Equity cabinet pilot recommends transportation planner, dashboard and prioritization for sidewalks and shelters

Dr. Rosalie Singerman Bray, assistant professor of geography and environmental studies at Texas State University, told the council the pilot project tested an equity-cabinet engagement model and sought to learn whether that model improved participants’ sense of agency and produced actionable recommendations for transportation equity in San Marcos. "The question here is to figure out whether this kind of engagement improves the equity cabinet's member sense of agency and experience engaging with the city," she said.

The equity cabinet co-chairs, Alisa Ramirez and Christiana Johnson, described a seven-member group convened for the pilot that met 10 times and was paid $25 an hour for meeting and interview participation; rides were provided for members who needed them. The cabinet focused on barriers faced by residents who do not drive, including missing sidewalks, bus stops with no shade or crosswalks, and service changes that make destinations harder to reach. "Multimodal transportation that provides equal accessibility throughout the city for everyone, especially the historically underserved," Christiana Johnson said, summarizing the cabinet's working definition of transportation equity.

The group's key recommendations included hiring a dedicated transportation planner to coordinate funding and projects across departments; creating a public dashboard listing pipeline projects and performance on equity indicators; expanding outreach beyond farmers markets to places such as grocery stores, H-E-B, Walmart and community centers; and establishing published prioritization rules and scoring matrices for three categories—bus stops, bus shelters and sidewalks. The cabinet suggested that prioritization for bus stops consider proximity to affordable housing, major employers, high-density areas and concentrations of households without cars. For shelters the cabinet recommended prioritizing high ridership stops, long wait times and locations used by people with limited mobility. For sidewalks they recommended prioritizing areas with low car ownership, high social vulnerability, hazardous roads and established neighborhoods lacking sidewalks.

The cabinet also raised funding questions: members asked whether the city's sidewalk funding (discussed in the presentation as roughly $240,000 annually) is sufficient to meaningfully improve and maintain sidewalk infrastructure and recommended treating sidewalks like a utility in development agreements and considering density triggers to require sidewalks when certain development thresholds are reached.

Amy Fenn, transit manager, told the council the city currently has 18 bus shelters in service and that the transit plan update will pause shelter deployment until plan recommendations are finalized. Pete Binion, assistant director of public works, said TxDOT-hired consultants working on the federal short-range transit plan presented to the equity cabinet and that staff expect the cabinet recommendations to be reflected in the transit plan.

Ending

Councilmembers thanked the equity cabinet, university researchers and staff for the pilot. Councilmembers asked staff to incorporate the recommendations into the transportation and transit planning processes and to return with follow-up information, including sidewalk prioritization and shelter deployment strategy.