On the Move

This weekend’s trouble spot

Workers have probably finished closing down westbound Loop 410 at Perrin Beitel by now so they can restripe the highway.

Crews will work through the night and into Saturday morning, likely interrupting the busy flow of weekend shoppers and travelers. Workers should finish by noon.

The $119 million project to widen this part of Loop 410 is the largest construction job in San Antonio, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Work is slightly ahead of schedule and is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.

“We don’t have far to go,” TxDOT engineer Randy Grones assured. “The completion date is right around the corner.”

To check the latest San Antonio traffic:

• TransGuide

Hurricane Alex delivers blow

Latest radar from National Weather Service.

Hurricane Alex is grinding into a Mexican coast, its tails whipping South Texas and spitting out tornadoes. Winds are blowing more than 100 mph.

Though the brunt of the storm wandered south, it was powerful enough to drive both Texans and Mexicans away from their homes to find safer shelter, the Associated Press reported. A slew of tornado, flooding and wind warnings are in place in South Texas, including a flood watch in Bexar County, the National Weather Service says.

Officials closed the Queen Isabella Memorial Bridge in South Padre Island due to winds and State Highway 87 in Galveston because of flooding, the Texas Department of Transportation announced. More than 100 TxDOT workers and 200 pieces of equipment will move in tomorrow to open roads and fix traffic signals and signs.

Helpful links:

• National Weather Service
• Weather Channel
• Statewide road conditions, or call (800) 452-9292
• TxDOT hurricane page

Where you don’t want to be this weekend

Live traffic cam from TransGuide. Image refreshes every few minutes or so.

Workers closed all main lanes of westbound Loop 410 at Starcrest for the weekend.

Motorists must exit at Harry Wurzbach and re-enter past Broadway. The busy stretch of highway is sure to coagulate into a nightmare shortly after sunrise.

Crews are putting drivers through the hoops so they can place rebar onto a Nacogdoches Road bridge deck. The work is part of a $119 million construction project, the city’s largest, to widen that part of the freeway to 10 lanes.

The job so far is on schedule and should end before the year’s out, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.

“Everyone will reap the benefits,” an official said.

Also bogging down this weekend is eastbound Loop 1604 at U.S. 281. Workers there will close a lane through 1 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday to repair a bridge joint.

Click map for options.

Loop 1604 “super-street” previewed

Late last month, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority held a public meeting to show plans for a super-street and other related improvements on Loop 1604 West.  (My vacation started immediately after the meeting, thus the reason I’m just now getting around to writing this.)  At this time, the plans include super-street intersections at New Guilbeau and at Shaenfield and ancillary improvements at Braun and at SH 151 (with work on the former now underway.)  Here are the details of those planned improvements.

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What’s in store for your Loop 1604 commute?

People mill about at a meeting earlier tonight for Loop 1604

Here’s the gist of what’s being laid out, in a series of public meetings wrapping up tonight, for Loop 1604’s future.

The problem, officials say, is that traffic demand in 25 years will be twice as much as what can fit on the highway today. The lanes can currently handle about 80,000 vehicles a day, but demand is 110,000 now and will surge to 155,000 by 2035.

An environmental study is sizing up impacts of three basic strategies:

Buses and passenger rail. At best, this can meet 15 percent of demand when you consider that top-notch transit cities such as San Francisco, Washington and Boston snare about that much of the trips in those cities.  

Managing and improving traffic flows. This is done with engineering, like the super street idea, and behavior incentives that range from carpooling to staggered work hours and telecommuting. California enacted laws requiring large employers to use such commuting strategies but cut traffic just 3 percent.

Adding four lanes to the highway. Since each lane can handle about 20,000 vehicles a day, that would do the trick.

So you can see where the math leads. 

However, a dozen various community criteria will also drive decisions, and that produces a little more mix into the approaches.

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Loop 1604 getting a helping of stimulus

Work starting up to widen Loop 1604.

Workers began plopping orange cones into place along Loop 1604 near Randolph AFB and driving in heavy machinery last week. 

The job is to widen the road into a four-lane divided highway from FM 78 to Graytown Road by summer 2011, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Federal stimulus dollars are funding the $6.63 million cost.  

