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San Marcos keeps Bronze bicycle-friendly rating; staff outlines steps to improve equity and infrastructure
Summary
City staff presented the League of American Bicyclists renewal of San Marcos's Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community designation, reviewed the league's recommendations and next steps including code amendments, targeted outreach and possible employer and school programs.
San Marcos City Council received a staff presentation Tuesday on the city’s renewal of a Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community designation from the League of American Bicyclists and next steps staff recommends to raise the city’s score.
The presentation, given by Lauren Clanton of the Planning Department, reviewed the application process and the league’s report card, and highlighted public-survey results and prioritized improvements. Clanton said the city received 92 survey responses and that the most common requests were “more bike lanes, more bike paths, improve existing bike lanes (for example, make them protected) and then reduce speeds.”
Why it matters: the League’s designation is framed as a practical benchmark that “sets standards, affects decisions, inspires action, guides progress, rewards persistence, and raises expectations,” Clanton said. Council members and staff noted the designation aligns with the city’s 2025 strategic plan and the comprehensive transportation master plan, both of which call for improved multimodal connectivity.
Clanton told council the League scores cities on five categories — engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation/planning, and equity — and that San Marcos scored highest in engineering and lower in equity. She described city accomplishments since the 2018 Bronze award, including roughly 20 miles of bicycle facilities ranging from sharrows to protected lanes, a bike-share launch last year (staff estimated about 27 e-bikes in the system) and community events such as Bike Month activities.
City staff recommended several next steps drawn from the League’s report card: revisit the city’s complete streets policy to strengthen tracking and implementation, gather feedback on recently installed facilities (through counts, crash analysis or verbal feedback), work with employers on commuter incentive programs, establish a bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee, consider a Safe Routes to School coordinator, adopt standards for bike parking through development-code amendments, and pursue more equity-based outreach.
Amanda Hernandez, director of Planning and Development Services, told the council that staff have begun an internal code-amendment process; any items that require council authorization would return to council for consideration and then proceed through adoption steps including Planning Commission review. Hernandez said initial council authorization items could appear in summer and follow the city’s typical adoption process.
Council members asked several questions about the survey and outreach. Councilmember Garza asked how staff ensured the survey reflected the city’s socioeconomic and cultural makeup; Clanton said the survey was distributed in English and Spanish and by both digital and print outreach, that flyers were placed in multiple parts of town, and that staff will seek more targeted outreach and league feedback to improve representativeness in future surveys. Councilmember Rodriguez and others asked staff to pursue additional community outreach and to explore ways to increase access to bicycles, including partner programs and nonprofit collaborations.
Clanton said staff has initiated cross-department coordination (Public Works, Engineering, Planning, Parks and Recreation, GIS) and held a March 4 meeting to begin implementing the report-card recommendations. She said staff will continue relationship-building with community partners and explore “low-hanging fruit” such as codifying bike-parking standards in the development code.
Council discussion did not include a formal vote on specific code changes; staff will return with recommended ordinance or code amendments and with proposals for outreach and programs for council consideration.
A final note: the League’s Bicycle Friendly Communities recognition is a voluntary, nonregulatory program administered by the League of American Bicyclists; staff emphasized the designation is meant to guide and measure progress rather than create new legal obligations.
