SAN ANTONIO – “Capping” and “stitching” sounds like something you do with a sewing machine. But it’s actually a plan to dramatically change our freeways here in San Antonio.
The News 4 I-Team’s Jaie Avila kicks off his new Waste Watch segment as part of our yearlong commitment in 2025 to tracking government spending. We begin with a controversial project that’s spending millions of your tax dollars to make highways less “racist.”
$2 million will be spent to study the feasibility of burying, or capping portions of I-37 and three other highways which urban planners claim are barriers dividing minority communities from the rest of the city.
When Isaiah Davila takes his daily walks on the East Side, an overpass is the only way to cross busy I-10.
“There is no other way to actually get around on that side. You have to come all the way over here,” Davila said.
James Nortey with San Antonio for Growth on the Eastside, or SAGE, says the placement of our highways was intended to segregate, and for decades has cut off Black and Latino neighborhoods from access to jobs and recreation.
“Historically, the residents of the East Side have not had their fair share of opportunity,” Nortey said.
He believes capping and stitching our highways could be a solution.
“So, if you can imagine taking a highway and putting it underground and covering it. The stitching would be covering each side of that highway once it’s underground so that it makes a smooth connection,” Nortey said.
SAGE was awarded a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to study capping I-37 from Carolina St. to Broadway, I-35 from Broadway to Walters, and I-10 from MLK Dr. to Houston St., and from Piedmont Ave. to Walters.
The City of San Antonio also received a $2.9 million grant to study capping the I-37 section.
“Do those roadways really cut anybody off? Can’t people still walk and drive and get where they need to go?” Jaie Avila asked Nortey.
“If you have a car, if you have that privilege, you can always get in a vehicle, but not everyone has access to the same reliable transportation,” he responded.
Cities like Austin, Dallas and Atlanta have also been working on capping and stitching projects that cover freeways with parks or land bridges.
In early January, the Biden administration announced $544 million in grants for such projects, which former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said could reverse racist highway designs.
“That obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices. I don’t think we have anything to lose confronting that simple reality,” Buttigieg said in a news conference in November of 2021.
“It was one of their signature projects. This is when you heard the news roads are racist,” said Terri Hall, whose group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom advocates for taxpayers and drivers.
TURF opposes the capping projects.
“We think they’re a waste. We think it’s going to create intentional congestion on our roadways at a time when Texas is a growing state and we have massive congestion problems,” Hall said.
SAGE hopes to have the study done by May of 2026 but the project itself would require such a massive federal investment, it’s unclear whether it will ever happen, especially with a new presidential administration.
Source: https://news4sanantonio.com/news/investigations/waste-watch-millions-being-spent-to-study-burying-racist-roads-in-san-antonio
Video courtesy of News 4 San Antonio. Image credit: SBG San Antonio / San Antonio for Growth on the Eastside, Inc.
