Five people were hit by cars in San Antonio last weekend. Three didn’t survive.
One of those incidents, one was a hit-and-run. They happened all across the city.
It might sound like a lot for just one weekend — and it is. But in San Antonio, it’s not exactly out of the ordinary.
Auto-pedestrian crashes are actually down this year. From January through the end of June, there were 377 crashes involving people walking or biking, according to data from the Texas Department of Transportation CRIS Query System.
That’s a drop from the recent mid-year high of 449 in 2024, and even lower than the 399 and 383 midyear totals from 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Despite the drop in the number of crashes, the number of fatalities hasn’t budged. By the end of June, 29 people had been killed in 2025 — the same mid-year total as in 2023, but with 22 fewer crashes.
Police reports from last weekend echo patterns seen in recent years: high-speed roads, limited lighting, and little to no pedestrian infrastructure. Two of the deaths happened in areas not designed for foot traffic — highways and major corridors. Another involved a pedestrian crossing a busy road without a crosswalk. The remaining two crashes happened at night: one victim was on foot, the other on a bike.
And last year, crashes like these were more common than ever.
In 2024, San Antonio saw 917 crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists — the highest in the past three years. The year ended with 66 fatalities, slightly fewer than the 71 recorded in both 2022 and 2023.
The city’s transportation department points to a growing population as part of the reason why there are so many auto-pedestrian incidents.
“Roughly 50,000 people move to San Antonio every year, that means more cars, more pedestrians, more bikes,” said Catherine “Cat” Hernandez, transportation department director, in an email. “Humans are going to make mistakes, behind the wheel or walking across the street. “
While the department tracks trends citywide, Hernandez noted that 60% of pedestrian crashes happen outside of the city’s jurisdiction — on TxDOT roadways like U.S. Highway 90, I-10 and I-35 — and are not included in San Antonio’s Vision Zero Action Plan, a strategy first adopted in 2015 to eliminate all traffic-related deaths.
The other 40% of crashes happen on city-managed streets, where the department says its safety efforts can have more impact.
At the end of 2024, City Council passed updates to both Vision Zero Action Plan and the city’s Complete Streets Policy, aimed at shifting street design away from car-first planning. Then in May, building on the Bike Network Plan adopted earlier in the year, council created the Multimodal Transportation Commission — a new advisory group to help guide the implementation of safer street design.
Some of that work is already underway. With federal grant funding, the city is planning pedestrian safety upgrades along Zarzamora Street and piloting a “Quick Build” infrastructure program that aims to deliver safety improvements at a fraction of the cost and time.
As San Antonio rolls out its new plans and commissions, the question remains: Will it be enough to protect people walking and biking on roadways?