SAN ANTONIO – An accident-prone intersection on San Antonio’s West Side could soon see upgrades.
The City of San Antonio and engineering firm Pape-Dawson have completed a traffic study on a stretch of Castroville Road, specifically between 36th Street and General McMullen.
Neighbors have spoken out about speeding and a lack of pedestrian safety for years.
KSAT covered this in our Know My Neighborhood episode for Westwood Square. However, our reporting of this intersection goes back to February 2023, when a truck crashed into a pedestrian bridge on this road.
In a community meeting held on Tuesday, Pape-Dawson presented three options for moving forward that it studied:
- Option 1: Keep all four lanes of traffic on Castroville Road, keep the current sidewalks and add three intersections with permanent traffic lights.
- This could cost roughly $1.4 million.
- Option 2: Drop down to three lanes of traffic on Castroville Road (one in each direction and a turning lane), keep the current sidewalks and add three intersections with permanent traffic lights.
- This could cost anywhere from $2.0 million to $6.3 million.
- Option 3: Drop down to three lanes of traffic on Castroville Road (one in each direction and a turning lane), widen the current sidewalks and add three intersections with permanent traffic lights
- This could cost roughly $14.5 million.
So far, only one permanent traffic light intersection has been funded. That is the one at Castroville and Dahlgreen, where multiple crashes have been reported.
Razi Hosseini, the director of Public Works, said construction has been delayed for this project, but it’s expected to start in August or September.
“It’s very challenging,“ Hosseini said. ”We wanted this project to be done last month or last year. We want to finish this one and go to other projects. But unfortunately, this is the reality. Everything is behind now.”
The other two proposed signalized intersections, which don’t have funding yet, would intersect at Castroville Road at SW 34th Street and Madrid Street.
Velma Pena, the president of the Westwood Square Neighborhood Association, said their community needs time to process the three options and decide what will be the best fit. However, the lack of funding brings her worry.
“We’ve been waiting for so long,” Pena said. “When you talk bond money, that’s talking years down the road. So there we go again.”
There is no timeline right now for the city and community to pick which option will be pursued for Castroville Road.
The traffic study found that this corridor’s crash rate is four times the statewide average.
