San Antonio Office

San Antonio is largely a car-dependent city. If you live and work here, chances are you drive a car to and from work. Commuters utilize their personal automobile more than 90% of the time in San Antonio, compared to only 3% who use public transportation and 2% who walk. That’s the highest car commuter rate in Texas. And the overwhelming majority of the city’s commuters make the drive alone, according to the San Antonio Report.

San Antonio’s dependency on the single-occupancy vehicle is understandable when you consider the large land size of the city. Over the years, it’s continued to spread out as more people move to San Antonio, which is one of the ten fastest-growing cities in the nation. The Alamo City’s population grew by 1.3 percent from July 2019 to July 2020. By 2050, the San Antonio metro area is expected to have more than four million people.

The I-35 corridor is the nation’s fastest-growing region. But congestion along Interstate 35 could threaten San Antonio’s economy. Over the last two decades, the number of cars traversing the Loop 1604-Interstate 10 interchange doubled.

Bexar County is in line for major infrastructure projects, including expansions of I-35, Loop 1604, I-10, and U.S. Highway 90. Although this could ease congestion in the long term, it increases the risks of work zone crashes and injuries in the short term. Bexar County has the second-highest number of work zone crashes in Texas, averaging more than 2,000 per year.

There were more than 33,000 San Antonio car crashes in 2020, per TxDOT. The good news is, that number is down from more than 45,000 in 2014. The bad news is, there are nearly 100 crashes in San Antonio every day.

Compared to other Texas cities, San Antonio ranks eleventh for driver safety, with 8.81 fatal accidents per 100,000 residents. It’s the twelfth most dangerous city in the state for drunk driving and second most dangerous for speeding. The most dangerous roads in San Antonio are I-410, I-35, I-10, US-90, and US-281, reports Value Penguin.

A survey of 2,000 Texans gave San Antonio a score of 4.2 out of 10 for how drivers rate their relationships with other drivers. Nationwide, San Antonio ranks 138 out of 200 for its Best Drivers Report. San Antonio drivers go an average of 8.2 years between collisions and have an accident likelihood that’s 29% above the national average, says Allstate.