Wurzbach and Northwest Military - your chance to be heard

It could be your last chance to provide input on the future of the intersection of Wurzbach Parkway and Northwest Military.

The current plan, based on input from previous open houses hosted by our planning team, is to expand the intersection without building bridges. Challenges with access between the Inverness neighborhood and the Alon Business Center led to scrapping plans with an overpass in favor for an expanded signalized intersection. Traffic engineers estimate morning delays at the intersection improve from 47 seconds to 34 seconds with this solution; evening delay will improve from 77 seconds to 36 seconds, elevating the current level-of-service rating an entire grade.
The current proposal extends all right-turn lanes for added storage space and includes dual left-turn lanes in all directions. The estimated cost as of today is about $7.5 million.
This is all based on current public input. Those yet wishing to be heard may provide their input at our final planned open house tomorrow night. Here's the info:

• Thursday, Dec. 15 between 5 and 7 p.m.
• Barshop Jewish Community Center Auditorium, 12500 NW Military Hwy

The meeting will be an open house format so residents may come and go at their convenience and staff will be available to answer questions.
Construction on the project could start as early as 2020.

Mail Bag: I-10, ramp speed limits, traffic shifts, future plans

Are there any plans to move the northbound Watson Ln/Old Bastrop Rd exit further south? It is difficult to see vehicles exiting onto the frontage road when trying to turn from Watson Ln East onto the access road. It seems like moving it a half to 3/4 miles south allow more room for error. I don't if dodging traffic is the cause but the guard rail on the corner of Watson Ln East & the frontage road seems to get damaged fairly often. Maybe vehicles are just coming off the exit too fast and can't make the almost immediate right turn onto Watson Ln East.
- Bob
Right now, Bob, we don't have any such plans on our list of projects. That's not to say this can't be something that gets added. Stuff like this can become a priority by pushing it through the Alamo Area MPO - a group that kind of tells us where to spend our money in the region (allowing for local-level decisions rather than state-level decisions). We'll forward the comment to our internal planners and our area office in New Braunfels as well to see if we can at least keep the area on our radar.

Will you clarify how drivers determine the speed limit on flyovers, such as the Bandera Road connector to Loop 410 and the Loop 1604 connector to Highway 151? Do we follow the speed posted on the "Exit 45 mph" sign the entire distance of the flyover, or can we accelerate to highway speed once we get into the flyover? The Bandera Road connector has no signs along the way (except the "Exit 45 mph" at the entrance). I think the 151-1604 connector might actually have a speed limit sign at the entrance - but I'm still a little unclear if that applies to the entire distance. I try to stay around 50 mph on the Bandera connector, but people ride my bumper like crazy.
- Angela
Great question, Angela. There are two types of speed limits - regulatory speeds and advisory speeds. Those yellow signs with speed limits posted are advisory speeds - meaning they're a recommended speed to maintain safety on the ramp.
According to our Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (section 2c.14) these yellow advisory speeds are placed at locations to allow you to appropriately slow down as your exiting the highway. Once you're on the ramp, we won't place additional yellow advisory speed signs unless there's a change in the "horizontal alignment". That's engineer speak for "if the road curves".
Ultimately, those advisory speeds are there to help you remain safe as you drive. We would all do well to remember it's not about getting to our destinations fastest, but about getting to our destinations the safest.
Once nearing the end of these ramps drivers should begin safe merging practices by speeding up to the normal speed of the traffic with which they're merging and continue along their way.
We hope that helps!

What does right-in, right-out mean? If I'm coming down I-10E, how do I get into Fair Oaks Ranch? If I'm in FOR, how do I get to I-10E?
- Al
For everyone else: Al asked this a few weeks ago, prior to our first major closure of I-10 at Fair Oaks Parkway.
Right-in, right-out configurations happen when access to or from a side road is right-turn only. Here's a look at an easy engineer's drawing from our manuals:

I have a question. A few years ago I-10 was under construction to make the exit and bridge for the Dominion folks - because they are the rich ones, I guess. Now we are under construction again - for WHAT? There needs to be 3 lanes going in each direction from the Rim to Fair Oaks if not all the way to Boerne. The big trucks need to stay out of the left lane - they are dangerous! Why wasn't this done in the first place instead of tearing up the highway twice and spending extra money? And are we getting 3 lanes going east and west?
- Linda
Lots of issues to address here, Linda, but we'll try and stick to the basic question we think you're asking. We think you are really wanting to know when you're getting additional lanes to I-10 between Loop 1604 and Boerne.
The shortest answer is we'll be adding those much-needed extra lanes in segments. The first segment will be between La Cantera Parkway and Ralph Fair Road. Work on that project is set to begin early fall (August/September) this year and will take about three years to build. More information on the project may be found here.
As to the issue of why we didn't do it in the first place, when we re-did the overpass at Dominion Drive? Simply put: money and permission. We didn't have all our documents ready at the time to do an expansion like this, and we didn't have the money to do more. We're sorry we couldn't do more at the time and we're excited the Texas Clear Lanes initiative has enabled us to appropriately prioritize this project now.

Hwy 151 in San Antonio - I saw the notification sign this morning that the eastbound entrance ramp to 151 at Hunt Lane will be closed 18 July. Will this be a one day closure, or long term? Also, what time will the closure begin?
- ebargainer
This is a temporary closure and will last only a couple of days to allow crews to widen the ramp. Closure info is posted weekly here.

