The San Antonio Trail Design Strategy
Tips and tricks and how to use it as a guide for your community
By Daniel Leal
Graphics/Illustrations: Courtesy Of San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department
The city of San Antonio, Texas, has been pursuing a long-standing, ambitious initiative aimed at developing a city-wide network of off-road greenway trails that encircle the city.
The San Antonio Trail Design Strategy (SATDS) brings a renewed vision, establishes design principles, and provides easy-to-implement features to boost design quality as well as to build a stronger cultural identity for the greenway trail system. By doing so, the parks and recreation department is not only enhancing civic pride and use of the system by residents (placemaking), but also is elevating the system as an attractive destination for tourists. The second has turned out to be extremely important in the COVID-19 context, when outdoor domestic tourism has become a major trend.
Through an innovative blend of long-range planning, architectural design, and ecological principles, the SATDS provides with a full array of trail features and planning tools ranging from:
Off-the-shelf hardscape elements to low-impact green infrastructure
A palette of native tree species to pollinator-friendly plants
Pavement materials to different trail widths
Accent colors that symbolize the character of a specific community, to a system-wide design style that keeps consistency across the system
Recommendations on integrating public art to greenway programming possibilities
Trail-use data analysis to pathways for future development.
View the full document at https://www.sanantonio.gov/ParksAndRec/Parks-Facilities/Trails/Greenway-Trails.
Problem Solving
However, like in any other transformative process, there have also been some pitfalls that the team had to deal with. As usual, the first one was a very limited budget. Both the external consultants and parks and recreation staff members made an extra effort co-designing together and involving stakeholders in the development of some parts of it.
Another remarkable challenge was how to introduce change in a greenway network that was already built out in 65 miles, with an approximate potential for growth for additional 30 miles to come. But thanks to the modular nature of the plan, by “piecemealing” the outcomes and resembling more of a catalog rather than a monolithic master plan, parks and recreation staff members have been able to develop different levels of adhesion to the plan. So, for example, greenways already built will get SATDS features by attrition or retrofit projects while segments that were in the design phase were able to accommodate many but not all elements; and brand-new segments are being designed in full compliance with it.
Applying The Knowledge
The city’s trail design strategy can help other local governments and design consultants on identifying what to keep in mind when designing or renewing a greenway system, such as:
A strong stakeholder engagement to capture weaknesses and strengths
A deep site analysis that includes demographics, land uses, impervious cover and biological regions
Identifying areas with a different character and reflecting how to enhance it
Trail width based on expected trail use
The importance of shade/sun exposure in regards to local climate
Symbolic and artistic references to local culture/environment
User traffic management and wayfinding
Rainwater capture and retention techniques
A clear understanding of what goes where (which interventions are more appropriate in what locations), expressed by a summary master matrix that wraps up the document.
But, if I were asked to synthesize this whole initiative into a single idea, I would say it consisted of putting the user experience at the very center of greenway design.
Daniel Leal, M.Arch, M.Urb, CNU, is an Urban Designer for the city of San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department. Reach him at daniel.leal@sanantonio.gov.