photo courtesy of Lodian
You may have read my previous post about "Using Twitter To Your Advantage When Writing Blogs" - this is the story mentioned in that post. The photo above is (obviously) not of Mainland Road in San Antonio or what it will look like, but I haven't been able to grab a few shots since I first saw the construction, so please just close your eyes and imagine that it looks just like it.
Driving home.
The other day as I was driving home through Village In The Woods, I noticed some large construction vehicles, a camera man, and what I thought was District 7 Councilman Justin Rodriguez on the corner of Mainland Road and Olde Village. It looked like Councilman Rodriguez (I later confirmed it was him) was making a speech about something and there were workers busy tearing up the side of the road along Mainland. I was obviously very curious about it, so I went home to do some research. I found nothing. So, I turned to my trusted news source, KSAT 12, and the folks on Twitter @ksatnews. What I wound up with was the full press release, telling me everything I needed to know.
My neighborhood.
I don't live in Village In The Woods, I live right near it in the Quail Creek subdivision, but I often access Guilbeau Road via Olde Village. In the course of driving there, I come out near Mainland Market, drive up Mainland Road and turn into Village In The Woods. The drive on Mainland is never that great in terms of the view. The street needs re-paved and the grass is usually unkempt behind the fences of the communities (the grass on the roadside). It makes a area look a little rough and I've always thought it needed something done about it. It just doesn't send a welcoming message to visitors to our part of town.
Enter Councilman Rodriguez and The Department Of Public Works.
Working together, Councilman Rodriguez and The Department Of Public Works have developed a Safety and Beautification project for the area along Mainland Road. In order to make this section of road safer, improve traffic flow, and beautify the area; they will be doing several projects at once. Re-paving of the Mainland Road between Bandera Road and Tezel road will take place with a micro-surface material to reduce wheel splatter (its notorious for being dangerous to walk down in the rain) and increase friction. New lane stripes will be placed to make it one lane in both directions with a center turn lane to improve traffic flow through the area.
Beautification has already begun (that's what the construction vehicles were doing there when I drove by). Along the sidewalks between Olde Village and Highland Park (the entrance to The Parklands subdivision), they have removed the old plants and dead grass and are replacing it with low maintenance native plants and a new tree line.
Pilot project.
This is a first of its kind project here in San Antonio and kudos to Justin Rodriguez for bringing to our District. With San Antonio's plans to plant a million trees throughout the city over the next few years, I expect we'll see more of these types of projects and I hope they will be welcomed in every community as they happen. All of the trees being planted are paid for by the Tree Mitigation Fund. I encourage all members of District 7 to email Councilman Rodriguez and thank him for his support of projects like these in our community.
Special thanks to Bernice Kearney of KSAT News for her help in getting me the information!
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I love trees. The more trees, the better. Good news about repaving Mainland, too. Great Localism post.
This is great news for your area! Thanks for the update Matt. KM
Shirley - I can't wait until its complete. Of course, they're planting small trees, so it will be years before the true benefit will be seen, but anything is an improvement over the brown grass and weeds.
Kristin - I was excited to see a Councilman on the side of the road!
Matt...the power of Social Media....I know it to well! My blog on The Power of Social Media shows how we can make contacts or gain information so quickly these days....
Thom - Just read your post. Wow. What a great example of the timeline of a connection via social media. Got your email as well...going to answer that in a moment.
So if I understand it correctly, the four lanes will be consolidated down to 3("New lane stripes will be placed to make it one lane in both directions with a center turn lane to improve traffic flow through the area.") I don't know if any of you travel this on a regular basis, but this will create even more chaos if they reduce the number of lanes at Bandera or too close to Bandera. I travel on this road daily, and weekday mornings the traffic on Mainland has backed up .5 mile from Bandera. So if this is now one lane going to Bandera, it will be a line a mile long? If this is the case, better start expanding Grissom and Guilbeau roads, because no one will be using Mainland anymore. I'm all for the beautification part, but I think they're throwing gasoline on an already raging fire if they start reducing the number of lanes.
Doug - You make an excellent point and one I hadn't considered. The focus of my inquiry to KSAT News had been about the beautification project and they gave me the press release for it. The press release states:
Re-striping of Mainland Road to make one lane in each direction with a turning lane will also occur and is expected to improve traffic conditions.
It didn't occur to me when I read it that there are four lanes currently. I am going to send some emails to see what I can find out, now that you've made me as curious about this as you are.
I live in the neghborhood (neighborhood opposite the Mainland Market) and we always cut through Heath Circle to Grissom (we're heading to 410, so we skip those extra lights), but I have gone the Mainland route and it is horrible. Last time I took it it was backed up almost to Mainland Market.
I'll let you know what I find out.
Also, I want to thank you for stopping by and being the first "public" comment on my blog here. Send me an email, as I'd like to send you a little token of my thanks!