In December 2020, San Antonio opened the Robert Tobin Landbridge, which you see behind me there. The nation's first wildlife [music] crossing designed both for people and animals. At 150 ft wide, it spans [music] Worsbach Parkway, reconnecting a 330 acre park that had been split [music] by 60,000 vehicles a day. The project cost $23 million. Critics called it a waste. Said animals would be too scared to use it. 5 years later, [music] here's what happened. >> Then you already spent $100 million on this park. Now you want to spend another $23 million on on critter bridge is what our detractors are. >> So a squirrel is gone across except and beside they're not going to cross. They've never done that. They don't know anything about bridges. They're going to be scared. They won't do. That's Phil Harberger, San Antonio's mayor from 2005 to 2009, who championed both the park [music] that now bears his name and this land bridge that brought the two halves of the park together. From the beginning, he envisioned something more ambitious than a simple walkway. A bridge [music] that would inspire this city and serve both people and wildlife. The highway sounds are generated by 30,000 cars that go under this bridge every single day. So there's 60,000 crossings of cars underneath this brick. Sound was one thing. Also [music] keep in mind those animals had been uh transversing two halves of this park since time in memorial. So we were actually had to train them in an informal sense or [music] to give them the tools to figure it out. Now they can go back like they've done from time in memorial and cross from one side to the other where there may be a mate. It may be more water, more shade, more good things to eat. Or maybe they just want to cross it and go to the other side. Like all of us is probably restless to some degree. But that was the uh the reason for the construction. Bond was [music] coming up then and the leadup to bonds is in a municipal sense is you have a lot of public meetings not just about this park but every amount of money that's going to be spent because the public eventually votes up or down on these various projects. I campaigned this bridge. I don't know how many bond hearings there were over 30 I'm sure and I attended more than half of them and made my pitch. I gave a final argument that you know we've got these two halves a lot of people are going to it but we need to take care of our animals. A lot of our animals were kale crossing and uh I threw in everything I could think of, but I threw that one in uh not knowing the potential quite honestly of how strongly people felt about uh there is a movement throughout the whole United States to protect our animals on roadways and construction areas. It's everywhere. Totally. >> And uh suddenly we found ourselves as [music] a leading proponent. I can't truthfully say that was my idea from day one. It wasn't. I just wanted to get the two halves apart so we would have a unity there. But we were saving animal slots and in matter of fact they went down to zebra. When they were still building the bridge, there was a worker up on the bridge at night and he in a flash of light, this worker saw a coyote with a spiny illusion [music] in his mouth crossing the bridge going to his dinner. We hadn't even built the bridge. >> I mean, it was far from being finished, probably several months from actually being what you see now. And so any thought we ever had about worrying about, well, the animals won't cross, that's 100% disproved. Within one year of opening, every species in [music] the park had crossed the bridge. 5 years later, here's what the cameras captured. We made a conscious decision. Twothirds of this bridge, they're talking about a critter's bridge. We'll get the critter and we have 31 species of animal all of them captured cross them. It gives them a lot more privacy. And we have pictures of people walking up and down the trails uh and a bobcat looking at the people in the trails [snorts] and going about his business. Pretty neat. >> Pretty neat. There's some great photographs, but that's one of them. >> When the land bridge was built, there was special consideration to keep the trail on one side as um Harber mentioned and to keep the other 2/3 kind of a wildlife corridor. But they also have built a burn um on this side of the trail to kind of give the wildlife and people their visual space as well. [music] Our wildlife cameras that we had put up, we were able to capture stuff like ringtail cats like the bobcat, stuff that people don't normally get to see during the daytime and really share that with uh the park users that these animals are using the park. uh they're using the landbridge and that this this land bridge is um really resulting in the le less fragmentation of habitat. So it opened up the northwest military side of the park to the blanko road side of the park and then to the Salado Creek Greenway [music] area that goes on for miles and miles. So it opened up a huge wildlife corridor and like I said decrease uh habitat fragmentation [music] which should always be the goal in development especially in urban areas as well. [music] The expectation from the public sometimes is that this would be kind of a more manicured look as far as mode. Um, but we have we put in and are maintaining the bridge for native species diversity. So, we put in a lot of native plants. Uh, a lot of native bunch grasses like the switch grass, the Linheimr mui over there. All of that's really important for wildlife. The other thing that we're doing is we're kind of working with the site as some vegetation that we planted out here has failed. Other native vegetation like the silver leaf nightshade has really taken off. And because it's native, uh, it's it has a purpose. It has a purpose for wildlife. It also has a purpose in the succession of the vegetation on the landbridge. So, we're really working with the native vegetation as it comes in to make sure um that it is fulfilling our purpose with keeping this native and diverse and mostly an open grassland area. I think the idea of this landbridge from the very get-go is that it would blend in to the rest of the park. um vegetatively speaking and ecosystem wise. And I think it's definitely doing that. We always say that this park is an urban oasis for wildlife, but it really is. we are on a such a major migratory uh flight path not only for birds but also for the monarchs and so to be able to have these little stopping and it's not so little but these stopping points for them along the way um we've had golden cheek warblers kind of come down and take rest here before they continue their migration to the hill country and we [music] get those species sometimes for a small amount of time um and we don't think that this is that important to them. But it really is when you look at the migration [music] as a whole and having a lot of this habitat available for them to take take rest in on along our way. I think one of the things that San Antonio has most to offer that we can actually beat most cities is our natural vehicle. And I'd like to enhance it, add to it, make more green spaces, make [music] more waterways, more confluence, more community gardens, more miniature forest. That's the [music] way to go. And I think that you want to make San Antonio a really great city, make it a more beautiful city. Make it a place that when people come here, they don't want to live. In 2025, [music] the American Society of Landscape Architects awarded the landbridge their [music] highest honor. What critics dismissed as a frivolous critter bridge is now recognized as groundbreaking design. My family and I walk this bridge regularly, but what strikes me most is what it reveals about us. both our ability to move mountains or make them literally. This bridge required [music] moving massive amounts of earth, engineering a structure that holds three feet of soil, building landscape over thin air. But it also reveals our potential wisdom when we tap into it. The humility to acknowledge that we owe nature much more than scraps. Scraps are for critters. A true welcoming home is something else entirely. Across Texas, habitat is disappearing as we clear land for development. San Antonio has shown with this project that cities have the potential to choose differently. That we can stop treating wildlife as whatever is left over and start building [music] invitations into our infrastructure. This bridge connects two halves of a park, but it also connects us to a deeper understanding that sharing space with the wild isn't a luxury or [music] a burden. It's essential to what makes a place or a person whole. If we don't determine to build and evolve our ever growing cities to welcome nature in, sooner than later we'll [music] have left our nature behind once and for all. So [music] we must respect our animals and [snorts] I would hope that every animal feels pretty safe in this park and [music] sunrise to sunset. I think we have an obligation but I also apart from the obligation I think it makes us better people. >> Absolutely. >> All right y'all I hope you enjoyed this story. Do me a favor and hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. I also write two newsletters. My Texas field notes where I go deeper on the stories, the land, and the people [music] making Texas wilder. And if you're in San Antonio, my San Antonio something newsletter covers city stories that really matter. Links to both are in the description below. And if you want to support this work directly, I've got a Patreon. That's what keeps these stories independent and authentic. Links down below. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next