The switch will be made in phases. The eastbound side will be switched the night of Wednesday, March 23. The westbound side will be converted Thursday night, along with the new turnarounds and the new westbound exit ramp to Leon Springs. Confusing? Here's a look:
Note the eastbound exit to Dominion and entrance from Boerne Stage won't be opened up until late summer, at the earliest. A new westbound entrance ramp from Dominion and the frontage road connector lane to the new frontage road behind Leon Springs Elementary (the orange parts) are being fast-tracked and will open by the end of April.
One thing drivers should note: the new one-way frontage roads will only be one lane - for now. The frontage road needs to be reconstructed and Texas Sterling Construction is doing that in halves. We'll have two lanes on each side wide open when the project finishes up later this year.
A few other new features to be aware of:
- New traffic signals at Dominion Drive. These will begin flashing red at some point between next week and the frontage road conversion taking place (we're coordinating with the city for the actual timing). Remember flashing red lights mean "stop", effectively keeping that intersection an all-way stop intersection as it currently is until we're ready to turn on the signals. That will happen with the frontage road conversion.
- A new signal where the new westbound frontage road meets Boerne Stage Road will begin flashing yellow when we open up the new frontage road. Flashing yellow lights means "caution", alerting drivers of the potential of traffic along the westbound frontage road. Frankly, we don't anticipate much traffic on the frontage road until the orange sections on the map above are complete. At that time the signal will be activated. Yes, we're ensuring the signal is in sync with other signals in the area.
We are still getting phone calls and emails asking about this. Please let your neighbors know what's happening and feel free to refer them to this post or the one we did last week.
While we've already gotten a few solutions in place - including having Boerne Stage Road opened to full capacity under I-10 and the new westbound entrance ramp from Ralph Fair opened up - we still have more coming. The one most likely to help the whole situation is to have all that road work on the westbound frontage road of I-10 between Aue and Ralph Fair roads finished so that's opened up to capacity. We were about ready to do that and have it operational this week, but rain is pushing that back. At this point, expect to see those lanes start opening up by the end of March.
The demolition and reconstruction of the bridge itself is pending some valve approvals from SAWS. We don't want to start tearing down the bridge, which is tied to this water line, and end up having to shut down water to The Dominion and other residential areas north and east of the bridge location. That should take place in the next week or so.