SAN ANTONIO – One city’s idea of improvements is a daily headache as far as some of its citizens are concerned, specifically people who live in downtown San Antonio.
Three major downtown road projects conducted by the City of San Antonio have created cone zones along stretches of some busy streets.
The Zona Cultural project affects three main thoroughfares: Commerce Street from Frio to Santa Rosa; San Saba Street between Nueva Street and Martin Street; and Santa Rosa from Cesar Chavez Boulevard to Martin Street.
It involves work on streets, bridges, and sidewalks and is scheduled for completion by the winter of 2025.
A project known as the Broadway Street Corridor has had sections of Broadway between East Houston Street and East Hildebrand Avenue shut down since the summer of 2020.
The city is making improvements there that include adding underground drainage, sidewalks and curbs, wheelchair ramps, and pedestrian lighting, among other things.
The work is scheduled to be completed by this summer.
On the southern end of downtown, crews are working to complete a separate street improvement project along South Alamo Street between Market Street and East Cesar Chavez Boulevard before the winter 2025 deadline.
“It’s a mess. There’s a lot of construction going on,” said Rick Aleman, as he pedaled his bicycle along Cesar Chavez recently.
Aleman, who was heading toward Southtown from his home on the East Side, said the barricades around one busy corner near Hemisfair took him by surprise.
Christopher Moore, meanwhile, lives in the middle of it every day.
He said he has parked his car at his downtown home for the foreseeable future, opting to take the bus instead.
“It definitely takes some navigation getting through this,” Moore said as he pulled out his cell phone to consult a navigation app.
“I log into where I’m going, where I’m leaving from,” Moore said. “It gives me all kinds of routes.”
Steve Wood knows the feeling of routing and re-routing.
He owns San Antonio Bike Tours, a company that offers guided tours of downtown and the San Antonio Missions on recumbent bicycles.
Wood says due to the construction, every day brings a new challenge for him.
“We may find out that yesterday that street was open, today that street is closed,” Wood said. “Luckily, we have the flexibility to work around things. We just have to explain to our guests, ‘Well, you may not see the Alamo today.’”
Ignacio Perez and Gracie Guerra said they try not to see red while driving through downtown.
They take back roads to their home near South Alamo whenever they can.
Other times, though, they said they have to sit in heavy traffic.
“You just have to wait, wait it out,” Perez said. “We’d like for it to be done so we can get around a lot easier.”
Guerra, who says she does most of the driving for the couple, agreed.
She tries to find things to take her mind off the traffic troubles.
“Play our favorite music on the radio, and you just have to have patience,” Guerra said.
As they worked one day recently, decorating their home for Fiesta, the couple said they were curious about how all the construction would fit in with the city’s celebratory theme.