San Antonio has launched a new public awareness campaign aimed at reducing pedestrian deaths on three high-injury corridors. So far this year, there have been more than 700 reported incidents of a vehicle striking someone crossing a street.
The bilingual campaign, “Keep Crossings SAfe,” or “Cruza SAno y SAlvo,” will run along Zarzamora Street, Fredericksburg Road and W.W. White Road — three roadways identified in the city’s High Injury Network, a list of corridors where serious and fatal crashes are most concentrated.
The outreach effort is funded by a federal Safe Streets for All (SS4A) grant, which supports the city’s broader Vision Zero goal of eliminating traffic deaths.
The campaign will use life-size silhouettes modeled on local residents, placed near busy intersections and crossing points, to remind drivers and pedestrians to be more aware when approaching the roadway.
Kristie Flores, assistant to the director of transportation for the City of San Antonio and facilitator for Vision Zero, said the goal is to reach people in the places where crashes happen most.
“The idea is to put out a message that says, you know, safety is everybody’s responsibility. It’s not just the driver or the pedestrian. We want people to pay attention. We want them to cross at designated areas,” she said. “ One of the things that we have seen, that comes up all of the time in news stories, is people crossing the street where they’re not supposed to, and sadly, it winds up being a tragedy, and again, preventable had they used the designated crosswalk.”
The Texas Department of Transportation’s Crash Records Information System shows that already this year there have been 729 pedestrian-involved crashes in San Antonio killing 57 people. Nearly 90% of those crashes occurred on roads classified as “city streets” in TxDOT’s system.
Last year, the data showed 916 pedestrian-involved crashes resulting in 66 deaths, a figure that has remained consistent over the past several years even as overall crash totals fluctuate with 71 deaths reported in 2022 and 2023.
Improvements for Zarzamora Street have entered the predesign phase as part of the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant, including midblock crossings like the one pictured on the UTSA downtown campus. Credit: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio Report
Although the frequency varies by corridor, the three streets selected for the campaign — Zarzamora, Fredericksburg and W.W. White — have long appeared among the city’s list of high-risk roadways for pedestrians.
Two of the three corridors are currently undergoing improvements: adding safer crossing points and redesigning intersections where pedestrians are frequently struck.
On Zarzamora Street, the city is in the pre-design phase of a project funded through the same Safe Streets for All grant that supports the new outreach campaign. Plans call for multiple mid-block pedestrian crossings along the corridor, which would create marked, highly visible places for people to cross on the heavily traveled 12 mile corridor. The mid-block crossings will be the first set of road improvement efforts under the grant.
On W.W. White Road, crews are upgrading the traffic signals to metal mast arms, adding crosswalk markings, relocating VIA bus stops closer to marked crossings and building new sidewalk segments with construction estimated to be completed by the end of this month. Additional work that has been completed includes a mid-block crosswalk with warning beacons between Lavender Lane and Lord Road.
No major engineering projects are currently listed for Fredericksburg Road on the Vision Zero website, though Flores said the department is working through its list of high-injury corridors.
The campaign launch comes a month after the death of 16-year-old Jose Flores III, a John Jay High School student who spent nearly a month in a coma after he was struck by a vehicle while crossing Marbach Road in mid-October. The crash happened in a marked crosswalk near the campus and prompted widespread calls from parents and city leaders for stronger protections along the busy corridor.
In the days following his passing, District 6 Councilmember Ric Galvan called for an immediate traffic study of Marbach Road from Loop 410 to Pinn Road, citing longstanding concerns about student safety. In a written statement, Galvan said “no family should ever have to experience a loss like this — especially not on a street that we know needs to be safe for every student,” and urged city departments and Northside ISD to coordinate on both short- and long-term improvements.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, a John Jay alum, also issued a statement noting the crash “underscores the need to prioritize street safety” and said the city’s Public Works Department is evaluating ways to prevent such tragedies in the future.
Flores said this recent campaign is not related to those calls for action but confirmed that the transportation department is working on potential policy changes in the area.
“There’s still some details to that that we haven’t ironed out 100% but we are working with the mayor and the council office and the school,” she said. “We don’t have anything solidified yet, but it is definitely something that we are thinking about and working on in order to make sure that that situation doesn’t happen again.”
Marbach Road was identified as part of Vision Zero’s High Injury network but no active projects are currently listed on the Vision Zero website.
Flores said the department entered the implementation phase of its updated Vision Zero plan this year, following a policy-focused phase last year. Several projects are already underway, she said, including new mid-block crossings and median upgrades at Blanco Road and West Avenue.
“There’s a lot of efforts going on to raise awareness and to improve what’s happening out there on our local streets,” Flores said.