VIA Advanced Rapid Transit project finishing its initial designs and plans a virtual town hall - Texas Public Radio

VIA Metropolitan Transit is holding a virtual municipality hallway connected Thursday astatine 7:00 p.m. to talk with residents astir the timeline, cost, and benefits of the Advanced Rapid Transit (ART) North/South corridor task that volition connection a dedicated autobus way from the San Antonio International Airport to the Missions.

The ART task is the archetypal of its benignant successful San Antonio, and it seeks to vastly amended the frequence of autobus stops on 1 of the busiest corridors successful the city. It is being funded with enactment from the national government, and it is planned to commencement successful 2027.

Lawson Picasso, the communications and nationalist engagement manager for the engineering steadfast WSP, which is consulting with VIA connected the project, said it would connection a large boost for residents’ prime of life.

“One of the things that’s truly cardinal to the prime of beingness that radical have, 1 of those halfway pillars is nationalist transit,” she said. “It allows entree to jobs and acquisition and wellness attraction services and indispensable areas that they request successful bid to unrecorded a healthy, viable life.”

Picasso said an East/West ART corridor task could beryllium next.

She besides added however indispensable accessible nationalist transit is for solving issues similar economical inequality and nutrient insecurity, which she herself has dealt with successful the past.

“In bid for america to truly code nutrient insecurity, we request to recognize that nutrient insecurity is simply a merchandise of larger issues, those issues being entree to nationalist transit, entree to affordable housing, entree to workforce programs,” Picasso said. “And truthful seeing that nationalist proscription is 1 of those areas that tin bring entree to folks successful areas they whitethorn consciousness similar they are disconnected is genuinely important.”

Picasso said virtual world was a almighty instrumentality she utilized to assistance residents recognize the task to amusement them what the dedicated lane and platforms could look like. Because of that, they were capable to connection much informed feedback.

“Some of the much method pieces that whitethorn get mislaid successful a batch of method jargon, bringing it successful a mode that was ocular and gave them a much immersive understanding, was truly adjuvant and was a large payment to however we were capable to prosecute the community.”

The virtual municipality hallway connected Thursday astatine 7:00 p.m. volition beryllium streamed connected 1 of VIA’s websites, and residents tin besides registry to talk astatine the bottommost of the leafage oregon by texting “VIA” to 833-898-5483. The municipality hallway volition beryllium recorded and posted to VIA’s Facebook page.