Any shopper at North Star Mall or Park North will likely tell you how treacherous it can be to navigate the confusing intersection of Loop 410 and San Pedro Avenue, or even McCullough Avenue. Flyover ramps, highway exits, busy city streets and high-traffic times all mean short-range lane changes, quick maneuvers and missed turns. Crashes are common in the area, but a state agency behind some of San Antonio’s biggest highway transformations has its sights set on this frustratingly complicated region of the city.
For at least five years, the Texas Department of Transportation has been planning major changes along Loop 410, where it meets U.S. 281, San Pedro Avenue, McCullough Avenue and Broadway. In fact, its plans could completely reimagine how people access two of San Antonio’s most-trafficked avenues.
“The I-410 corridor is listed among the 100 most congested roadways in Texas. The study team engaged area neighborhoods, businesses, transportation providers, and the general public regarding transportation problems and possible solutions,” a TxDOT landing page for a future project reads.
The most recent plans involve major changes. The westbound exit ramp from Loop 410 toward San Pedro would be eliminated, instead directing drivers heading toward North Star Mall to exit the highway at McCullough Avenue. From there, drivers turning left on McCullough would be encouraged to use the flyover ramp, as it will be a left-only ramp.
Heading to San Pedro from Loop 410 would require exiting via the expanded McCullough ramp and taking the access road down to the large intersection. To address increased traffic on the highway loop’s access road, state engineers propose adding barriers and reconfiguring lanes along the highway’s access roads.
“If you’ve driven along Loop 410 near North Star Mall, you’ve almost certainly noticed a challenging layout where the ramp from US 281 enters westbound Loop 410 just before the San Pedro/Blanco exit,” The Texas Highway Man, a website dedicated to tracking Texas highways’ histories and futures, reports. “This arrangement results in significant weaving from westbound traffic on 410 crossing the inflow of traffic from 281 to reach the San Pedro exit. This weaving can be hazardous in addition to causing frequent congestion on the ramp from 281.”
Ultimately, it would be a complete overhaul of the area and Loop 410, from West Avenue all the way east to Broadway – several miles of heavily traveled highway. But the fate of the project remains unclear.
A project tracker on a TxDOT website shows that some phases of this larger vision made it through the design process earlier this year, but utility coordination and a construction start date remain to be finalized. Other stretches of the larger plan have yet to enter the design phase, according to the same project tracker.