San Antonio recently received a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community designation from the League of American Bicyclists, the first such recognition for the Alamo City! Must be all the bike-friendly happenings around town. In the past year, the San Antonio City Council has required lights and signs to keep cyclists safe, started a bike share program, made improvements to bike lane infrastructure a priority, designated a near-downtown bridge as open to pedestrians and cyclists only, and most importantly, approved a safe-passing ordinance. This year has also seen the installation of more bike racks downtown, a bicycle summit, downtown bike and trike tours and the beginning of a comprehensive biking habits study. Read more

Editor's note: This story originally appeared Sunday, Sept. 19, exclusively in the print edition of the San Antonio Express-News.  For some longtime San Antonio residents, Mayor Julián Castro’s urban planning project called SA2020 is déjà vu. They remember Target ’90, the goals-setting project that then-Mayor Henry Cisneros launched in May 1983 and lasted until 1989. Read full article>

The mild mannered Mayor Julián Castro has been loud and clear on this point: he wants a grocery store downtown. But while it's one of his key center-city development goals, others say it's too early to make economic sense, as a grocery operator would have to open in the red and hope that an urban residential boom would follow. “Perhaps the conditions are not exactly ideal,” Castro said, “but we're looking for someone who's willing to make an investment and perhaps take a little bit more of a chance than they normally would.” The city could put fee waivers, tax incentives and direct incentives on the table, Castro said. And it could secure a potential site in coming months: land now owned by the San Antonio Independent School Distric. Read full article>

Travis Park will host Jazz'SAlive this weekend, September 18 - 19. Motorists will be diverted as the City closes streets to accommodate the event.

Good luck drawing a tidy line around San Antonio's arts institutions to create an arts district.With cultural institutions spiraling out from downtown in different directions and no obvious museum district, San Antonio arts boosters instead are looking to the idea of creating “cultural corridors.” The idea is to link the city's major arts and cultural institutions along north-south and east-west pathways and to somehow make it easy for residents and visitors to follow the trail and move between them by bike or public transportation. Read full article>

Market Square is currently undergoing capital improvements. Motorists will be diverted as the City closes streets to accommodate the construction. Beginning Monday, September 13, 2010, demolition of the overhead pedestrian walkway on San Saba will require a full closure of the street from Dolorosa to Commerce, through Sunday, September 19, 2010.

Downtown Alliance and Centro San Antonio President Ben Brewer was featured in the September/October 2010 edition of On The Town E-zine.  http://www.onthetownezine.com/SeptOct10.html

While Mayor Castro has officially declared it the “decade of downtown,” doughnut-like development illustrates many San Antonians prefer to live, work and socialize on the outskirts of the city. Why? Popular opinion says many aren’t familiar with downtown and all it has to offer. Read the full story!

Today, September 2, 2010, after a public hearing, the City Council unanimously approved the Service and Assessment Plan for the Centro San Antonio Amigo Program for the fiscal year 2010-2011