Alamo Ranch has become one of the fastest growing parts of Bexar County. County and state officials are expanding roads in the area just to keep up.
Between 2015 and 2020, the population of the neighborhood’s 78253 ZIP code grew by a modest 15.8% to 41,900. But since the COVID-19 pandemic, the area has grown by more than 65% to a population of 69,282, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Danny Khalil, the associate director of market analytics for real estate research firm CoStar, focuses on housing and real estate trends in San Antonio and he’s seen Alamo Ranch become the hub for population growth in the area.
“It really was just one part of town in the 2010s,” Khalil said “Today, that’s the part of San Antonio you’d identify as emblematic of population growth. That’s a recent trend.”
Bexar County officials have had their eyes on the area for years.
Since 2020, Alamo Ranch Parkway and Culebra Road, two of the major roads that connect Alamo Ranch residents with Loop 1604, together have taken on more than 20,000 additional vehicles per day.
“We hired a traffic engineer a couple of years ago to say, ‘What can we do with this corridor to improve throughput?’” Wegmann said. “He said, ‘Dave, your ultimate solution is to build in the middle where there’s nothing but landscaping right now, and you have room to add additional lanes.”
Now, those long-anticipated expansions are moving forward. There will be six additional lanes — three eastbound and three westbound — on an elevated parkway that will bypass the major intersections in the area.
“This is the largest project we’ve taken on,” Wegmann said.
The $113.5 million project is in the design phase as officials study environmental impacts and noise, but the county is planning to build the projects over two years and complete it by 2029. Bexar County is working on the project with the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority.
According to a presentation Bexar County Works shared with community members at the beginning of the month, currently driving the length of the parkway can take up to 20 minutes during busy morning hours. That could be cut down to three minutes after the project’s construction.
“It obviously will speed up the traffic because you’re not going to have any traffic signals anymore. I’m not sure what it’s going to be signed at right now,” Wegmann said, referring to speed limit signs.
Wegmann said the construction will also reduce traffic that is currently overflowing into surrounding neighborhoods. It’s also essential to complete the new, elevated roadway before Alamo Ranch Parkway is built out to Talley Road or State Highway 211.
“It was imperative that we get the expansion of our section done before that connection is made,” Wegmann said. “If we dump all that western traffic onto an already bad situation, it is going to be not a good thing.”
More roadway plans
Wegmann said working with with the Texas Department of Transportation has been important to link up the expanded Alamo Ranch Parkway with State Highway 151 and Loop 1604, but TxDOT also has plans of its own.
“As San Antonio continues to grow, TxDOT will continue evaluating transportation needs and developing projects that improve safety and mobility for the traveling public,” agency spokesperson Jennifer Serold said in an email.
One of those projects is expanding Culebra Road from two to four lanes between 211 and Old Farm-to-Market Road 471.
Wegmann said Bexar County Public Works is taking a step back to plan for regional growth to the west. A West Planning Study will take place over the next 9 to 12 months.
“The purpose of that study is going to be to identify growth patterns, help us prioritize where our next needs are going to be and enable us to be able to plan for the future,” Wegmann said.
Wegmann said that study will act as a kind of crystal ball, helping Bexar County Public Works figure out where growth will happen and where to direct funds.
Eventually, he said, more traffic will not only come from Alamo Ranch Parkway but pass through it from communities in Medina County such as Castroville.
“The further west that this development gets, we’ll end up having to coordinate our corridors with Medina County,” Wegmann said. “There’s going to be a lot of traffic back and forth between our two counties as we get closer and closer to each other.”
