BEXAR COUNTY, Texas – A backup is one way to describe what happens outside of Briscoe Middle School on Lone Star Parkway during pickup time.
Manny Cuevas said it’s a lot more than just a backup.
“We have a lot of careless drivers, aggressive drivers and distracted drivers,” Cuevas, a crossing guard for the school, said. “A lot of these parents just will not stop.”
More than 250 people have signed an online petition calling for Bexar County to add a four-way stop sign at the intersection of Lone Star Parkway and Wise Trail. Without a solution, neighbors said their safety is on the table.
“It terrifies me that we’re going to end up with some kids that are going to be seriously injured,” resident Kristen Hess said. Stop signs, Hess said, could “provide a safer passage for the kids. It’s also going to allow for our residents to be able to safely enter and exit their own area.”
Over the last couple of years, Hess said reports of drivers double-parking in the middle of Lone Star Parkway, blocking the gate into The Preserve at Alamo Ranch neighborhood and speeding through the school zone have all been repeated problems during pickup.
“This is a cut-through for people trying to get to (State) Highway 151, trying to get to Loop 1604 and trying to get over to Culebra (Road),” Hess said. “I don’t want middle school kids not feeling safe in our neighborhood.”
Ryan Haskins, the president of The Preserve at Alamo Ranch HOA, said the traffic problem has gotten so troublesome that his board has hired security during school hours to block Briscoe families from using their gate as a turnaround.
“They treat it like a freeway,” Haskins said. “If you’re going to build 30,000 homes, build the schools to support all those families moving in. There’s only so much parking and so much street space for them to safely line up.”
A spokesperson for Northside ISD said school officials have been made aware of vehicles parking and stopping on Lone Star Parkway. The school’s principal also sent a message to families reminding them to “not stop in an active lane” during pickup.
The school has Cuevas as the crossing guard at the intersection. There is also overhead flashing school zone signage in front of the school.
However, the public roads are the responsibility of the county. A Bexar County spokesperson said a traffic study is being conducted at this intersection.
Here are the details of that study that have been released to KSAT so far:
- The study was assigned to one of the county’s on-call traffic engineering consultants in November
- The study focuses on whether the intersection “warrants” an all-way stop on state and federal guidance
- No timeline has been determined for the study’s completion, but the county said these usually take between four-to-six months to complete
- Once the study is finished, the county will review recommendations and determine an approach that fits the current funding
