That's left a spate of growing pains as traffic engineers with the city of San Antonio work out the kinks of signal timing with our electricians on the job. Traffic headed north and south along Loop 1604 through Shaenfield has experienced longer-than-normal delays as the signal timing takes shape this week, but city engineers were working on-site through Tuesday to solve the issues. Meanwhile, project supervisors are considering modified lane configurations to help the flow of traffic.
Similar issues arose with the opening of the New Guilbeau intersection about a month ago. One major complication with this intersection we didn't have at New Guilbeau is the four-way nature of the intersection; the city recently opened up an extension of Shaenfield creating a demand for four-way signal timing. This will effectively mean we treat (and time) the Shaenfield signals much like we do the signals at Braun Road for now.
The silver lining here is the fact we're inching closer to having express lanes with overpasses opened. Initially slated to be open late 2016, the main lanes are on pace to be finished and in use by early summer - and, given some good weather between now and then, perhaps even before this year's NBA Finals.
Interchange at Hwy 151
This weekend Williams Brothers also set bridge support beams to form the new direct connector for traffic from southbound Loop 1604 to eastbound Highway 151. This work required main lane closures off Loop 1604 for the entire weekend. The good news: traffic issues associated with the closure were smoother than expected. If you were part of the solution to that - which means you found an alternate route to avoid the closure - THANK YOU!
We still have overhead work in the area that will require similar closures. The next scheduled closure is tentatively set for the weekend of March 5-6, when bridge beams carrying the main lanes of Hwy 151 over Loop 1604 are set. Project bosses are also trying to schedule work on the direct connector so they can utilize the closure to get added work done, eliminating the need for a weekend's worth of closures.
Overall completion of the new intersection of Hwy 151 and Loop 1604 is on pace for the end of this year.