A second route, known as the Silver Line, is more than a year into the planning stages, and the administration recommended $134.7 million for it in the president’s asks from Congress for the 2025 fiscal year. But VIA must first come up with a local match of roughly $100 million.
Sakai told the San Antonio Report that VIA had approached him about filling that gap, and he hasn’t formally committed.
But the county is eager to make good on the promises made to the community when the Frost Bank Center was built on the East Side, particularly now that the Spurs are looking to end their lease early and build a new arena downtown.
“I am cautiously optimistic that the county will invest in this particular line because I see that as really the best opportunity for economic growth,” Sakai said.