“These improvements have been in the works for several years but were unfunded,” TxDOT engineer Frank Holzmann said in a statement. “With availability of economic stimulus funding, we now have an opportunity to move forward on this.”

But moving forward could be a slow and/or muddy affair for now. The National Weather Service has forecast rain throughout the week.

Massive Loop 1604 study goes back to the public

The top ideas on how to add lanes to almost half of Loop 1604 will be laid out in a series of three public meetings this week so officials can get input.

With gas taxes strangled by decades of inflation, diversions and political inaction, toll fees and toll-backed bonds have emerged as a primary path to get some things done on the 37-mile stretch of highway. 

A previous study was derailed in 2008 after toll opponents and environmental activists filed a lawsuit in a federal court. The lawsuit in part called for Loop 1604 and U.S. 281 to be studied together, since they would have been part of an interrelated tollway system, and the judge seemed to agree.  

For this week’s meetings, study officials will provide several short presentations each night, from 6 to 8:30 p.m.:

• Monday, Valero Headquarters, Building D, One Valero Way.
• Tuesday, Live Oak Civic Center, Main Hall, 8101 Pat Booker Rd.
• Wednesday, Vale Middle School, cafeteria, 2120 N. Ellison Dr.

For more information or help, start out at More for 1604’s event page.

Other links:

• The environmental impact statement
• More for 1604 Blog

Downtown will be jam-packed Saturday

Photo from www.luminariasa.org.

It’s going to get a little crazy this Saturday, with some 200,000 or more people converging on downtown and carrying on from morning to night.  

If you’re heading down there, or just passing through, have a plan. Several streets will be closed. And buses on a dozen routes will be rerouted throughout the day. 

First up, an annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade will thump and blast its way past the Alamo, starting at 11 a.m. Then the party will shift to the River Walk for an afternoon of dancing and music at the Arneson River Theatre and a 3 p.m. river parade.

Later, throngs of artists, performers, musicians and fans will light up La Villita and HemisFair Park for Luminaria: Arts Night in San Antonio, and hang out past midnight. The celebration highlights Contemporary Art Month.  

So if you want to be mobile in downtown San Antonio this Saturday, you might have to get a little creative. Good luck!

More on:

• Bus rerouting
• St. Patrick’s Day celebrations
• Luminaria: Arts Night in San Antonio

The only thing to look forward to is the past

Omnibus soaking its wheels in the SA river

With all the zippidy-doo-dah hoopla over the possibility of a return to streetcars, why not go the whole hog and bring back mule drawn omnibuses?  I mean, who else is doing that?  Let’s think outside the box and get out of Portland, Oregon’s shadow once and for all.  Think of the benefits.  No expensive overhead or the need to tear up streets for miles on end and tourists will love it.

Mule drawn streetcars were introduced in San Antonio in 1878 but omnibus service has that beat by seven years.  It cost 5 cents to go from Main Square to Alamo Plaza.  With all the money we’ll save by not installing staggeringly expensive streetcar systems and their unsightly overhead power lines, we could go back and charge the same fare in 2010 that it was in 1871.  I guess there is a flaw in my logic somewhere but, you know, I’ll be d****d if I know what it is.

I-35 closed Saturday

A daylong blanket of wetness (I can still hear a soothing patter outside) has pushed a scheduled nighttime closure of Interstate 35 to a more traffic-heavy Saturday morning.

Crews will close all main lanes in both directions between AT&T Parkway and New Braunfels Avenue from 4 a.m. to as late as 2 p.m. so they can do bridge work, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.

Motorists should look for alternative routes such as Austin Highway and Broadway; or I-10 and Houston Street.

Also, watch out for the closure of three westbound Loop 410 lanes at San Pedro Avenue from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Could be rough. Work there includes culvert and bridge repairs.

The ultimate judge on whether the closures happen, of course, is the weather. The verdict for now, per the National Weather Service, forecasts a good chance for more showers Friday, followed by the sun coming out of hiding Saturday and Sunday.

Check out the latest:

• Weather
• Traffic