Kendall County Commissioners heard a list of short, intermediate and long-term options for improving travel safety along FM 46 during a special meeting last week.
Representatives from the Texas Department of Transportation Wednesday reviewed statistics and told commissioners of several plans available aimed at making FM 46 West from Boerne to Bandera a safer highway.
Commissioner Christina Bergmann said she began receiving calls after a recent head-on collision on 46 killed three Pipe Creek family members.
Clayton Ripps, TxDOT deputy district engineer for the San Antonio region, described improvement options — including a third-lane for turning or passing — and more immediate short-term solutions, such as speed monitoring, and more presence of officers and patrols.
Vehicle speed and pavement limitations have to be overcome for more strident efforts to take place.
“Speeding is the no. 1 driving force behind these fatalities,” he said. Impairment and distraction are contributors as well, many combined with speed issues to create hazardous driving.
Between 2019-2024, TxDOT reported 337 total crashes on FM 46, six of those involving fatalities.
“For a state highway with similar traffic volumes, that’s twice the national average. That puts it in perspective with similar roads across the country,” he said.
Commissioner Andre Wisian pointed out the fatality is the number of crashes where people died and not the number of fatalities recorded from those collisions.
“The right-of-way, fenceline to fenceline, generally we have 80 feet at one of the narrowest sections of FM 46. With state highways, you typically have in the realm of 120 feet, minimal,” Ripps said.
He said one of the long-term solutions, a four-lane divided highway, would require about 300 feet of right-of-way and need 134 acres of land acquisition along the route just for the roadway, not including utilities, drainage, etc.
“Your county roadway width is 72 feet for a collector. So basically, 46 is the width of a county road, yet it’s functioning at a much higher classification than that,” he said.
Ripps reviewed traffic count projections for the year 2050, after several major developments in the area will be completed.
“Over by FM 16, we’re looking at it more than doubling, to 20,000 cars per day. Over by I-10, that swells to 25,000 cars per day.” he said. “At that point, a two-lane road is not sustainable for that traffic demand.”
One of the more acceptable plans in the 5-to-10-year planning period is a third “center turn” lane between the two lanes of traffic.
The lane could be a center turn lane, or become an alternating passing lane, similar to stretches of FM 46 between Spring Branch and Boerne. This third center-passing lane allows for two lanes of traffic in each direction, at alternating intervals.
“Basically, you widen the whole corridor to three lanes, it’s just a matter of restriping, turn lanes versus passing lanes,” he added.
TxDOT, he said, is trying to accomplish this without acquiring right-of-way, a time-consuming and costly method of traffic control.
“This is tough to fit in because of the terrain, without building retaining walls and utilities. This may be strategically implemented, or it may not be possible at all,” he said. “This is one of the hardest things we’re really struggling through right now.”
The long-term solution — longterm being a fix 10 or more years in the making — involved a fourlane divided highway that would include right-of-way acquisition of 134 acres of land to complete.
Engineering-wise, to overcome and flatten out the steep terrain, almost a mile of bridges would have to be built. “Over an 11-mile stretch, 10% of the road would have to be bridges,” he said.
Commissioners opened a public hearing and recorded some options to address the short-term fixes, including rumble strips, increased signage and billboards that relay the dangers ahead.
