SAN ANTONIO – After months of discussions, a proposed plan to phase out horse-drawn carriages was presented to city council members Thursday afternoon.

Although there won’t be a formal vote on whether to keep them, this marks the first time the City Council has been briefed on an actual plan.

The latest discussion of a possible ban occurred in July when the city launched an online survey to gauge San Antonio residents’ support for the cars.

After nearly 50,000 responses, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted in August for city staff to create a plan to phase out horse-drawn carriages over one to three years.

Background:

A city council committee wants the horse-drawn carriage to come to the streets of San Antonio without horses.

The five-member Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted unanimously Monday to have city staff develop options for how to phase out horse-drawn carriages over one to three years. The staff’s presentation to the full council will take place in a non-voting discussion session by the end of October.

The decision came after receiving nearly 50,500 responses to an online city survey, 52% of whom supported the ban. The remaining 48% is split between keeping the railcars running that way, expanding them outside the city center, or moving them to city parks.

Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), who co-sponsored the original ban proposal in November 2022, asked that the phaseout plan include options to support the purchase of electric, “horseless” cars.

San Antonio Police Deputy Chief Rick Riley told the committee that such cars cost about $20,000.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, McKee-Rodriguez said, “I would like it to be as fast as possible.” “Obviously we want to be fair to business owners and we want to be reasonable about the type of support we can provide. You know, I’m really curious about what a transition period would look like, what the one-year and two-year options would look like.”

Supporters of the ban cited animal welfare and traffic concerns as reasons for the ban. At the same time, transport companies say they have been unfairly slandered and that they treat their animals well.

Transport companies say they are also offering alternatives, such as reducing operating hours or reducing the number of vehicles on the street at once.

Stephanie Garcia, owner of Yellow Rose and HRH Carriage Companies, said the plan to phase out horse-drawn carriages within three years would “bankrupt us.”

“We invested a lot of money in these companies. So one to three years is unrealistic,” he said.

Garcia also doesn’t trust the results of the city survey, which he said extends beyond San Antonio.

A New York-based “cat behavior expert” with 2.2 million followers appealed to his followers to vote in the poll if they went to San Antonio. On the contrary, Cavalry GroupThe company, which lobbies for animal-related businesses, also posted the survey on its Facebook page and encouraged its followers to participate, noting that the survey “does not require the participant to be a part of San Antonio.”

KSAT also previously confirmed Garcia’s claim is that the survey can be taken multiple times by opening it in “incognito mode”.

City Spokesperson Alana Reed said 11,000 of the responses came from duplicate IP addresses, but that doesn’t mean the same people responded each time.

As an example, he said the city’s network IP address appeared 72 times, but this showed that participants were connected to the city’s Wi-Fi network.

“What we found was that there was no evidence that single participants submitted multiple responses to influence the survey outcome,” Reed told KSAT. “We also cannot guarantee that participants did not take the survey from multiple devices, using different browsers, or in incognito mode. But we find that the data provides a broad enough picture of how stakeholders feel about the proposal.”

Deputy City Manager Alex Lopez explained possible transition options for transportation operators, including learning to drive electric cars, starting a new tour guide business, training for a new career through the city’s Ready to Work program, or getting a loan to start your own business. Business through LiftFund.

Lopez said the options the city has considered so far have focused on drivers, not vehicle owners.

Other members of the 11-member city council also said they support banning horse-drawn carriages, and Garcia said he is “definitely not optimistic” about what will happen when the issue reaches the full council.

McKee-Rodriguez’s co-sponsor of the ban, Assemblywoman Phyllis Viagran (D3), said as if reversal in JuneHe stated that he was open to compromise. But on Friday, he jumped back on board for a full ban after he and McKee-Rodriguez filed a memorandum calling for a three-year transition plan.

“As stated on Monday, this is a process,” the councilman said in a statement to KSAT via text message sent by a spokesperson. “This will be a compromise with transport operators that will help the transition to electric cars. As co-authors of this CCR, I think it is important that I believe in the outcome of today’s committee. “Due to ongoing construction and survey results, we do not see horse carriages moving through the city centre.”