Motorists can expect slowdowns on Texas 46 next week when work crews reduce the road to one lane so they can install rumble strips.
“Please expect delays, and take an alternate route, if possible,” Precinct 1 Commissioner Jennifer McCall said.
She sounded the warning during a June 9 Kendall County Commissioners Court session.
The dangerous stretch of roadway has raised concerns among local officials and led to calls for the Texas Department of Transportation to make improvements, including the rumble strips.
Records show the 11-mile section of 46 West, between Interstate 10 in Boerne and Texas 16 in Bandera, has seen 550 total crashes with 13 fatalities over the past decade. Of those deaths, more than half resulted from head-on and opposite-direction collisions.
Forty-three crashes involved wrong-side-of-road or illegal passing violations, killing seven people and seriously injuring 14 more, according to state figures.
“We have had horrific incidents on that roadway, and I want timelines adhered to. We want (TxDOT) publicly talking about what they are going to do,” McCall said during a commissioners’ meeting in April.
Robert Madrigal, TxDOT area engineer out of the Kerrville field office, said work will begin on the Boerne end of the highway, somewhere near the Spencer Ranch subdivision intersection.
The work crew will operate in a 2-mile-long work area, reducing traffic to a single lane, he added.
“Traffic control will be a one-lane two-way traffic control operation with a pilot car,” Madrigal said.
Flagmen will halt traffic on the west side, while a pilot car leads east-bound traffic past the construction.
Once the pilot car reaches the west side and motorists reach two-lane travel again, the pilot car will lead a line of eastbound traffic past the work site and deliver them to two-lane traffic closer to Boerne.
Madrigal said work is expected to last from Monday, June 15 to Thursday, June 18 beginning at 8:30 a.m. each day. He echoed McCall’s concern about traffic delays.
“We encourage drivers to drive safely through the work zone and look for alternate routes, if possible,” he said.