Will we have 151 run all the way to Talley Road in the near future? And are you doing any construction Talley Road soon?
- Janie
In theory, Janie, yes! Well, sort of. The extension of Alamo Ranch Parkway further east is up to the private developers continuing to build in that area. Development of Talley Road is up to Bexar County Public Works and is on their to-do list. They'll have a better idea as to the timeframe and other details of what's going on.
The real question, then, is whether Alamo Ranch Parkway will ever be converted to Hwy 151. Right now the answer is "no", but you never know what'll happen in 10 years.

There's a sign at Military Drive and 1604 in NW SA that warns of a "traffic switch" on 7-12-2017. No info seems to be available as to what a "traffic switch" entails or what time this will be happening.
- Kim
Kim, there's no excuse. We simply dropped the ball on getting word on this out. We have info out there now, which was published Saturday. Check out all the details here.

Wurzbach Parkway and NW Military ... still developing

We are hearing from some who live near the planned project at the intersection of Wurzbach Parkway and NW Military that the plans presented at our recent forum are concrete regardless of input from the public.
With this in mind we want to review (briefly) what's happening, why we're doing it and where we are in the planning process.
For information on the project (if you're not familiar already), check it out here.


The plan in principle
The main goal of what we're trying to do is get the main lanes of Wurzbach Parkway through Northwest Military Drive and, potentially, Lockhill-Selma (for a later project, perhaps). Once Wurzbach Parkway pushes through Lockhill-Selma it's no longer a parkway and becomes Wurzbach Road, a city facility. Frankly, after that point the road just isn't designed to be a parkway but an arterial. With the heavy development approaching I-10, we simply don't have a lot of options to take the parkway all the way to I-10.


The problem we're solving
When we finished the last segment of Wurzbach Parkway back in 2015 drivers began using the route as an east-west expressway between I-10 and I-35. The problem is the number of traffic signals at the bookends of Wurzbach.
Why the signals? Because, frankly, Wurzbach was not initially intended to be an expressway. When designed in the 1980s it was intended to be a connector route for communities east and west of US Hwy 281. Those first segments were on the bookends (we worked from the outside and went toward the middle) and included traffic signals.
Drivers should know once Wurzbach crosses Lockhill-Selma (on the west) and Weidner (on the east) it's a city street. TxDOT only owns and maintains the portion between those two roads.
Over the years driver demands have changed and we've tried to accommodate those changes. One such accommodation was the increase of speed limits on the Parkway from 45 miles per hour to 60 miles per hour. This increase was done because of the overwhelming demand from drivers in the area.
With traffic moving rather quickly in the middle, we're seeing traffic really bog down once it hits Northwest Military. We think if we can get that higher-speed traffic through that intersection we should see enough of a reduction in traffic volumes approaching Lockhill-Selma and beyond things will be pretty manageable.
This brought the city council office for District 8 in San Antonio to have us sit down and think through some options to promote better traffic flow. We even dedicated about $1 million to studying traffic patterns to figure out where people are trying to go and how we can best help them get there. The work has yielded some interesting results and is still ongoing.


One solution
Again, the goal is to push main lane traffic through the intersection of Northwest Military and allow others to seek alternate routes at the intersection without bogging down the through traffic. One design that will help this along and was presented is a SPUI at the intersection of the Wurzbach exit ramps and Northwest Military. The intersection would favor left- and right-hand turns onto Northwest Military as traffic moves to communities in the area.

This is a new design to San Antonio used fairly effectively elsewhere across the nation - and beyond - as an innovation in traffic configurations. Without trying new things, after all, we'll end up with the same result and continue being bogged down at traditional intersections. Being forward-thinking about the current and future problems of the intersections is what our folks were trying to accomplish.
That said, some have criticized the idea as being overly burdensome for some specific neighborhoods. These have provided feedback, including comments, that will be considered in the final design of the project.


It isn't set in stone
With our road designs, this really popular idiom is, well, literal. Until a project has been constructed with concrete poured and asphalt laid, we typically have at least a little wiggle room. While we're still designing the project we've got a lot of wiggle room.
Though the official comment period is up March 15, we're still open to suggestions. The deadline is set so we have a cut-off point to include comments in our official records of the public hearing process and is designed to keep us compliant with state and federal rules on this sort of thing. The deadline isn't a hard deadline.
Once we get to March 16, the plans aren't set in stone.
In fact, we're still really early in the planning process (we'll have to post on what that is another time...). If you've got input on the project, sent it our way. Well, send it to the folks with Parsons-Brinkerhoff who are helping us on these plans. They can be reached at wurzbach@pbworld.com.
Or you can always just send it to us. Please email it to us using the online form here - leaving comments through the blog is not the most effective way to let us know what you think on this one.


Every project has trade-offs
Ultimately, these are your roads. We can come up with every forward-thinking design we can cart out, but if these ideas aren't meeting the needs you have now and you think will exist in the next 5-25 years ... well, we won't go that route.
As our director of transportation planning and development often says, we don't like to go where we're not wanted.
This means getting the trade-offs you are willing to make and want to see happen. So let us know - keep the ideas coming! We have changes on nearly every single project we develop stemming from public input. If you don't like the ideas we're coming up with, tell us what you don't like and what you would do different - and we'll try to incorporate those ideas to the best of our ability.
Note we do consider a democratic process here. If a complaint is from one single individual while the overwhelming feedback from others is to do the opposite, we're going to stick with the masses. That doesn't mean you need to organize on NextDoor to inundate us with feedback, however. Designating a representative for your HOA to speak on behalf of the group (and clarify they are indeed representing a number of voices) will typically do the trick.


For what it's worth
Take a look at the presentation from the public meeting, if you missed it. Some cool stuff on the SPUI in there. We've also posted the schematic and a video presentation. Check them out so you know the ideas we're coming up with!