Samantha Flores, who began riding again one year after a crash eight years ago, has vision in one eye, chronic pain, and a cane she now relies on to walk. The 31-year-old has endured eight reconstructive surgeries since the collision, and her story sits at the center of new crash data showing San Antonio is among the deadliest large Texas cities for bicyclists.
According to San Antonio Express-News, its analysis of San Antonio crashes from 2021 through 2025 found cyclist deaths and severe injuries. Citywide, the outlet's analysis found that a cyclist is killed roughly every two months on average since 2021. The newspaper's review of crash records also found that victims were mostly men, mostly not wearing helmets, and had a median age of 39.
About half of the crashes happened at or near intersections, and more than half occurred on roads posted below 35 mph, the same report notes. Driver inattention was tied to two cyclist deaths and 19 severe injuries, while failure to yield caused six severe injuries. Speeding was linked to one death and three severe injuries, drug and alcohol use caused three severe injuries, and cell-phone use caused one severe injury, per the same analysis.
District 5 Bears the Heaviest Toll
No part of the city has suffered more than City Council District 5, which includes the West Side and parts of Southtown and recorded more severe cyclist injuries and deaths than any other San Antonio district, the newspaper reported. Catherine Hernandez, director of San Antonio's Department of Transportation, attributed part of that burden to a higher share of residents without cars. Citywide, 7.5% of San Antonio households lacked a car in 2024, but in the Avenida Guadalupe census tract within District 5, that figure reached 40%, according to the same report.
Neighborhoods where 20% or more of households lack cars experience five times as many severe or fatal bike and pedestrian crashes as higher-car-ownership areas, the outlet found. City Council member Teri Castillo said all residents deserve safe streets and safe, accessible ways to get around their neighborhoods, per the Express-News report. The city has infrastructure projects planned for the area, including the Zarzamora overpass and the widening of South Brazos, the same analysis notes.
The Express-News report also found that San Antonio removed several downtown concrete bike-lane barriers in 2023 and scrapped plans for a bike lane on Goliad Road in 2025. Hernandez called cyclist safety a shared responsibility, and the city's Transportation Department says it is focusing on midblock crosswalks, additional signage, pavement markings, and bike lanes, according to the same account.
A Decade-Old Plan Meets Modern Risk
San Antonio's bicycle crash problem unfolds against a backdrop of ambitious but slow-moving planning. In January 2025, the City of San Antonio officially adopted the 2025 San Antonio Bike Network Plan, recommending more than 1,700 miles of new or upgraded bike infrastructure as part of the city's ongoing bike-network planning. The Express-News reported that the city's current goal is a 2,000-mile bike network by 2050. Progress has been incremental: the Transportation Department added 6 miles of bike lanes and shared paths in 2025, 7.5 miles in 2026, and plans nearly 20 miles in 2027, per the outlet's reporting. To hit the 2050 target, the city would need to add roughly 60 miles annually from 2028 onward.
San Antonio's bike network remains years from completion even as crash tolls mount.
San Antonio's effort to build protected bike infrastructure has shown some recent momentum. The city unveiled a 0.5-mile protected lane connecting the Pearl district and the Museum Reach, as well as a 1-mile protected lane connecting River North and downtown, according to the Express-News report. Hoodline previously covered the opening of that Pearl connector this summer, part of the first Tier 1 project completed under the Bike Network Plan. As of July 2023, the city had just 3.5 miles of protected bike lanes, the newspaper noted, underscoring how recent this physical-barrier approach has been. Hoodline cited U.S. Department of Transportation guidance that physically protected bike lanes can reduce vehicle-bicycle collisions by up to 49% on certain roads, depending on design and the street network.
State Law Leaves a Gap on Passing Distance
Part of the enforcement challenge traces back to state law. Texas Transportation Code §545.053 mandates that motorists pass bicyclists at a safe distance but does not define a specific numerical distance, according to Share the Road Texas. That statewide gap has made Bexar County one of the top five Texas counties for total bicycle collisions, alongside Harris, Travis, Dallas, and Tarrant counties, per Texas Department of Transportation crash data cited by the organization. Statewide, bicyclist fatalities climbed to 82 in 2020 from 68 in 2019, with pedestrian and bicyclist deaths accounting for one in five traffic fatalities in Texas, according to TxDOT.
The human cost behind these numbers has a name San Antonio's cycling community has not forgotten. Tito Bradshaw, a cyclist and advocate, was killed by a drunken driver while riding in 2019; the driver later pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter in 2021 and was sentenced to 20 nights in jail, 100 days of house arrest, and 10 years of probation, according to the San Antonio Report. The city's broader Vision Zero initiative, adopted in September 2015 with a goal of eliminating all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2040, made San Antonio the first Texas municipality to produce a Vision Zero Action Plan. Hernandez has said that goal of zero fatalities will be difficult to reach, per the Express-News report.
Citywide, traffic crashes caused 141 deaths across more than 133 fatal collisions in 2025, including 54 pedestrian deaths and four cyclist deaths, according to KSAT.
Recovery, One Year at a Time
For Flores, the road back from her crash has been measured in small milestones rather than policy changes. The cycling community raised enough money to keep her in her house for a year following the collision, and about a year after her accident, she started riding again, the Express-News reported. The city's Department of Transportation says it plans to release a report in 2027 based on 2021-2025 crash data, which could offer a fuller picture of where San Antonio's streets remain most dangerous for people on bikes.
