SAN ANTONIO – The newness of the VIA Park & Ride facility in Stone Oak has faded, as well as commuter Zachary Morse’s hope that it will one day fill up with commuters.
“I don’t think that it was a very good idea,” Morse said.
VIA opened the Park & Ride facility in Stone Oak in 2018.
People can park their cars there for free and catch a bus.
“Nearly every day I would drive past here, and I would regularly, you know, look over to the side and see this very large building behind us, and it appeared mostly empty,” Morse said.
The facility and the land it’s built on cost $25.1 million. According to VIA, bond funds and state and federal grants helped fund the majority of the project.
“Do you think that this was a good use of money?” KSAT Investigates asked.
“In its current state, no,” Morse replied.
He wanted to know how many people have used the garage in recent years, which is why he filed his own public records request to get the data.
KSAT also requested data.
“I was almost hoping in the back of my mind that it would be relatively used,” Morse said.
Five years ago, KSAT Explains showed how ridership looked much different pre-pandemic.
According to VIA, buses transported passengers more than 275,000 times from the Stone Oak facility between June 2018 and February 2020.
From 2023 to mid-April 2025, ridership from the same facility decreased to more than 176,000, new data provided by VIA shows.
That’s about 211 riders a day.
“I think we need to do a better job at making sure that the infrastructure that we build is immediately useful and useful in the long term,” Morse said. “What’s the long-term plan?”
KSAT Investigates took Morse’s concerns to Rod Sanchez, VIA’s senior vice president of Planning & Development.
“What would you say to people who are critics of this facility who think that this wasn’t a good investment?” KSAT asked.
“Stick around,” Sanchez said. “More use of this facility is coming in the future.”
In the next few years, Sanchez said another route will be added to and from the facility, but did not say where that route will go. There are also plans to make the area a center for the ride-sharing service VIA Link.
“We know ridership’s not there,” Sanchez said. “The pandemic slowed it down even more, but it’s coming.”
Since the HOV lanes along Highway 281 have been completed, VIA said that it has helped with travel time by allowing VIA buses to enter without stopping at a traffic signal.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.