Neighbors on Hidden Terrace sometimes see drivers backed up all the way down the street. What can Bexar County do about it?
BEXAR COUNTY, Texas — Homeowners living on Hidden Terrace in Bexar County are tired of seeing their street crowded with through traffic. With no other east-west arterial road in their section of the county, the neighborhood street has become the default path for local drivers. Homeowners like Rigo Vasquez said it’s sometimes hard to get out of the driveway.
“This entire street, Hidden Terrace, can get completely backed up.” Rigo Vasquez said.
“If somebody is kind enough I will get out, but it still takes me 15 minutes to get out of here with stop signs on both ends,” Mathew Flores said.
KENS 5 saw the street almost completely backed up a few weeks ago. We then went to Bexar County Public Works about the issue. Public Works Director Art Reinhardt told KENS 5 they’ve heard about the issue before and the county was wrapping up a traffic study. KENS 5 then checked in with the county after the study ended to see what they found.
“What we found was that about 3000 vehicles travel this roadway in the morning,” Reinhardt said. “The morning three hours and evening three hours make up well over 50 percent of the traffic.”
It’s a lot of traffic but Reinhardt said the county won’t be able to implement any short-term solutions yet. It turns out there is also a second east-west path through the neighborhood next door. If the county pushes traffic away from Hidden Terrace, Reinhardt said it will just end up in that second neighborhood where they are also doing a traffic study.
“And then what do you on that street? So we are just going to end up with a domino effect,” Reinhardt said.
There is a long-term solution, however. Marbach Road should serve as the main east-west artery for the area but a small middle section of the road, just 1000 feet, was never built. When KENS 5 asked Bexar County about that road a month ago, Reinhardt said that it was owned by a developer and they didn’t know when it would be finished. Now the county is trying to partner with that developer to get the road built as soon as feasible.
“We have to figure out what works in this case. Anything we do would have to be approved by the Commissioners Court,” Reinhardt said. “But that’s the gist of it. Jointly between them (the developer) and the county, what can we do to try to uplift this part of the community and get that road built quicker than it would be on its own terms.”
Reinhardt said a project like this would take three to four years if the county was building the road without a partner. He said it would actually get done faster if they were able to work with the developer.
Neighbors on the street also expressed concerns about speeding. The study indicated 85 percent of drivers were still driving under the the speed limit so the county isn’t putting in speed bumps at this time.
“We aren’t seeing a documented speeding concern,” Reinhardt said.
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