SAN ANTONIO – Crews will soon start construction on yet another major San Antonio roadway, hoping to make our third most dangerous street a little safer.<\/p>\n
The project is now scheduled for a three mile section of Bandera Road, from just south of Evers Road to just north of Culebra Road.<\/p>\n
That stretch of Bandera has been the scene of 846 car crashes since 2021, along with ten fatalities, eight of those were pedestrians.<\/p>\n
TxDOT says many of the accidents are being caused by drivers making unsafe U-turns and left turns.<\/p>\n
Pedestrians have also been hit attempting to cross the busy lanes mid-block.<\/p>\n
So, TxDOT has come up with a $4 million solution.<\/p>\n
A series of raised center medians, with only a few selected openings for turns, and pedestrian crossings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’ll definitely help prevent the accidents and make the roads safer right here on Bandera,\u201d said Terrance Campbell, who drives that section of road frequently.<\/p>\n
The 13-inch-high median will replace the current middle turn lane. The additions will not reduce any lanes of traffic.<\/p>\n
Drivers who often use this part of Bandera seem to like the idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause cars tend to cross where they’re not supposed to and a median there will keep them from doing that,\u201d said driver Rosalie Martinez.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is TxDOT\u2019s project, so we can’t tell them no even if we wanted to,\u201d said District 7 Councilmember Marina Alderete Gavito.<\/p>\n
Gavito says the city has no authority over the changes because Bandera Road is a state highway.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to have done more community engagement. There are a lot of small businesses up and down Bandera Road. The raised medians are really to prevent unsafe left turns and unsafe U-turns but in that, it’s going to be a lot harder to get in and out of small businesses,\u201d Gavito said.<\/p>\n
Gavito pushed for trees and landscaping on the medians and TxDOT’s plan does include “aesthetic treatments” in certain areas.<\/p>\n
The agency says traffic lanes will remain open during construction. Work is scheduled to begin early next year and finish early in 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO – Crews will soon start construction on yet another major San Antonio roadway, hoping to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-446256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}